POSTMEN and women in Lancashire were today being balloted over more one-day strikes - after eight such stoppages in four months have disrupted the Royal Mail.

But is not this industrial relations with a second-class stamp? This dispute over pay and conditions remains deadlocked after all that time.

Time for both sides to get it sorted. But why cannot they?

Is there, we wonder, more to this dispute than meets the eye? For not only has the prolongation of it led to government threats to lift the Royal Mail monopoly, it has also led to warnings that the law might be changed to allow unions to be sued for damages caused by strikes by workers in public monopolies.

But having been daunted by hostile public opinion over plans to privatise the Royal Mail, might not the government have the opportunity to do it by the back door - and let the unions get the blame for it - by using a prolonged dispute to end the monopoly and share the business out to the private sector?

Similarly, it is not provided with a free springboard for more union-bashing legislation?

As compromise and arbitration have been so hard to come by in this dispute, one wonders whether, behind the scenes, there are those who seek to profit by keeping it going.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.