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POSTAL SECTOR

FIRST UNI APRO CONFERENCE
Hiroshima, Japan -==- 16 - 18th October 2000

People First for Peace and Development

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PRIVATISING POST

The World Bank, Postal Services and the Asia Pacific Region

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Postal Services - A Vital Public Communications Service. Postal services are a fundamental right and are vital to the social and economic development of all countries. They continue to provide the most affordable and accessible communications service available to the vast majority of the world's population. While the penetration of alternative communications technologies is anticipated to continue, any program of postal sector reform must be based on a recognition of the need to ensure the continuance of these services on an affordable and accessible basis. To do otherwise will be to widen further the existing widening gap between the world's information rich and information poor.

Challenges Facing the Future of Postal Services. Postal Services throughout the world, and particularly in the Asia Pacific region, are facing a number of major challenges to the way they do their business and the nature of their industry. These range over technological challenges (including the need for modernisation and the increased threat of product substitution), the need to attain profitability, the need for investment and improved service performance, the need to embrace new services and products (such as the Internet) and the direct threat of private or foreign-public sector competition.

The Role of the World Bank. Many of the challenges and "reform" strategies identified by the World Bank as the basis for its postal "reform" program merit support. The need to improve financial and service performance, meet new market needs with new service and products and associated organisational reforms (such as commercialisation and corporatisation) are therefore supported. However the World Bank has used its financial position to actively promote the privatisation model over other less radical approaches to reform. The trade union movement considers this advocacy un-balanced, un-necessary and based on an ideological commitment to neo-liberal economic theory. This is clear from its actual program of "assistance", such as in Sri Lanka, Argentina, the Philippines and Trinidad and Tobago.

The Real Challenge - Creating a Profitable Public Sector Postal Service for the 21st Century. This study is informed by the belief that there is an alternative to the radical approach taken by the World Bank. For in the developed world - beyond the reach of the financial influence of the World Bank - more innovative approaches to postal sector reform have been undertaken. These alternatives meet both the commercial and organisational challenges facing postal services while retaining a central public ownership provision as a guarantor of affordable and accessible community service obligations. These alternatives are based on a gradual and controlled approach to change. They encompass commercialisation and corporatisation, within the framework of a publicly owned postal service. They have been achieved with both community and employee input to the reform process. The examples cited of Australia and Japan have resulted in profitable outcomes for both services. This study recommends the incorporation of key principles drawn from the examples of these community supported postal reform programs as minimum standards for postal sector reform throughout the region.

CONTENTS


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1.   PURPOSE AND BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

2.   POSTAL SERVICES IN THE 21ST CENTURY

   2.1   Postal Services - Vital Public Communications Services
   2.2   Challenges Facing Postal Services
   2.3   Global Competition
   2.4   Employment and Unionisation Impacts of Global Competition
   2.5   The International Agenda for Postal Reform 
   2.6   The Implementation of Postal Reform
   2.7   Conclusion

3.   POSTAL SERVICES IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION

   3.1   Key Statistics
   3.2   Revenue, Profitability, Regulation and Monopoly Service
   3.3   Structure and Ownership
   3.4   The Implementation of Postal Reform in the Asia Pacific Region
   3.5   Global Competition in the Asia Pacific Region

4.   THE WORLD BANK AND THE POSTAL SECTOR

   4.1   The World Bank - A Neo-Liberal Study in Failure
   4.2   The World Bank and Privatisation
   4.3   The World Bank's Postal Sector "Reform" Program
   4.4   Concerns with the World Bank's Postal Program
   
      4.4.1      Regulatory Reform and the Reserved Service
      4.4.2      Privatisation and the World Bank's Postal Program
      4.4.3      Public Sector Employment Reductions

   4.5    The World Bank in Action - Sri Lanka

      4.5.1      The Sri Lankan Postal Service - Background
      4.5.2      The Sri Lankan Government and Postal Reform
      4.5.3      The World Bank Project
      4.5.4      Worker Consultation
      4.5.5      The Sri Lankan Government Postal Reform Bill
      4.5.6      Conclusion

5.   AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO POSTAL REFORM - AUSTRALIA AND    JAPAN

   5.1   Australia Post - Introduction

      5.1.1      Australia Post - Background
      5.1.2      The Australian Postal Reform Process

      5.1.2(a)   First Phase - Corporatisation, Commercialisation and 
                 Limited Deregulation
      5.1.2(b)   The Impact of the First Phase Reforms - Successful 
                 Corporatisation
      5.1.2(c)   Second Phase - The Conservative Government's 
                 Deregulation Plan
      5.1.2(d)   The CEPU Response - Concerns, Alternatives and the Hands 
                 Off Aussie Post Campaign
      5.1.2(e)   The CEPU's Concerns with Postal Deregulation
      5.1.2(f)   The CEPU's Alternative Reform Program
      5.1.2(g)   The CEPU's Hands Off Aussie Post Campaign

      5.1.3      A Trade Union Assessment of the Australian Postal Sector 
                 Reform Experience

      5.1.3(a)   Campaign Successes
      5.1.3(b)   Policy Successes
      5.1.3(c)   Conclusion - The Challenge of Supporting Positive Change   

   5.2   Japan Post

      5.2.1      Introduction
      5.2.2      The Postal Service
      5.2.3      The Postal Savings Service
      5.2.4      The Postal Life Insurance Service
      5.2.5      Postal Service Reform Proposals in Japan
      5.2.6      Current Status of Reform - Competitive and Political Edge
      5.2.7      Conclusion

6.   CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS - A POSITIVE FUTURE FOR POSTAL SERVICES, 
                                      THEIR EMPLOYEES AND CUSTOMERS

   6.1   Postal Services - Unprecedented Change
   6.2   Postal Services - Vital Community Services
   6.3   The Asia-Pacific Region and the Pressure for Change
   6.4   The World Bank - An Agent of Change
   6.5   The Real Challenge - Creating a Profitable Public Sector Postal Service
   6.6   Principles of Change

TABLES

   1.   Stamp Prices for Domestic Letter (First Class)
   2.   Performance of Selected Postal Operators
   3.   OECD Countries: Domestic Standard Letter Price and Monopoly Protection
   4.   Comparisons of Selected Multinational Postal Companies 
        (Public and Private Sector)
   5.   Public and Private Postmen   
   6.   Deutsche Post Deals

REFERENCES