Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

This is not only about the important issue of the jobs of the workers in Cork. It is also about the future of postal and delivery services in Ireland. It is clear that with the changing model of retail, parcel delivery services are a part of the logistics more generally and are an increasingly central part of the economy. This is an area of rapid growth, as illustrated by the fact that the An Post parcel delivery service has increased 60% in only the past two years.

It is also an area where a race to the bottom is taking place globally. Private delivery services have taken the place of traditionally State-owned postal companies. As part of this change a substantial undermining of wages and conditions has arisen as has a driving down of the levels of unionisation that would historically have been high. Precarious conditions, low pay and hard exploitation are widespread. At the heart of this globally and in Ireland is the question of bogus self-employment. The majority of couriers and those engaged in parcel delivery for private companies are bogus self-employed. Although everything about their jobs is controlled by the company, officially they are self-employed. This off-loads responsibility from the company to the worker for the vans and so on to save the company millions in taxation. Hundreds of millions of euro each year are lost by Revenue as a result of these bogus self-employment scams. Couriers and delivery companies are to the fore in this. That is the model globally. It can be seen in the USA with Amazon Flex, which is the Amazon delivery company described as the Uber for delivery - in other words, based on bogus self-employment.

The closure of the Cork mail centre only makes sense in the context of this drive for the race to the bottom. What will happen to the workers? They will not be rehired in the new parcel hubs that will have to be set up by An Post. Instead, An Post will hire young people on lower wages and conditions.

Who will buy the valuable and strategically located mail centre site? A local Fianna Fáil politician has written to the chief executive of An Post to report an expression of interest from what is referred to as a global leader in parcel delivery. A sale to a private sector competitor would speed up the race to the bottom.

There is opportunity here to point in a different direction and go upwards instead of downwards. Instead of featuring workers with bogus self-employment, this crucial part of capitalist production and sale would feature workers with decent wages, conditions, and high levels of unionisation. Instead of selling the Cork mail centre and getting rid of these jobs, An Post could take a different approach and redefine itself primarily as a parcel delivery company which also handles letters. It would then become part of a model of public ownership based on democratic control by its workers, bringing them and service users to the centre of decision-making and in that way putting a plan in place for further development. Instead of asset-stripping, let us have investment and instead of redundancies, let us have quality new jobs for young people.

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