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Change and Resistance in the Royal Mail: Dispatches from the 2022/2023 Postal Workers’ Strike

Daniel Evans Orcid Logo, Karl Jones

Work, Employment and Society, Volume: 39, Issue: 5, Pages: 1269 - 1279

Swansea University Author: Daniel Evans Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1177/09500170251336938

Abstract

This article presents the experiences of ‘Karl’, a veteran postal worker and trade union organiser. Karl’s story outlines the impact of the myriad changes that have happened to the postal service and to the working life of postal workers since the privatisation of the Royal Mail in 2013. Karl highli...

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Published in: Work, Employment and Society
ISSN: 0950-0170 1469-8722
Published: SAGE Publications 2025
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa69595
Abstract: This article presents the experiences of ‘Karl’, a veteran postal worker and trade union organiser. Karl’s story outlines the impact of the myriad changes that have happened to the postal service and to the working life of postal workers since the privatisation of the Royal Mail in 2013. Karl highlights how new technologies – typically associated with the ‘gig economy’ – have permeated a formerly ‘low tech’, ‘traditional’ sector and have been used to intensify the labour process and discipline the workforce. Karl outlines the profound impact these changes have had on the postal workforce: eroding their autonomy, destroying their ‘leisure in work’ and affecting their physical and mental health. Karl’s story also demonstrates the persistence of the ‘public service ethos’ in the Royal Mail despite privatisation. Workers argued that the ‘modernisation’ of the postal service had in fact led to the neglect of the universal mail service and the attendant erosion of the historic community function and status of the postal worker.
Keywords: CWU, financialisation, gig economy, intensification, postal service, privatisation, Royal Mail, strikes, technology, trade unions
College: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Funders: The research was conducted as part of ESRC-funded project ‘WISERD Civil Society – Changing Perspectives on Civic Stratification and Civil Repair’ (ESRC project reference ES/S012435/1).
Issue: 5
Start Page: 1269
End Page: 1279

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