Should our Royal Mail be privatised ?

"Royal Mail needed to be privatised to put in the funds for modernisation" it has borrowed £1.4 billion - before privatisation

"and get the postal and parcel services away from the grip of the dinosaur union barons who are stuck in the past and retard progress" You mean retard progress like Royal Mail reducing the Postie terms and conditions, attacking their earned and historical pension rights. Or do you mean the Union agreeing to a 3 year modernisation agreement which has seen 40,000 positions lost, and an actual reduction in take home pay of £30 a week

"ultimate detriment of the workers in the service and the public in general" So you won't see prices rise and services fall under privatisation. You wont see head count being reduced. I think you live in a dream world. RM over the last 30 years made more profits than it losses and all profits went back to the exchequer.

"The employees are also receiving a fair share of the company. " No we haven't we don't get the shares for 3 years under this scheme and I cant see them being £4.85 then, can you. Anyway I'd rather have a pay increase than ephemeral shares.

"The time has come to move into the 21st century." RM style - no second delivery, 1st delivery later than the 2nd, no Sunday working, no collection of mail after 1pm on a Saturday. Deliveries going on till late afternoon being normal, 18th century management style - you're right I am looking forward to working in the 21st century where perhaps I can be treated fairly and when necessary take personal circumstances into account - unlike a colleague recently sacked for 1 mistake in 25 years or working for Royal Mail. 1 mistake

Before privatisation there was just one shareholder, the government. The 4 - 1 vote was just slightly more than half the workforce as one third of employees didn't vote!

To baron samedi. It was a profit making company for years because the governments of the 80's and 90's didn't make their pension contribution. That was why the government had to underwrite the black hole in the Royal Mail pension scheme. There was no real profit, that money should have gone to their pensioned employees.

I was a union rep in the days of the pension holiday and it was all through those years when the profits were false. You were the one that said about it being a profitable company, I was pointing out that for most of the time it wasn't!

The Royal Mail pension fund has been underwritten by the government, it was the only way they could privatise it.

Royal Mail's pension was nothing to do with council tax. That is totally incorrect!

No it should not have been.

It was a profit making company for years and in fact made £400 million profit last year.

The Tories are obviously being dishonest on this deal. They keep telling us we need to lower the national debt. So why would you sell a profit making company for less than it is worth? and on top of that why would you spend millions of pounds of tax payers money on modernisation and keep the pension debt of the Royal Mail in public hands?

It just does not make business sense, and they are the party who support businesses and their practices the most.

@Jade G

"You go on industrial action before the sell off - not after."

Why would people go on strike before being told the conditions of privatisation?

The workers were not given the details of the pay rise and share allocation until a few weeks ago, and as balloting takes a week or two and then you must give the employer a weeks notice just how on earth could they go on strike earlier??

When answering a question on here it helps to have some knowledge of the subject. Otherwise you just come across as ignorant.

Read the answer given by @TrueBlueRMC as he/she knows EXACTLY what he/she is talking about.

@Sessex

Although your point has some truth to it, you forgot to point out that it was not down to the pension holiday that the debt grew. There were two reasons.

1. Gordon Brown introduced a 25% tax on pension growth. Now as you should know the Royal Mail pension fund was not nationalised it was private and the funds were gambled on the stock market.

2. The banking crash of 2008.

Also please note that no public sector worker gets their pension from the money they or their employer contribute. ALL public pensions come from your council tax, approximately 25% of your council tax goes to pay public sector pensions.

No it is a disgrace that organised crime who call themselves the conservative party sold off the Royal Mail on the cheap to their city friends.

We will get it back and the Labour Party must be made to nationalise it again.

Can i just say that we need the closed shop where you must be a member of a union or has we can see from royal mail they use it to undermine strike action taken by the Royal Mail workers.

And every member should vote or they use those who have not voted to undermine strike action.

If these workers felt so strongly about not taking strike action then why are they not doing everything possible to make certain that they vote?

If they do not vote then it is supporting the union and is in favour of strike action and anyway Thatcher once said after she won a ballot with just one vote....One vote is enough...

If past experience is anything to go by, privatisation is a very bad idea indeed.

British Rail: privatised. Train fares have rocketed while services have deteriorated. Despite massive government subsidies, precious little money goes back into infrastructure investment. Instead of improving tracks, replacing bridges and introducing double-decker trains, rail companies care only for the welfare of their parasitic shareholders and bosses. All this despite increasing passenger numbers.

Water: privatised. Where once we had a national network, now we have splinter companies ruled by foreigners who hold the British in contempt. Many of our reservoirs have been sold off, rates have increased well above inflation and they have the gall to impose hosepipe bans when rainfall goes even slightly below average.

Gas and electricity: privatised. Again, foreign companies who siphon off the profits and who have no interest in long-term investment. Eye-watering price rises year on year force the poor to switch off their heating in winter just so they can afford to cook their food.

So, who still thinks privatisation of the Royal Mail is a good idea?

It's a bit late to be asking that sort of question

Maybe once this union stranglehold has been removed the newly privatised company might become efficient

Former governments couldn't get rid of the ludicrous deals in place so I think that's why the threw in the towel and sold it

But time will tell as it's the only way the company can avoid going to the wall

As long as its still called Royal Mail(or near)The Queens image stays on our stamps and we keep the red boxes I don't suppose I mind too much who owns it. Royal Mail is a near 400 year old company. I didn't buy any shares,although I might regret I didn't scrape the £750 up. Its a fair sum for a pensioner.

Royal Mail needed to be privatised to put in the funds for modernisation and get the postal and parcel services away from the grip of the dinosaur union barons who are stuck in the past and retard progress, to the ultimate detriment of the workers in the service and the public in general. The employees are also receiving a fair share of the company. The time has come to move into the 21st century.

Could this be the same Royal Mail that stitches us up, rips us off and offers a total lack of service,

get rid and get rid of the dynosaur trade union barons that have wrecked it!

Too late mate it has been, just another Tory bean feast for their rich chums.