The Post Office just announced plans to privatise 39 crown post office branches and close three, with another 50 branches at risk over the next couple of years -- threatening around 1000 jobs in all.

When the government sold off the Royal Mail, it promised to keep the Post Office completely in the public sector. But now it's back tracking on its promise and selling our post offices off to for profit corporations.

The Tories think they can just get aways with privatising all our public services. Well, we won't let them. We need to take action now, and pressure the Post Office to protect public branches.

Let's tell the Post Office to keep our crown post offices public!

If the sell-off goes ahead, the network of crown Post Offices -- branches run directly by the Post Office -- will have been cut in half in just one decade, from 458 in 2007 to around 220. Why? Because although the Post Office has reduced its losses and is now breaking even, it apparently faces "limited opportunities for growth". So the Conservative government is going to sacrifice public services for greed and profit, by closing branches and cutting hundreds of jobs.

It's terrible news for the workers -- but it's also terrible news for the rest of us, who will see our specialist post offices replaced by smaller units owned by corporations whose only obligation is to generate profits. And this is just the beginning. It's clear now that the government won't stop until it's sold all of our post offices off to the highest bidder.

SumOfUs was created to put an end to the corporate capture of our public services. And the only thing that can fight corporate power is people power. Over 120,000 of us spoke up against the privatisation of the NHS. Now let's defend another cherished institution: the Post Office.

Tell the Post Office to keep our crown branches public!

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More information:

Post office jobs under threat as 39 branches set for privatisation, The Guardian, 19 January 2016
42 Post Offices could be closed - is yours on the hit list?, The Mirror, 19 January 2016
The Great Royal Mail and Post Office Swindle, The Huffington Post Blogs, Feb 5th 2016