Verdi blocks postal strike-wsws.org

[merson01]

Verdi blocks postal strike
By Jörg Victor
10 May 2008
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The public service workers trade union, Verdi, has intervened at the last moment to block a strike by postal workers. On April 30, the union struck a deal on a new contract with the employer — German Post World Net (GPWN). Only a day before, 93 percent of union members employed by GPWN had voted in favour of unlimited strike action to begin two days later.

Postal workers had already taken part in warning strikes in April and had won broad sympathy from the population as a whole. Many members of the public regarded the postal workers’ struggle against rock bottom wages as an important initiative to combat growing inequality in German society.

As was the case in a whole series of previous struggles involving rail workers, Berlin transport workers, and shop workers, growing discontent on the part of postal workers over low wages and appalling working conditions has assumed an increasingly explosive form. The Verdi union regards its major task as containing and controlling this anger. The sell-out of the industrial dispute at German Post - even before it had properly begun - is just one in a long series of conflicts which the union has worked to isolate prior to organising a sell-out.


The deal

A close examination of the contract reveals that it is has nothing to do with the prettified description offered by Verdi. The wages of the company’s 130,000 employees will be raised from November this year by an average of four percent, and then again in December by three percent, as part of a contract due to run for 26 months. In addition, postal workers will receive two lump sum payments of €100.

Protection against redundancies has been extended to 2011. At the same time, the length of the work week is to be extended by nearly an hour through reduced breaks.

Originally, Verdi had raised the demand for a seven percent wage increase over twelve months, and the union had expressly rejected any extension of the work week. In fact, the union had demanded the opposite - shorter hours of work. Now, postal workers will receive less than half of the original demand for a pay increase while the amount they are required to work is extended.

Based on the current inflation rate of at least 3 percent and taking into account the increased work hours, the deal struck by the union represents a cut in real wages.

The clause guaranteeing protection against redundancies until 2011 is also just window dressing. Under conditions where the employer has recruited no new full time staff for the past seven years, the company can easily reduce personnel levels through “natural attritionâ€

[BELIAL]

That sounds familiar

[norbert]

That sounds familiar

It certainly does , that Union makes Billy Bunter and Wardy look like Red Clydesdale Militants .