Reject CWU/Labour government whitewash of Royal Mail crisis

[stage3]

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/ ... -f23.html

For rank-and-file opposition to corporate collusion

Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee

We call on our colleagues to reject the whitewash being prepared by Communication Workers Union (CWU) General Secretary Dave Ward and his deputy Martin Walsh through the parliamentary committee headed by Labour MP Liam Byrne into the crisis at Royal Mail.

The surprise within ruling circles over the collapse of the mail service during Christmas and into the New Year is feigned.


Liam Byrne [Photo by House of Commons / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]
Public anger must not be diverted, nor our independent organisation blocked against renewed attacks on jobs, terms and conditions and the crippling workloads imposed by those responsible for a wrecking operation.

Ward and Walsh stated in their February 18 message to Royal Mail Group members: “this is a serious investigation by the government”. They note Byrne has written as chair of the Business and Trade Select Committee to Royal Mail’s CEO “and outlined the quality-of-service crisis and given two weeks to answer questions regarding the service, including whether the company is prioritising parcels over letters.”

Who do they think they are kidding?

The CWU greenlighted this new stage in Royal Mail’s dismantling with the agreements they co-authored with the Starmer government to install billionaire Daniel Kretinksy’s EP Group as sole owners in the £3.6 billion takeover last May. They even lectured us on the need to “accept the reality of privatisation.”

They worked to stifle our opposition, claiming the downgrade of the six-day letter service was a “reform” of the Universal Service Obligation (USO) when it was a staging post in Royal Mail’s conversion to a low-wage parcel operation modelled on Amazon.

The Starmer government’s Deed of Undertaking with Kretinsky endorsed “value extraction”, e.g., asset stripping. It set a deliberately low benchmark of meeting or improving delivery performance in 2023-4—a year in which around a quarter of First Class letters did not arrive on time. Industrial-scale breaches of the statutory delivery targets have continued to the present day.

The regulator, Ofcom, agreed the downgrading of the USO last July to alternate weekday delivery for all letters other than First Class and watered-down delivery targets overall, backing cost-cutting of up to £425 million through the Optimised Delivery Model (ODM).

Ward and Walsh claim EP Group have not “honoured” its undertakings when they were party to this scorched earth policy. It was codified in their 12-page Framework Agreement signed with EP Group in December 2024, a companion to Labour’s Deed of Undertaking.


Walsh rubber-stamped the ODM “pilots” at 35 offices from February last year, cutting duties from four to three, lengthening delivery spans to five hours or more and imposing heavier parcel-orientated walks. Across the remaining 97 percent of delivery units, this has been mirrored by the de facto collapse of the mail service, chronic understaffing and impossible workloads. Every attempt to demand CWU officials oppose this has been rebuffed.

Now we are told to participate in an “investigation” headed by the same government the CWU apparatus has worked with to enforce EP Group restructuring.

No to a whitewash Part II
Our colleagues have recalled the 2023 parliamentary committee headed by Labour MP Darren Jones that led nowhere. Jones used the two hearings in January and February that year to grandstand against then Royal Mail chief executive Simon Thompson over parcel prioritisation, management surveillance and denial of sick pay.

Postal workers’ testimony was used to stage this political theatre while the CWU leadership demobilised the first national dispute since privatisation. Ward and the postal executive acted as strike-breakers by vetoing a renewed mandate for action after 18 days of stoppages to hatch a sellout deal at ACAS in April, pushed through in July.

Thompson received a £700,000 golden handshake to step down while the attacks he headed up were implemented in full: real-terms pay cuts, as well as cuts to jobs, sick pay and implementing a two-tier workforce based on inferior pay and terms for new entrants. Jones was paraded as a hero by CWU officials at the national briefing launching the “negotiators agreement.”

The Starmer government is now going further than its Conservative predecessor in dismantling the postal service on behalf of the corporate oligarchy typified by Kretinsky. Jones has served as Starmer’s trusted head kicker, elevated to the position of the Prime Minister’s Chief Secretary.

The way forward
The lesson is clear: we need a strategy independent of Labour and the entire political establishment to which the CWU bureaucracy is joined at the hip. Independent workplace organisation must transfer power to the rank and file from the unaccountable pro-company bureaucracy.

The Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee was formed in April 2023 to oppose the CWU’s sellout and has a principled record of struggle against the union bureaucracy and the consequences of its betrayal: providing a voice for opposition against victimisations, unsafe working conditions, the two-tier workforce and ODM. We appeal to our colleagues to expand this fight.

Our allies are not the Starmer government or its industrial enforcers in the CWU apparatus, but other workers being driven into struggle against the destruction of public services and the National Health Service to ensure big business profits and diverting billions for military spending.


The company is going to war on postal workers with its January 29 declaration that it will unilaterally roll out the ODM nationally across all 1,250 units. The response of Walsh has been to scuttle into closed-door meetings with management for a month, triggered by the dispute resolution process. We are denied any oversight; his February 10 one-minute video “update” stated the intention to find an agreement by “both sides” with comments disabled on Facebook in anticipation of angry responses to another surrender.

Censorship has become routine as the CWU claims to speak for us, while silencing our voice.

We are told a “tri-partite meeting” between the CWU, EP Group and the government took place on February 16, attended by company representatives and Labour’s Business Secretary. It outlined four weeks of intensive negotiations “on USO reform, equalisation of terms and conditions and full implementation of the agreement reached between EP Group and Royal Mail” overseen by the Starmer government. Ward and Walsh claim this is to “influence the future in a positive way”.

There is nothing “positive” in what Walsh is seeking to enforce through his “Heavy and Light” version of ODM. This has not been drawn up in consultation with members, let alone agreed. It does not spell the end of ODM but its repackaging: reducing duties from eight to six to deliver a first wave of £150 million in cost-cutting, with a further 120 pilots planned by April.

The “equalisation pathway” for new entrants now paid barely above the minimum wage proposes a three-year qualification period, with incremental gains funded through USO “reform” cost-cutting: job losses, increased workloads and the gutting of the mail service.

We reject the calls for “unity” behind this agenda and the prattle about aligning the interests of “all stakeholders”. Our interests and those of the public are incompatible with the biggest plundering operation in more than a decade of privatisation.

We call for a boycott of the sham parliamentary investigation and collaboration with the Starmer government. Our long list of grievances must be drawn up to launch a genuine mobilisation in the workplace in unity against the tri-partite alliance of the CWU apparatus, EP Group and the Starmer government.

Ward and Walsh must be removed by an opposition prepared from below with clear red lines. The PWRFC proposes the following demands:

• Disband the pilots at the 35 delivery offices. Full disclosure of the wrecking operation and restoration of workers contracts
• Oppose executive action to impose ODM. Halt the reconfiguration of all delivery units
• No to Walsh’s ODM Mark II of intensified workloads and job cuts
• Equal pay for equal work. The immediate levelling up of new entrants on the basic pay and terms of legacy workers
• End Royal Mail’s breaches of the USO. The public has a right to a dependable mail service

Help build the PWRFC: the fightback begins with telling the truth—and organising collectively to act on it!

[pinstripe]

• Oppose executive action to impose ODM. Halt the reconfiguration of all delivery units


Okay, we all cancel our subs to the CWU and oppose ODM

What next?

We oppose executive action, RM go ahead anyway, but with the added benefit of no union opposition because we’ve all left the union.

Where exactly does that leave us?

What are the PWRFC going to do to prevent it?

You’re good at highlighting the problems, what are the solutions?

[stage3]

• Oppose executive action to impose ODM. Halt the reconfiguration of all delivery units


Okay, we all cancel our subs to the CWU and oppose ODM

What next?

We oppose executive action, RM go ahead anyway, but with the added benefit of no union opposition because we’ve all left the union.

Where exactly does that leave us?

What are the PWRFC going to do to prevent it?

You’re good at highlighting the problems, what are the solutions?

It does not say anywhere in the statement about cancelling subs to the CWU, this is a red herring.

You are equating the members with the Walsh led apparatus which is the main obstacle to mobilising opposition. How does the Heavy and Light model of ODM represent "opposition" its a repackaging of the job cuts and intensified workloads which has not be agreed by any postal worker for that reason.

And new entrants thrown under the bus with a 3 year qualification period !

The statement clearly calls for decision making to be transferred to the rank and file to decide a strategy of resistance against the collusion by Walsh with EP Group and the Starmer government behind closed doors.

