Leicester Public Meeting.

[IWW Fellow Worker]

LEICESTER PUBLIC MEETING
Support the Postal Workers!
Stop the Closures - Boycott WH Smith!
Save Bishop Street Post Office!

7.00pm, Tuesday 19th June at Adult Education College, Wellington Street, Leicester LE1 6HL (wheelchair access).

With speakers from the Industrial Workers of the World, Communication Workers Union (still to be confirmed), Leicester Social Forum, Pensioners Action Group.

Postal Workers Call to Action
Postal workers' whose wages are below the national average, are "fed up with attacks on their pay and cuts to services". Dedicated members of staff, whether they sort or deliver mail, or work behind Post Office counters, have been treated with contempt. Now, these workers have called for walkouts - and action against WH Smith.

Employers talk profits - Workers talk sense
Look at the arguments that management have used to attack their own workforce. Managers say that the post service has to be 'modernised' to compete with its rivals. What this really means is shedding jobs (40,000, it's said) and closing facilities so that Royal Mail and the Post Office become more like the private sector.

'Modernisation' does not mean creating a better service than the competition - it is actually a way of shrinking what the Royal Mail does, then concentrating on a 'core business' that generates profits for the group and, of course, big salaries and bonuses for employers.

Don't be surprised if individual managers start to defect to the private sector, taking their 'vision' and 'people skills' to WH Smith, the DX Group, to UK Mail, and to TNT. Unfortunately, some managers have no real feeling for public service - their loyalty can be bought and sold.

Workers, on the other hand, actually perform all the tasks that create public wealth and community spirit. When they speak, they describe reality accurately. This is the whole point, Royal Mail employers are trying to disguise their agenda. The workers are telling it like it is.

Even when employers make simple announcements, they use a strange code to cover up their rotten motives. Describing the dispute, a TNT representative spoke about "Royal Mail's obligations to us under our downstream access agreement".

Pledges for action, not petitions to government
The government supports the employers, saying workers' action would "damage the industry". No, in point of fact, the government did the most damage by opening up the postal service to competition. A market was created on purpose through "full liberalisation" in 2006.

New Labour - No Logic!
If there had been no "liberalisation" there would have been no "competition" and therefore no threat to the Royal Mail, and as a result - no need to 'modernise'!

Royal Mail have had the cheek to claim that their workers are "overpaid and underworked". Their solution? Make 40,000 of them redundant!

The IWW is calling a PUBLIC MEETING to protest against this market madness by opposing the closure of Bishop Street Post Office and by supporting the postal workers. We're asking the public, trade unionists and post office staff, to come to our meeting on: Tuesday 19th at 7pm, Leicester Adult Education College.

Come and hear speakers from the IWW, CWU, the Pensioners Action Group and Leicester Social Forum, but more important than this, add your voice to the protest, sign the pledge to boycott Smith's, and get your friends, neighbours and workmates involved.

Save public services! Build workplace democracy with the IWW!
www.iww.org.uk