The Challenge to Workplace Unionism in the Royal Mail

Abstract

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, with 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 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. 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, focuses on how the Liverpool UCW leadership have attempted to respond to Royal Mail′s 1992 restructuring initiative and HRM practices. Suggests that, notwithstanding new and complex dilemmas, workplace unionism within the Royal Mail remains relatively resilient.