As for your criticism that no solutions are put forward, anyone reading this statement can judge for themselves

"Ward and Walsh must be removed by an opposition prepared from below with clear red lines. The PWRFC proposes the following demands:

• Disband the pilots at the 35 delivery offices. Full disclosure of the wrecking operation and restoration of workers contracts
• Oppose executive action to impose ODM. Halt the reconfiguration of all delivery units
• No to Walsh’s ODM Mark II of intensified workloads and job cuts
• Equal pay for equal work. The immediate levelling up of new entrants on the basic pay and terms of legacy workers
• End Royal Mail’s breaches of the USO. The public has a right to a dependable mail service "

[pinstripe]

And what exactly can we as employees do, especially without union protection? Remember this is a time critical matter.

Okay we remove Ward and Walsh, we are left with no leadership

“Disband the pilots at the 35 delivery offices. Full disclosure of the wrecking operation and restoration of workers contracts
• Oppose executive action to impose ODM. Halt the reconfiguration of all delivery units
• No to Walsh’s ODM Mark II of intensified workloads and job cuts
• Equal pay for equal work. The immediate levelling up of new entrants on the basic pay and terms of legacy workers
• End Royal Mail’s breaches of the USO. The public has a right to a dependable mail service”

And WHEN RM laugh at these demands and carry on, what then?

No leadership, no union, no protection, what will PWRFC do to ensure our jobs?

The CWU are far from perfect, hell, they are far from adequate but they are all we have

So come on, how will PWRFC protect us? And why would RM even listen to them?

[scotchy1962]

Now is not the time to leave the union, PWRFC are full of lovely ideas of rebellion against the union but as is pointed out you are in the middle of all this attempted change and in-fighting will just play into RMs hands.
I understand you want change, but there's a time and place and this isn't it.

[stage3]

Pinstripe you are clearly dissatisfied with the present situation, saying the CWU is “far from adequate”. Is this not another way of saying the current leadership does not represent the members?

You do not explain how they fail to measure up, which is surely the issue. Instead, we get resignation: “they are all we have.”

The criticism you level at the PWRFC would be recognised by many postal workers as a more accurate description of Walsh and Ward: “No leadership, no union, no protection.”

You cannot argue that Ward and Walsh have protected postal workers—first with the BRT&G and now with the EP Group Framework Agreement. They have crossed every red line, collaborating in overturning gains won through past struggles. The only thing they have consistently protected is company profits.

Yet you continue to use the term “we” to conflate the pro-company apparatus with members they have sold out.

You criticise the PWRFC not because it calls for a decampment from the CWU—which it plainly does not—but because it outlines a strategy to transfer power to the rank and file, coordinate a fightback, and build a movement from below to remove Ward and Walsh. Your attitude to the membership is revealed by equating this with having “no leadership”.

You also rail against the justifiable demands put forward by the PWRFC because RM would object. The purpose of demands to to assert what workers need they are not beggars asking for a hand out but what we get from you is deference to a company increasingly known for dismantling a public service and imposing sweatshop conditions on its workforce?

We make no apologies for rejecting the notion postal workers are powerless. Struggle will decide, based on building a new leadership in which postal workers act as a unified force - the opposite of the tripartite alliance of the CWU bureaucracy, EP Group, and the Starmer government.

[Sean06]

Now is not the time to leave the union, PWRFC are full of lovely ideas of rebellion against the union but as is pointed out you are in the middle of all this attempted change and in-fighting will just play into RMs hands.
I understand you want change, but there's a time and place and this isn't it.

Why would anyone leave the union on advice of pwrfc.

[pinstripe]

Stage 3, let’s take a look at your answer.

“you are clearly dissatisfied with the present situation, saying the CWU is “far from adequate”. Is this not another way of saying the current leadership does not represent the members?”

No, it is not. I’m saying they could and should be better

“The criticism you level at the PWRFC would be recognised by many postal workers as a more accurate description of Walsh and Ward: “No leadership, no union, no protection.”

Completely wrong, poor leadership, a union and at least, some protection


“You cannot argue that Ward and Walsh have protected postal workers—first with the BRT&G and now with the EP Group Framework Agreement. They have crossed every red line, collaborating in overturning gains won through past struggles. The only thing they have consistently protected is company profits.”

