"UK's Royal Mail Privatized and Sold to Investors"--Will Enrich Investors, but Workers Worse Off.

(Sounds familiar and similar to our US Post Offices being sold off and bought by investors, here in the US. Don't know how this could be stopped due to the internet taking over communications for so many folks. But, what if with the NSA Revelations there could be a return to "Mail" for many uses? The sad thing about this is how this will affect the Rural Communities in Great Britain just as it will here in the US)

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UK's Royal Mail Privatized and Sold to Investors
The privatization of the Royal Mail will enrich investors but leave workers worse off. -
John Weeks:November 4, 13


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JESSICA DESVARIEUX, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore. Britain's postal service, the Royal Mail, was recently privatized, as the government sold a majority stake to investors in an initial public offering. The Royal Mail and Communication Workers Union canceled a massive strike planned for Monday, with the exception of 4,000 Crown post workers. Now joining us to discuss the issue is John Weeks. He is a professor emeritus of the University of London and author of the forthcoming book The Economics of the 1%: How Mainstream Economics Serves the Rich, Obscures Reality and Distorts Policy. Thanks for joining us,

John.JOHN WEEKS, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, UNIV. OF LONDON: Well, thank you very much for inviting me. It's always a pleasure.DESVARIEUX: So, John, let's just break down who are the winners and the likely losers of this privatization of the Royal Mail.WEEKS: I think in order for an American audience--I think it should be obvious to everyone that I'm an American, But I've lived in Britain for a while. But I go back and forth. It took me a while to adjust to the role of the postal service. Let me briefly explain to people the nature of it, so it--easier for you to understand who wins and loses, because it's not just a financial question. The postal service in Britain has, ever since the end of World War II, played a very major role social role. Small communities have post offices. We have a cottage in a village of 500 people. It has a post office. Another village next to us, a post office closed a few years ago because of budget cuts. Now, to that post office elderly people can go and collect their pensions. They can actually collect it in cash, rather like collecting your Social Security in cash. They don't have to have bank accounts. If they want a bank account, they can have it through the Postal Service. They don't have to pay the fees that you would in a normal bank. And it has always been completely safe, because the government guaranteed money that was deposited in the postal service bank. In addition, the post office would usually be in a shop, and the people that ran it would live in the community. And so they would know people coming in and out. So it played quite an important function. Several years ago, an elderly woman in a village here was ill, and the postmistress noticed that she hadn't been coming in for several days and called the emergency services. So that's not an unusual function for the post office to play. Okay. So one of the big losers will be all the people who use the post office as a source of their, you might say, link to the wider community, because it will become more commercial. In fact, many of the local post offices will become de facto in private hands. That is, not only will they be a privatization process which has occurred in which shares are sold out, but the premises will be owned privately and the functions will be owned by a rather large company, which will then hire the postmaster, the postmistress to run the activity.

So to a certain extent this privatization is an extension of what has occurred before. So the first thing is that a very large number of people in Britain will have worse local services. And this applies to cities, too. There are--it's quite common where we lived in London. There is a post office within walking distance. And most people have a post office within walking distance. I think almost certainly with the privatization there will be fewer post offices. This will be downsized. And it's also a place, I should add--not our local post office, but in London, where you can use a computer--if you don't own the computer, you can go along and use the computer in the post office. Or you can have your photograph taken to get a passport. A whole range of things. There will be fewer of them. It will mean that either you'll have to have an automobile or you will have to travel by public transport, rather long distances, in order to access these same services.

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