Terrible advice for posties

Shorter Danny Finkelstein:

"If the Royal Mail dispute were about individual postal workers and their economic interest, it would be easy enough to solve. It could be ended in a conciliatory way with most people better off. Unfortunately things aren’t that simple. This is about the power and coherence of a group, and a group’s resolve. The sad truth is that the dispute cannot be ended until the group is broken.

It is in the economic interest of workers to negotiate with their employers as individuals, rather than collectively. This is particularly true when their employers are the outstandingly competent and well-intentioned management of Royal Mail. This explains why workers in the private sector, most of whom are not members of a trade union, have much less job security, lower wages and worse pensions than those in the public sector, where most people are members of a trade union."