London Assembly Member Murad Qureshi today (Wednesday) challenged Mayor of London Boris Johnson on why he gave TNT Post’s expansion in the capital publicity, despite the company’s record on poverty pay.

TNT Post aims to expand its workforce to 20,000 postal workers by 2017 and the company is currently operating in south west, central and north west London as well as other cities around the country.

Boris also pledged to look at the London Assembly’s motion, passed in July, calling on the Mayor to support the Communication Workers Union (CWU) campaign to protect the universal postal service and lobby the government and Ofcom to bring Royal Mail back into public ownership.

Murad Qureshi, Londonwide Labour Assembly Member, said: “I’m pleased the Mayor has recognised his double standards today and has made representations to TNT Post to become an accredited Living Wage employer.

“TNT’s use of zero-hours contracts and paying staff below the national minimum wage is appalling and I welcome his promise to challenge this.”

Billy Hayes, CWU general secretary, said:

“We have fought hard to ensure that the terms and conditions of hard-working Royal Mail postal workers are fair and decent but competitors in the industry seem to want a race to the bottom over employment standards.

“Aside from Royal Mail, postal delivery companies are operating free of regulation from Ofcom. London is already feeling the effects of unregulated competition to Royal Mail and the Mayor must join us in lobbying the government and Ofcom to undertake urgent regulatory intervention and deliver a level playing field.”

Notes:

Watch Murad Qureshi AM questioning the Mayor of London at Mayor’s Question Time today here:

The Communication Workers Union represents over 200,000 people working across the postal and telecommunication industries.