Times interview with Dave Ward

A major interview with general secretary in today’s Times. Please share.

Times interview with Dave Ward

Royal Mail: Football fans’ model will be union’s pitch to Kretinsky

CWU wants a collective employee trust to have part-ownership of the business

Imagine a company where the workforce has part-ownership via a collective employee trust, with the promise of input into how the business is run and a share in profits in return for a pledge to end industrial strife.

This is the vision of Dave Ward, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), for his 110,000 members who make up the vast majority of the Royal Mail’s 130,000-strong workforce.

It is an unachievable mission amid the mutual fear and distrust that exists, Ward says, under the current management led by Keith Williams, chairman of Royal Mail’s parent company International Distribution Services.

It is, he adds, why he is leading talks with Daniel Kretinsky, the Czech billionaire who would be the new owner of IDS and the centuries-old national institution of the Royal Mail.

Rather than a sellout to an owner from a faraway country of which we know little, Ward says it is a one-time opportunity to hold Kretinsky to his word to be a “for-life” owner of Royal Mail — and one that should be grasped by Labour if it wins power as expected next month.

Speaking before a meeting with Kretinsky next week, Ward, 64, a former telegram boy who has led the CWU for the past nine years, said he has been forced to change his pro-nationalisation stance on the Royal Mail by the “political and economic realities”.

Instead he is lobbying Kretinsky, 48, who last month had a £3.6 billion takeover of IDS recommended by its board, and the Labour leadership to look at a “new business and governance model” for Royal Mail.

“The current IDS board has no strategy to make the Royal Mail successful,” Ward says from his office at CWU headquarters in Wimbledon, southwest London. “The members are demoralised because of the way they are being treated, attacked and alienated by management in a way we have never seen before.”

The only option, he says, is to lobby Kretinsky for “radical change”. Ward has already met Kretinsky’s representatives. “We laid out our concerns that the offer of contractual obligations are not broad enough, do not go on for long enough and aren’t strong enough.”

Those promises, variously consisting of five, three or two-year pledges, are: not to unilaterally end the universal nationwide service; not to load the company with debt; to retain the Royal Mail name and UK headquarters; not to raid the £1.4 billion pension surplus; to continue to recognise the trade unions; to abide by pay and conditions agreements; and not to asset-strip the company by selling off Royal Mail’s profitable European business GLS.

“We made it clear we are looking for the safeguards that the workforce want,” Ward says. “We said we believe the current business model is broken but that there is a chance to align the interests of workers, customers and the company for the benefit of the UK economy.

“There needs to be investment in the workforce and infrastructure to enable the company to adapt to changing market conditions. The company has to grow revenues and get into the next-day parcels delivery market in a much more serious way. And that unless the workforce are on board, Royal Mail won’t succeed.”

Their response was interesting, he says. “They said getting the union and the workforce on board is absolutely critical and they want to work with us.”

Ward will go into that summit with Kretinsky calling for the creation of a “collective trust” with a yet to be determined percentage ownership stake in Royal Mail. It is a model that is seen at some German football clubs and in Britain at Exeter City, where major strategic decisions can be vetoed by a supporters’ trust.

“Our fear has been the issue that has caused all the disputes in recent years: that IDS management want to take the parcels away from the letters, and outsource parcel delivery to a different company with a different workforce,” Ward says.

“Daniel Kretinsky has said he wants to own Royal Mail for life. We’re saying we’ll match that under a different ownership model and new business model.”

The CWU does not want token boardroom employee directors but representation in decision-making boards from the top to the bottom of the company, across regions and covering remuneration and pensions. It is, Ward says, about creating trust with local workforces.

“The percentage ownership stake needs to be significant and meaningful,” he says. “But ownership in itself isn’t enough. The governance structure has to change and we’d be looking for a mandatory profit share subject to achieving certain goals.”

Ward acknowledges that all this is ambitious and requires a leap of faith from all parties. “We know we’ve got a lot of work to do on this and we’re not saying we’ve got all the answers.”

He says the the biggest red line of all is that IDS management has recommended Kretinsky’s promised obligations without consulting the workforce.

The default munition of any powerful trade union is industrial action. But the CWU has another weapon, the post-Brexit legislation of the National Security and Investment Act, which gives ministers power for the first time in a generation to block overseas takeovers.

“Kretinsky must know there is a lot of opposition to the sale of Royal Mail, a legitimate concern across the UK over whether it is right that an equity investor from overseas who we know nothing about is going to own Royal Mail,” Ward says.

The CWU has had “productive conversations” with the Labour leadership. “Labour should explore with Kretinsky and with us a different model,” Ward says, to get away from the status quo of management/workforce relations — which he characterises by bringing the knuckles of two clenched fists together.

“The structure we are talking about is alignment that would revolutionise the relationship between the company and the trade union.

“No one can guarantee that Kretinsky or Labour will do this. But there is a lot in this for Labour if they are willing to work to get to a model that could be good for the UK economy, workers and customers.”