I work as a postman for Royal Mail at the Basingstoke delivery office and have done so for many years.

At the time of the privatisation of Royal Mail I wrote to my local MP, warning that it was a mistake to sell off this great public service to the private sector.

Royal Mail has now been in private hands for seven years and I now feel that I can say I feel fully vindicated about my prediction.

Since Royal Mail was privatised, I have witnessed on a daily basis the standard of service being compromised for the sake of profit, never so much so than in the past few days.

We are now in the middle of a national crisis and I can tell you that many people are not receiving their mail and parcels because all Royal Mail bosses are concerned about at this time is the state of their balance sheets.

At the Royal Mail delivery office I work at I believe 85+ out of 250 of our staff are off work self isolating etc, so it is fair to say that Royal Mail are in a very difficult position.

This situation the company find themselves in has obviously meant that lots of mail and parcels are not being delivered resulting in a backlog.

Two days ago it was announced to all the staff at the delivery office by Royal Mail management that they would not pay us if we worked over our time, they wouldn’t allow us to work our days off or let us cancel the annual leave that we had booked, that was now useless to us.

Many of us at Royal Mail are prepared to work over our contracted hours everyday, work our days off etc to ensure that the public receive their mail and parcels.

I must say I find it unbelievable that at this time of crisis Royal Mail are putting profit before the sake of service and national morale.

What I have witnessed over the past few years and most importantly days has clearly demonstrated that the privatisation of Royal Mail was a massive mistake.

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