Again, completely wrong. I do believe that without CWU opposition we would be in a far worse place than we currently are

“Yet you continue to use the term “we” to conflate the pro-company apparatus with members they have sold out.”

Wrong

“ You criticise the PWRFC not because it calls for a decampment from the CWU—which it plainly does not—but because it outlines a strategy to transfer power to the rank and file, coordinate a fightback, and build a movement from below to remove Ward and Walsh. Your attitude to the membership is revealed by equating this with having “no leadership”.””

It does call for a “decampment” haven’t you read any of their other ramblings?
Where is the outline of a strategy to transfer power?

“ You also rail against the justifiable demands put forward by the PWRFC because RM would object. The purpose of demands to to assert what workers need they are not beggars asking for a hand out but what we get from you is deference to a company increasingly known for dismantling a public service and imposing sweatshop conditions on its workforce?”

Because RM would object? Seriously, they’d laugh you out the room, they wouldn’t bother objecting.

“ We make no apologies for rejecting the notion postal workers are powerless. Struggle will decide, based on building a new leadership in which postal workers act as a unified force - the opposite of the tripartite alliance of the CWU bureaucracy, EP Group, and the Starmer government.”

Wow, complete tripe. Did you just copy and paste that from a 1990s copy of the Morning Star? At least you changed RM to EP Group and Thatcher to Starmer

[stage3]

Stage 3, let’s take a look at your answer.

“you are clearly dissatisfied with the present situation, saying the CWU is “far from adequate”. Is this not another way of saying the current leadership does not represent the members?”

No, it is not. I’m saying they could and should be better

“The criticism you level at the PWRFC would be recognised by many postal workers as a more accurate description of Walsh and Ward: “No leadership, no union, no protection.”

Completely wrong, poor leadership, a union and at least, some protection


“You cannot argue that Ward and Walsh have protected postal workers—first with the BRT&G and now with the EP Group Framework Agreement. They have crossed every red line, collaborating in overturning gains won through past struggles. The only thing they have consistently protected is company profits.”

Again, completely wrong. I do believe that without CWU opposition we would be in a far worse place than we currently are

“Yet you continue to use the term “we” to conflate the pro-company apparatus with members they have sold out.”

Wrong

“ You criticise the PWRFC not because it calls for a decampment from the CWU—which it plainly does not—but because it outlines a strategy to transfer power to the rank and file, coordinate a fightback, and build a movement from below to remove Ward and Walsh. Your attitude to the membership is revealed by equating this with having “no leadership”.””

It does call for a “decampment” haven’t you read any of their other ramblings?
Where is the outline of a strategy to transfer power?

“ You also rail against the justifiable demands put forward by the PWRFC because RM would object. The purpose of demands to to assert what workers need they are not beggars asking for a hand out but what we get from you is deference to a company increasingly known for dismantling a public service and imposing sweatshop conditions on its workforce?”

Because RM would object? Seriously, they’d laugh you out the room, they wouldn’t bother objecting.

“ We make no apologies for rejecting the notion postal workers are powerless. Struggle will decide, based on building a new leadership in which postal workers act as a unified force - the opposite of the tripartite alliance of the CWU bureaucracy, EP Group, and the Starmer government.”

Wow, complete tripe. Did you just copy and paste that from a 1990s copy of the Morning Star? At least you changed RM to EP Group and Thatcher to Starmer

All you can do in response is try and muddy the waters. Just quote the PWRFC on calling for postal workers to leave the CWU, you can't and try and compensate for the facts by petty insults. The issue is not "decampment" from the CWU but removing the pro-company leadership based on the organisation of the rank and file. This is what you find so unacceptable.

You say the CWU leadership "could and should do better" and talk about "poor leadership" but can't address anything frankly. You swerved an answer on the BRT&G and EP agreement.

You clearly think that no demands should be made on RM which the company views as unacceptable. That is why you can't elaborate yourself on the approach postal workers should take to defend jobs, oppose intensified workloads and the gutting of the mail service.

I leave it to every one else to judge who is "rambling"

[pinstripe]

You clearly think that no demands should be made on RM which the company views as unacceptable. That is why you can't elaborate yourself on the approach postal workers should take to defend jobs, oppose intensified workloads and the gutting of the mail service.

