Another 15,000 postal jobs to go

CONSIGNIA, owner of the Post Office, is expected to announce a further 15,000 redundancies in May. The move is likely to coincide with the annual results of the Post Office, which will show record losses of about £700m. That means Consignia is losing £1.5m a day.

The staff cuts will be in the Royal Mail division. They come on top of a similar number of redundancies at the Parcel Force operation announced last week. Those losing their jobs will include sorting staff and postmen.

New Consignia chairman Allan Leighton is keen to make the announcement as soon as possible. It follows protracted negotiations over the Parcel Force redundancies. He has been given a free hand by Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt to take radical and effective action and save £1.2bn by sacking up to 40,000 staff. More job cuts will be made later in the year, when Consignia is expected to close about 3,000 urban post offices.

On top of all this, the number of staff will be reduced even further over the next two years through natural wastage.

Consignia, whose name is to be changed to Royal Mail, will offer the best possible redundancy terms in the hope of avoiding strikes by its traditionally militant unions.

Hewitt is making life easier for Leighton by allowing Consignia to waive a £64m dividend payment due for this financial year. And she is to look sympathetically at a request from Consignia, which is owned by the Government, that a £93m dividend for last financial year and a £151m payout made in the year ending April 2000 should be returned to the company.