January news from Patricia Gibson MP
TIME TO DELIVER FAIRNESS TO ROYAL MAIL WORKERS – 3rd January
This Friday I meet representatives from Royal Mail, after joining local posties on the picket line at Saltcoats sorting office in December, as the attached photo shows.
In joining striking workers, I understood that many of us would receive Christmas cards from loved ones later than usual due to postal strikes, which sadly look set to continue. I also tabled a Westminster Early Day Motion in support of Royal Mail workers which can be seen at: https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/60447
Postal deliveries continued throughout the pandemic as Royal Mail employees stepped up to the plate. Many also knocked doors to check on the vulnerable and elderly, delivering care packages and vital medicines.
Partial privatisation of Royal Mail took place under the last UK Labour Government. It was then cheaply sold off by the Tory/Liberal Democrat Coalition in 2013. It’s market value almost doubled shortly afterwards but the service now faces almost an existential crisis.
Royal Mail has changed, with online shopping increasing parcel deliveries and email reducing the number of letters sent. However, the workforce is rightly concerned about the move to “uberise” the service, transforming it into part of the gig economy, where workers are paid per parcel or delivery, introducing owner-drivers into its workforce. Gig workers usually have much fewer rights, such as sick and holiday pay. As well as bringing in new workers on lower terms, there are proposals to close mail centres.
Our posties’ 18 days of industrial action – a record for a Royal Mail dispute – losing significant income as a result, is not just about pay, important though that is. It’s about the survival of Royal Mail itself and conditions for the 140,000 plus employees who safely deliver our mail in all weathers to all corners of the UK.
Former Royal Mail Chief Executive Rico Back condemned his successor Simon Thompson, for mishandling the dispute. He accused him of being on “an unnecessary confrontational path”, and pointing out that his successor had never run a big company before his Royal Mail appointment, concluding that the situation is “toxic.”
This year 10,000 job losses are threatened, causing understandable anger, given that in late 2021, Royal Mail gave shareholders £400 million via a special dividend and share buyback, following a boom period for the company during the pandemic.
Last year, Royal Mail made a £758 million profit, up from £702 million the year before; a feat achieved as many other companies struggled.
Such bumper profits should have been used to re-invest in Royal Mail and its workforce. Without our posties, such profits simply could not have been made. However, mismanagement and this dispute has raised the stakes, jeopardising one of the most historic, trusted and recognised UK brands.
It’s time for Royal Mail to engage in meaningful and constructive talks with its employees. The future of our posties and the company itself depends on it.
Royal Mail needs to urgently demonstrate it feels the same and I will deliver that message to Royal Mail when I meet them this Friday.
OPPPOSING TORY PLANS TO RAISE THE PENSION AGE TO 68 – 30th January
This week I will lead for the SNP in a Westminster debate on pensions, as details emerge that UK Tory Government’s plans to gradually raise the state pension age to 68 by 2046, are to be accelerated.
It seems that plans to raise the pension age could be implemented by 2034 – affecting everyone currently aged 53 and younger.
The UK already has one of the lowest pensions in Europe and these plans will impact millions of people, many of whom are already struggling financially.
The charity Age UK said any government decision to accelerate the rise in the state pension age “will condemn millions to a miserable and impoverished run-up to retirement and often beyond, too”. Indeed, many people are already in poor health by the time they reach state pension age.
The chances are, if you speak to women born in the 1950s, they’ll tell you that the biggest UK Government swindle in recent memory was robbing their generation of women of their rightful state pensions at age 60. Many discovered, often by sheer accident, that their anticipated pensions would not arrive until years later as it was equalised with men. The anger, sense of betrayal and disappointment was only inflamed when UK Government Ministers bizarrely and insensitively insisted that this provided an opportunity for the women affected to train for new careers. Some of them then formed the campaign group Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) which continues to campaign for this injustice to be recognised and remedied.
Because women born in the 1950s faced delays of up to six years to access their state pension, one in four now struggle to make payments on crucial bills with one third in debt. Single women are worst affected.
The website Interactive Investor calculates that bringing forward the increase to 68 to 2034 could mean a “lost year” of full state pension of £ £16,902 for workers aged 46.
Royal London Insurance found that more than half of those aged 55 and over are likely to have the state pension as their main income.
Pensioners relying on state pension as their main source of income are more likely to have already undergone a working life of low pay, have health challenges in retirement and a lower life expectancy. They are also the pensioners who simply cannot afford to retire early when health problems occur. Raising the retirement age even further will therefore have a disproportionate effect on poorer older people who will enjoy fewer retirement years.
A review of the state pension age in 2017 established that people should expect to spend one third of their adult life in retirement. Given that life expectancy in the UK is, at best, stagnating, this seriously undermines the case for raising the state pension age.
The UK Tory Government should abandon any further acceleration in the state pension age across the UK and all other parties should join the SNP in opposing it and commit to continuing that opposition beyond the next election.