I leave it to every one else to judge who is "rambling"

I have not said anything about demands that RM view as unacceptable, i said your “demands” would be laughed out if the room, especially without the backing of the union and the Government.
Why should I elaborate on the approach, I’m a postman, not a union official, not a rep, a postman, and even I can see that the PWRFC are 50 years out of date.
Your approach didn’t work in the 1970’s and won’t work now.
You don’t offer anything to the “rank and file”, except outdated platitudes.
You accuse me of “muddy the waters”, but you can’t give a straight answer, you accuse me of “petty insults” but your entire post is condescending at best, you accuse me of “swerved an answer on BRT&G and EP agreement” when I clearly stated “I do believe that without CWU opposition we would be in a far worse place than we currently are”

I really hope your next post contains “Power to the people, Wolfie” I really do

[richietns]

Pinstripe has asked multiple times what are the solutions?

stage3 hasn't an answer because there isn't one.

[yellowbelly]

..............

I really hope your next post contains “Power to the people, Wolfie” I really do

Freedom for Tooting!

I'm sure they've been on the RM naughty list of offices at some point.......

[stage3]

Pinstripe says, “I’m a postman, not a union official, not a rep, a postman, and even I can see that the PWRFC are 50 years out of date. Your approach didn’t work in the 1970’s and won’t work now.”

Excuse me, but what didn’t work? Militant struggle by workers? This rewrites history, echoing the narrative of Margaret Thatcher, then her protegee, Tony Blair, and every union bureaucrat in the last 40 years seeking to justify their collusion with company management.

What exactly did not work in the 70’s and for whom?

When the working class was mobilised in strike struggles and the employers were not portrayed as “partners” but as opponents, the chief complaint of the ruling class at the time was that the unions were running the country.

The miner’s strike in ‘74 even brought down the Heath Tory government and Harold Wilson’s Labour government was forced to grant a massive pay rise. Worker’s share of GDP stood at its highest in post-war history, as did the level of social equality.

Compare that to today after decades of “New Realism”, “New Labour” and the rest, with workers on the lowest share of GDP and suffering ever worsening hardship, trade union membership down from 13 million to less than 6 million and big business and the super-rich seeming to enjoy unchallenged power.

What has not “worked” for workers is the social disaster produced by decades in which the trade union bureaucracy has sabotaged the class struggle and the Labour Party has ditched any pretence of reforming capitalism—the end product of which is the support of Starmer’s government and the CWU leadership for Kretinsky’s takeover and gutting of Royal Mail.

Making shop-worn comparisons between the PWRFC and “Wolfie Smith” and the Tooting Popular Front will be lost on anyone under the age of 60. But they are spouted by those who share the “nothing much can be done” outlook promoted by the CWU bureaucracy.

The choice ever since the 1980s is a simple one: Either accept Thatcher’s There Is No Alternative mantra and roll over, or as Ward and Walsh put it “accept the reality of privatisation,” or fight back. The PWRFC is for postal workers fighting back, not lying down. And that begins by bringing together the most militant workers as an organised opposition to the bureaucracy defended so unconvincingly by our various critics.

[pinstripe]

Stage 3
“Excuse me, but what didn’t work? Militant struggle by workers? This rewrites history, echoing the narrative of Margaret Thatcher, then her protegee, Tony Blair, and every union bureaucrat in the last 40 years seeking to justify their collusion with company management.

What exactly did not work in the 70’s and for whom?”

Ok, I’ll use your example. The miners. They didn’t get more militant than them. Do you remember miners. Strange you don’t see many of them today. What about the steelworkers, they were quite militant and British Leyland.

Yes the miners brought down a government in 1974 and that bought them 10 years, if you seriously think that 100,000 posties can bring down the government in 2026, especially with the bottom cascading from the letters market you are even more deluded than I could have imagined.

And before you give us any more of your nonsense, my father and my uncles were all miners and I have been in various trade unions for 40 years.

I’m not going to waste any more time on you

[Tman]

Got to give him some credit though.
After all, has anyone else, ever, praised the social conditions, union actions and financial events of the 1970s?
No-one did at the time, let alone with the benefit of 50 years of hindsight perspective.
Clearly he ploughs a lonely furrow with that little gem.