British Postal Company Axes Door-to-Door Delivery
July 1, 2015
of a job since the company stopped delivering mail.
(This article first appeared in the July-August 2015 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)
Employees of a privately-owned British postal service were hit with an unpleasant surprise the morning of May 11.
Whistl suspended door-to-door deliveries without any advance warning, leaving 1,800 workers out in the cold.
Royal Mail was forced to step in to take over the deliveries in London, Manchester and Liverpool – also without notice.
Royal Mail was Britain’s public postal service – much like the USPS – until January 2006, when private companies were allowed to collect and sort mail and then pass it to Royal Mail for delivery. Royal Mail was fully privatized with the passage of the Postal Services Act of 2011.
Whistl started providing delivery services in April 2012, but they delivered mail every other day, rather than daily like Royal Mail. There were many claims that Whistl failed to deliver parcels and packages properly.
When the private equity firm LDC told the company it would discontinue investments due to the subpar service, Whistl promptly pulled the plug on door-to-door delivery.