Frontline: Postman

“I’ve been a postman for more than 40 years and I’ve really enjoyed my work. Things have been fairly stable over the years, but when changes have come they’ve been significant.

There was a big outcry with the advent of the internet – people anticipated the Royal Mail would soon be out of business, thanks to the rise of email and the decline of letters. But while the number of letters has definitely fallen drastically, internet shopping has caused an absolute explosion in the number of parcels and packages – so deliveries have become quite a lot heavier.

The single biggest change took place in 2006, when the Royal Mail lost its monopoly. After more than 300 years as the sole agency for collecting, sorting and delivering mail, the company found its market opened up to competition.

Competitors from across the European Union were allowed to collect and sort mail, and pass it to Royal Mail for delivery – a service known as ‘downstream access’. This had been decided by the then-regulator the Postal Services Commission (Postcomm), which was obeying an EU directive to abandon all postal state monopolies by 2010. However, while Postcomm had to comply with the EU directive, it introduced competition four years before it was required to.

This created an unfair advantage for other countries’ postal services, as whilst foreign companies such as TNT and DHL were coming in and taking a lot of Royal Mail’s business, but were barred from entering European markets because other countries hadn’t yet abolished their monopies. Postcomm also set very low rates for the prices Royal Mail could charge for downstream access, creating a double whammy for our postal service.

Things changed again under the coalition, which passed the Postal Services Act 2011. This led to Postcomm’s absorption into the communications regulator Ofcom – and it, thankfully, increased the rates Royal Mail could charge to private providers.

This was a positive and welcome step. But Postcomm’s low rates had already caused a lot of damage.

Because we lost so much business when the Royal Mail’s monopoly was taken away, many efficiency reviews had been undertaken, leading to a significant reduction in staff numbers and a dampening of morale. The changes meant that one out of every three postman jobs was lost, leading to each postman’s delivery area growing by half. Ever since, the pressure has been a lot bigger and the job has become much more stressful.

Other changes have affected the vehicles we use to deliver mail. They are gradually getting rid of bicycles, and introducing vans and trolleys. The reason given is the increasing number of parcels and packages, and the need for bigger deliveries. But buying all those vans must have cost them a fortune, and they are obviously a lot worse for the environment than bikes.

Considering all this together, I believe that since the early 2000s the agenda has been to prepare the Royal Mail for privatisation – and that’s now underway.

I don’t want to complain. [Business secretary] Vince Cable’s decision to float the Royal Mail on the London Stock Exchange also came with a present to every postman: £3,000 worth of shares – something we have never had before.

And considering how shares have rocketed in value, I now wish I had bought some more. But we’re not allowed to sell our shares for three years, so who knows how much they will be worth then?

However, I am concerned over the long-term effects of privatisation. My biggest fear is that eventually Royal Mail will stop delivering to rural areas. At the moment, it’s bound by the Universal Service Obligation: Postal Services Act, it ensures that Royal Mail delivers to every address in the UK at a fixed price until 2021.

However, Royal Mail has been known to lose money by delivering in some rural areas. And it seems unlikely that a private company will continue to maintain a universal service beyond 2021 if it means a cut to its profits. Royal Mail has been a pretty good place to work: it’s always looked after all its staff very well.

But I think I speak for the vast majority of Royal Mail employees when I say that I am not confident that it will stay this way.

More jobs may go, the service may eventually deteriorate, and morale could plummet further. I only hope that my fears will prove unfounded.”

Author: Graham McCann
​Publisher: Aurum Press
Cost: £20