Don't give up on the Union

[Roy Mayall]

Another well thought out arguement Roy DSA delivery by us has to stop or at least double the price they are paying now.

Yes they should pay market rates and not subsidised rates as they currently are. The joke is that the people who justify this process are always talking about "the free market", but want a subsidised market when it suits them.

[POSTMAN GATTUSO]

I dont think big dave would sell us out watch this space 2 much bullshitting on here.

[Roy Mayall]

Roy dave and billy have taken a back hander on this agreement.

Are you really suggesting that they have committed an illegal act and are you willing to say that in a libel trial backed up with proof. Free speech is fine but accusing someone of an illegal act is potential cause for you being sued. As with most things with freedom to do something comes the responsibility of recognising and accepting the result of exercising that right.

Perhaps you may wish to remove the post and any quoting it or I can do it for you.

BTW it has happened before http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... s.blogging" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm certain there's been no actual corruption, but there's moral corruption in that Dave and Billy have accepted the basic terms of modernisation as it's been sold to them. They have sold out the membership for the sake of the union's place in the workplace.

[Dogs of War]

Agree Roy they sold us all out.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Agree Roy they sold us all out.

I tend to agree that this was a deal for the survival of the CWU in the work place and the interests of members seem to have come 2nd in the discussions.

I don't believe they have "taken a back hander" in monetary terms but the do appear to have sacrificed a lot to ensure they remain at the table.

[BELIAL]

Brilliant thread ROY This one single issue ,DSA is the virus that is at the heart of all our problems. You can treat as many of the painful symptoms (cuts in hours;pensions;wages etc) as you like but that virus will quietly but continually be growing and killing this public service.
I think most of us would congratulate our leadership on an excellent "Keep the Post Public" campaign ,but as long as DSA continues this campaign is doomed to failure. Let's be honest as long as DSA continues in its present form, RM is already partially privatised it is nothing more than privatisation by stealth. Why not start small and reclaim our "significantly shorter" saturday attendance by boycotting all Saturday DSA?

[Dogs of War]

It seems trueblue your all for this deal. Dave and billy sold us all down the river.

[Roy Mayall]

Brilliant thread ROY This one single issue ,DSA is the virus that is at the heart of all our problems. You can treat as many of the painful symptoms (cuts in hours;pensions;wages etc) as you like but that virus will quietly but continually be growing and killing this public service.
I think most of us would congratulate our leadership on an excellent "Keep the Post Public" campaign ,but as long as DSA continues this campaign is doomed to failure. Let's be honest as long as DSA continues in its present form, RM is already partially privatised it is nothing more than privatisation by stealth. Why not start small and reclaim our "significantly shorter" saturday attendance by boycotting all Saturday DSA?

The union needs to bring this issue to the fore. We need to bring it to public attention because unwittingly through our taxes we are subsidising this. It needs to be explained, clearly and without equivocation, that private mail companies are syphoning off the profit of the public mail industry, and that we are all paying for it.

[Pat Ostman]

It seems trueblue your all for this deal. Dave and billy sold us all down the river.

Believe me TBT is as unhappy as the rest of us, but he is a moderator/admin on this site and has to take occasional steps back so we can continue to have our voice.

Just wanted to clear that up...

[DirtyHarry]

The Union AGREED to it, and the PEC also ratified the agreement.

Yes I am thinking about leaving the union, if this is the best they can come up with, they are already dead.

Don't go until you've voted NO. Then see where it takes us.

[Pat Ostman]

The Union AGREED to it, and the PEC also ratified the agreement.

Yes I am thinking about leaving the union, if this is the best they can come up with, they are already dead.

Don't go until you've voted NO. Then see where it takes us.

That's exactly what I intend to do DH, there is no way I could go without having my say first!

[taxi4leighton]

dsa would be fine.if a fair price was paid. its not and we suffer because RM is being starved off proper funds from it.roy mayal is right, we should reject this agreement out of hand. the reason we were balloted for industrial action was because, RM imposed Executive Action in hundreds of offices. we want a national agreement,one that is "water-tight". not this load of fudge. this agreement would lead to weaker offices getting shafted even more than they are now.there has to be a General Election before June5th. this could be the "Perfect Storm" for all-out industrial action

[DirtyHarry]

First of all all of those people who are threatening to leave the union should stop and think about it. Stay put. If you leave you have no influence, the union will die, and the management will have won.

Then there has to be a massive no vote for this agreement. It's a complete and utter mess. It addresses none of our issues. It covers everything up in platitudes and vagaries. It amounts to a pay reduction. It uses union reps as management enforcers. It divides part-time from full-time. It means delivering more of what the public don't want, namely D2D. It means a massive sell-off of public building in the sale of delivery offices. That's a real-estate grab. It is being forced through by a neoliberal agenda controlled by the banking sector, and the union, meanwhile, is just rolling on its back and playing dead.

The central issue, to me, is downstream access. If you look at what profits the Royal Mail network is generating, not just for ourselves, but for all the DSA companies that are riding on the back of our network, you'll see that the postal industry as a whole is very, very healthy. The problem is that, with government sanction, we are giving our profits away. That's the issue the union should be fighting on. If we refuse to deliver DSA mail, that's the end of DSA, but no one in the union is contemplating that either because they don't have the imagination, or because they are too cowardly to take the fight all the way to its natural conclusion.

No one is arguing against modernisation: what we need is modernisation which serves us and our customers, not a false modernisation which is only serving the interests of the banking elite, grinding down the workforce in order to extract every penny from us.

The government bailed out the banks, but it doesn't need to bail out the Royal Mail. The Royal Mail is fundamentally sound. People will always need a postal service. We just need the legislative fetters removed so we can crush the opposition. What we need is a union with enough balls to challenge the government, to issue a simple order to its membership to refuse to deliver DSA mail. We don't even need to strike. We just have to rediscover the fundamental principles of solidarity with each other, to refuse to accept that these private companies have the right to extract profit from our labour without giving us anything in return. It's a free ride. We deliver their mail. They don't have to give us pensions or benefits or even bother to pay us the market rate.

Have you noticed this? D2D is now filtered through the private mail companies. Take a look at the boxes when they come in. It's TNT and UKMail etc etc. That means there's enough spare profit in the business to pay the private mail companies for D2D before it even gets to the Royal Mail, before we take our crummy pittance at the end.

They are cutting our D2D money so TNT can get more profit.

Now ask yourselves why the union haven't noticed this?

Excellent piece, Roy.
I suspect that our union's top bods have noticed what DSA has led to, but hey, they don't have to walk in our shoes, delivering what we have to deliver, in any kind of weather, do they?

[Wessex]

I was going to raise the point that we are delivering their d2d products as well but you beat me to it .Another excellent post Roy.

[Wessex]

I think it would interesting to hear the views of informed posters such as The Truth, Dingo and Lovejoy on this subject which seems to be at the root of everything that has happened over the past few years and yet never seems to get much of an airing.