The Challenge to Workplace Unionism in the Royal Mail
| Pages | 3-25 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425459310048518 |
| Published date | 01 May 1993 |
| Date | 01 May 1993 |
| Author | Ralph Darlington |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Workplace
Unionism in
the Royal Mail
3
The Challenge to Workplace
Unionism in the Royal Mail
Ralph Darlington
Department of Business and Management Studies,
University of
Salford,
UK
Introduction
While remaining
in
the public sector the British Post Office has undergone
massive changes in terms of
its
general orientation and structure over the
last decade which, reflecting many of the changes in other industries, have
had major implications for workplace management-labour relations and
shopfloor trade union organization. The most recent phase of restructuring
within the core Royal Mail section of the Post Office, operational from 1992,
has been accompanied by an assertive managerial strategy aimed at tackling
the strong workplace union
levels
of control and autonomy that have developed
in many city-based sorting offices. This
article
has the objective of contributing
to an understanding of the restructuring of industrial relations and workplace
unionism which has been taking
place
within the Royal Mail in recent
years.
First, it briefly outlines the background and overarching nature of the
changes introduced by Royal Mail at national level. Second, it provides
evidence from empirical case study research into one of the largest and
most union-militant Royal Mail sorting offices in the country based in central
Liverpool. After outlining the strengths and weaknesses of workplace
unionism during the mid-1980s to the late 1980s, the article then focuses
on how the Liverpool UCW leadership have attempted to respond to Royal
Mail's
1992
restructuring initiative and HRM practices designed to enhance
managerial control. Finally, some wider conclusions are drawn from the
case study evidence, which suggest that notwithstanding new and complex
dilemmas, workplace unionism in the Royal Mail as an instance of public
service unionism remains relatively resilient. The implications of this
argument in terms of the debate about the "state" of workplace unionism
in Britain in the early 1990s are assessed.
This article
is
based
on
a paper
first
given
at the
Employment Research Unit Annual Conference
at Cardiff Business School, University of Wales, in September 1993.
Employee
Relations.
Vol.15
No.5,
1993,
pp.
3-25,
©
MCB
University
Press 01425455
Employee
Relations
15,5
4
The Background to Change
In
the early 1980s the Conservative Government's threat to relax the Post
Office's monopoly of letter post, as well as imposed financial constraints,
encouraged it (in line with other public enterprises) to adopt a more
commercial approach and introduce managerial techniques from the private
sector aimed at achieving cost savings, improved quality of service and
flexibility in the use of
labour.
A package of "business efficiency" measures
were introduced, involving radical commitments to new technology, the
compulsory extension of local productivity schemes, sophisticated work
and traffic measurement, and the recruitment of large numbers of part-time
and casual staff
[1,2].
By
1986
the Post Office's traditional corporate structure
had been re-organized into autonomous business units - Royal Mail Letters
(171,000 workers), Post Office Counters
(17,000
workers) and Parcel Force
(12,000
workers) - each with responsibility for their own budgetary targets
and with decentralized collective bargaining arrangements. A key part of
the strategy was to elevate the presence and impact of marketing and to
make the organization look outward
to
customers and
competitors.
Managers
were encouraged to make decisions and not to refer matters upward as a
matter of course
[3].
This combination of commercialization, introduction of market relations
and organizational restructuring undoubtedly contributed
to
the Post Office's
consistent profitability during the
1980s.
Indeed, its success as
a
nationalized
industry meant it made regular contributions to the Treasury rather than
receiving subsidies from it. In the decade to 1990 the organization handed
over
£730
million to the Government, in nine of these ten years exceeding
the financial targets set by the Government[4]. Some of the most dramatic
improvements occurred in the Royal Mail, where the volume of letters
increased markedly during the 1980s spurred on by economic growth and
the business's own efforts to expand in the competitive communications
market, with profits rising by a remarkable 25 per cent to £252 million in
1992-3,
confirming the Royal Mail as the world's most profitable postal
operation.
However, not surprisingly, the Post Office's structural changes and
devolution of managerial responsibility threatened existing labour-management
practices and accommodations and placed a huge strain on national trade
union negotiators despite their relatively moderate and "new realist" outlook.
The Union of Communication Workers (UCW) complained of
a
transformation
of the traditional industrial relations practices based on mutual concession
by
a
new confrontational style of management, particularly within the Royal
Mail.
Yet,
while the national union leadership, convinced of the new economic
and political realities, came under pressure to swing the union as a whole
behind re-organization, the tensions induced by managerial efforts to
introduce efficiency at local sorting and delivery office level (often by means
of executive action rather than by agreement with workplace union
representatives) led
to
persistent short, sharp, unofficial strikes and guerilla
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