Football fans’ model will be union’s pitch to Kretinsky

Imagine a company where the workforce has part-ownership via a collective employee trust, with the promise of input into how the business is run and a share in profits in return for a pledge to end industrial strife.

This is the vision of Dave Ward, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), for his 110,000 members who make up the vast majority of the Royal Mail’s 130,000-strong workforce.

It is an unachievable mission amid the mutual fear and distrust that exists, Ward says, under the current management led by Keith Williams, chairman of Royal Mail’s parent company International Distribution Services.

It is, he adds, why he is leading talks with Daniel Kretinsky, the Czech billionaire who would be the new owner of IDS and