Don't employ this privateer

We have already asked just how this was possible, given that the stated intention was to keep it in the public sector, and yesterday it became a little clearer when it emerged that the government is intent on appointing Canada Post boss Moya Greene as the new boss of the operation, replacing the unfortunate Adam Crozier who has moved onto fields and pastures new after a torrid time at Royal Mail.

"This is a woman who knows a thing or two about sorting out businesses," remarked Canada's Financial Post recently and indeed she does.

Ms Greene knows about privatising them, about selling them off bit by bit and about introducing private capital to dilute the state ownership of them.

By aiming at the appointment of Ms Greene, we also know a bit - a bit more about government's intentions toward Royal Mail.

And what we know should give anyone working in Royal Mail cause for real concern.

For Ms Greene has a record of privatisation that should strike fear into the heart of any trade unionist fighting for a publicly run, publicly accountable postal service.

She started her career in public service and climbed quickly through the ranks to achieve some eminence.

But what Ms Greene did with that eminence was not so public-spirited.

As Assistant Deputy Minister at Transport Canada (the Canadian federal transport authority), Ms Greene was responsible for broad reform of the transport system - and we mean reform in the high Tory sense.

She oversaw the wholesale privatisation of CN, the Canadian rail network.

She was instrumental in the deregulation of the Canadian airline industry.

And, just to make the portfolio complete, she instigated the commercialisation of the Canadian port system.

From there, the enthusiastic Ms Greene moved her interest to unemployment pay and, as director-general for policy at Human Resources and Social Development Canada, played a large part in overhauling the Canadian unemployment insurance system in such a way that the federal government suddenly found itself free of any responsibility to contribute a penny to it.

Ms Greene did not restrict herself to battering the public sector, however. She also did a stint at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce as senior vice-president between 2000 and 2003, followed by a year at notorious privateer Bombardier.

But it is in her operations at Canada Post that this country's postal workers should find most to worry about, should she finally take the job with Royal Mail.

Their colleagues in the Canadian Union of Postal Workers have more than a few things to tell them.

It's a matter of record that, at the end of 2008, there were 32,000 workers' grievances outstanding against the company.

In May of last year, the CUPW marked Ms Greene's fourth anniversary as CEO by releasing a report card on the company's performance under her leadership. It doesn't make for pretty reading.

In a comparison of the four prior years with the four years under Ms Greene's management, injuries went up by 15.4 per cent and grievances by 59.3 per cent, according to CUPW national president Denis Lemelin.

So we can cut through the sugar coating of the Queen's speech and, in this one appointment alone, we can see the intentions of the government quite clearly.

To lead a profitable and publicly owned institution, the coalition has headhunted a committed privatiser who has a track record of neoliberal, free-market tactics toward working people. Postal workers, be warned.