Big Issue is the UK’s weekly magazine which gives a legitimate source of income to homeless people and produces some of the best and most varied journalism around. Last week, its founder John Bird wrote his column about Royal Mail and how he values his postwoman. I wrote a letter to the magazine which they have published as their Comment of the Week in the new edition which came out today. You can read my letter below, but I’d urge you to go and buy a copy of the magazine.
Letter to the Big Issue:
It was heart-warming to read John Bird’s appreciation of the Royal Mail in his commentary (30th July). His experience of buying online to sustain his postie’s job is a perfect example of how e-substitution is actually helping sustain the mail industry – rather than the argument that e-mail is killing the post.
We too share John’s concern that selling-off Royal Mail would be bad news for the service – depersonalising it, as he so aptly put it. Royal Mail is so much about the people who work there and the knowledge and skills they bring to the job – and of course the community role they play. As an ex-postman myself I dread to think what privatisation, efficiency drives and profit seeking could do to our mail service.
Billy Hayes
CWU general secretary
Big Issue – Comment of the Week
Big Issue is the UK’s weekly magazine which gives a legitimate source of income to homeless people and produces some of the best and most varied journalism around. Last week, its founder John Bird wrote his column about Royal Mail and how he values his postwoman. I wrote a letter to the magazine which they have published as their Comment of the Week in the new edition which came out today. You can read my letter below, but I’d urge you to go and buy a copy of the magazine.
Letter to the Big Issue:
It was heart-warming to read John Bird’s appreciation of the Royal Mail in his commentary (30th July). His experience of buying online to sustain his postie’s job is a perfect example of how e-substitution is actually helping sustain the mail industry – rather than the argument that e-mail is killing the post.
We too share John’s concern that selling-off Royal Mail would be bad news for the service – depersonalising it, as he so aptly put it. Royal Mail is so much about the people who work there and the knowledge and skills they bring to the job – and of course the community role they play. As an ex-postman myself I dread to think what privatisation, efficiency drives and profit seeking could do to our mail service.
Billy Hayes
CWU general secretary