Downing Street Says » Royal Mail

» Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Royal Mail

Asked if there were any developments on Royal Mail, the PMS said the Prime Minister had addressed this issue in PMQ’s and that he remained very concerned about the possibility of a self-defeating strike taking place. The PMS said he understood talks had continued between the two parties today and the Communication Workers Union planned a press conference for 17:15.

Asked what contact Ministers had with parties during the day, the PMS replied he was not aware of any direct contact during the course of the day, however Mr Mandelson and Mr McFadden had been encouraging the two parties to continue talking and come together of their own volition.

Put that Ministers should have been involved in talks today, the PMS said Minister had been involved in encouraging both parties to come to the table and had made it clear that ACAS remained a possibility. The PMS said Ministers had made it very clear what they believed would be a sensible way forward.

Put that there was contradiction between the Prime Minister saying [union] militancy had not got worse since part-privatisation and Pat McFadden telling MP’s that it had, the PMS said the current dispute is about the modernisation programme, and although there had been examples of militancy in many unions, the Prime Minister had made it clear that a strike at this stage would be detrimental to the long-term and short-term success of Royal Mail.

Asked what the Prime Minister thought of the Scottish Government awarding a postal services contract to TNT, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister was focussed on encouraging the parties in the current dispute not to go ahead with a strike however competition in the postal services is one of the challenges Royal Mail was facing.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.