A Welsh alternative to royal mail privatisation but what's needed is common ownership with workers' control and management...

Plaid Cymru is the first party in Wales to suggest that in the event of Royal Mail privatisation, Wales should go a different way. However while opposed to Con-Dem outright privatisation, the vision put forward by Leanne Wood stops short of full public ownership in the sense that a socialist would understand it.

What she is putting forward is creating an arms-length company that would run mail services in Wales by permission of the Welsh Government, something similar to the position with Cardiff Wales Airport. It is also similar to councils hiving off services to arms-length trusts/companies. Council unions oppose such half steps to privatisation because the drive for profitability inevitably leads to poorer terms and conditions for the workforce and a poorer, more expensive, service to the public.

Socialists and trade unionists in Wales must give all our support to the CWU in their battle to defeat the privatisation of the Royal Mail. This battle has not been fought yet and we shouldn't accept it as lost, especially if CWU members were to link this battle with the struggles of other trade unionists who are also fighting the Con-Dems, such as the FBU who took strike action this week. Co-ordinated action, particularly in the form of a 24 hour general strike would shake this weak and divided coalition and could be an important step to not only defeating Royal Mail privatisation but bringing them down.

We need to fight privatisation and fight to win but should privatisation go ahead, we should demand that the Welsh Government bring the Welsh postal service into public ownership but under democratic public control, which means putting those who understand the service best, workers and trade unionists that deliver it and the public that use it, in charge. This could be a beacon to encourage the fight for re-nationalisation in England as well.

Plaid Cymru and Welsh Labour to make cuts together?

As Labour Councils in Wales are proving more and more willing to pass on Con-Dem cuts, making a mockery of the claim made by too many Labour-supporting trade union leaders in Wales that the Welsh Government protects Welsh workers from the worst of Con-Dem cuts, some trade unionists may be tempted to look at Plaid Cymru as a left alternative.

There couldn't be a starker demonstration that Plaid Cymru is another 'cuts' party, ready and willing to attack public sector workers and the services they provide than the offer publically made this week by Plaid Cymru to join the ruling Labour Group in a formal coalition on Carmarthenshire Council and assist them to find up to £18 million of cuts. The leader of the Labour Group has stated the Council needs to implement what he calls a 'tsunami of cuts' and Plaid Cymru councillors want to help him identify which groups of workers or which services will suffer to pay for them! Plaid Cymru with this statement, confirms its position in the 4 parties of cuts in Wales.

There are no planned council elections in Wales next year, meaning the next chance that most of us will get to vote is the general election. We need to build the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) Wales now in order that we can provide a genuine, fighting, socialist alternative to workers, trade unionists and working class communities in Wales. The Con-Dems have 4 parties to carry out their cuts in Wales, isn't it time we had an alternative to fight them?