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Postal Services Bill [HL]

In listening to my noble friend speaking about the 1970s, I was reminded of an exciting experiment in industrial democracy within the Post Office which set up boards on which union representatives were members. It was not necessarily only union members because anyone could stand for election, but it was unlikely that anyone else would be elected. The key was that representatives were elected at a local level. In north-west London, where I come from, two of our people were on the local board and two people were elected at regional level. In fact, the noble Lord, Lord Sawyer, was a board member for the north-east region at the time and played a part. At national level, two officers were elected by ballots of the membership and they were accountable. Built into this experiment in industrial democracy were accountability and the need for the people who were placed on these boards by their trade unions or by the workforce to answer questions. Sometimes they were difficult questions for those people to answer. Sometimes they had information at the board meetings, at whatever level, that they had to convey to their colleagues, and it was not always understood. This came in after some people tried to copy the method from Deutsche Postgewerkschaft of workers’ participation, which it described as "codetermination". The British experiment was supposed to build upon that. As I say, there were problems, but the experiment opened lots of doors and windows to people realising that, given this responsibility, their friends were able to convey real concerns—in those days, mostly about productivity and the introduction of improved working methods when facing and cancelling tables were brought in. By and large, it worked. The tragedy is that after the election that the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, won, one of the first things she did was to abolish the experiment. That was sad. I just wanted to let the Committee know that there is not much new in this world. This method has been tried. My noble friend Lord Lea has suggested that we have worker representatives, and if this proposal ever sees the light of day, we should try to go back to the days when they were at all levels. That is a better conduit for understanding problems than megaphone diplomacy.