Postal strike 'shambles' postal workers condemn CWU

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Some will not be happy I am posting this but as it is a genuine news item available on the 'net I have posted it as such.

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The strike called by the CWU which threatened most of the capitals mail service was a "shambles" according to senior postal workers who spoke to the London Daily News, with delivery vans able to cross picket lines in Rathbone Place, Mount Pleasant and Nine Elms delivery depots.

Delivery vans crossed picket lines on Friday because the strike ballots the CWU had conducted were apparently not complete and Royal Mail managers threatened if the drivers did not cross picket lines they would face the sack.
The Royal Mail said:

"Ballots in the South London Mail Centre (processing side), Mount Pleasant Mail Centre and Rathone Place delivery office, we informed the union of discrepancies in the ballot."

Indeed the Royal Mail was believed to have challenged the strike ballot at the High Court on Friday in an attempt to prevent the strike. A Royal Mail spokesman denied that any legal challenges were made, something the CWU reject.

One senior postal worker told the London Daily News:

"We should have postponed the strike and then scheduled a total shut down. The way it happened we are now made to look weaker in the negotiations with the Royal Mail I blame the CWU for not organising the strike properly."

There is a proposal now by the CWU to a 3 month moratorium were there will be no strikes on the basis there are no job cuts. In response to this the Royal Mail said:

"With productivity in London offices lagging behind the rest of the country – and in some parts of the capital by up to 35% below the best in other UK regions – it’s clear the CWU should honour fully existing agreements, including the agreement the union leadership signed in the presence of the TUC in 2007, which have led to the successful introduction of new ways of working in units throughout the rest of the UK.

The 2007 agreement covers the changes we urgently need to make in London as mail volumes fall at a rate of around 10% per annum with every 1% fall costing some £70 million annually in lost revenue. Royal Mail has already made similar changes in many delivery offices outside London and we are asking no more of employees in the capital than in the rest of the UK. As mail volumes fall and the type of mail we are carrying changes we must urgently adapt and become more efficient right across the country.

[Ahebban]

"With productivity in London offices lagging behind the rest of the country – and in some parts of the capital by up to 35% below the best in other UK regions – it’s clear the CWU should honour fully existing agreements, including the agreement the union leadership signed in the presence of the TUC in 2007, which have led to the successful introduction of new ways of working in units throughout the rest of the UK

Now is not the time for the CWU to self-destruct with accusation and disagreement amongst ourselves, however frustrating it may seem. Yes, mistakes may have been made in the organising, collating and counting of ballots across the 3 offices mentioned above. Yes, the CWU could not allow the 3 offices to join the legitimate action without the risk of High Court injunctions, or at worse, RM seeking damages from the CWU for lost business etc. The days when workers could just 'down tools' have long since gone and people need to realise that. The law is on the employer's side now and care and patience is required when considering any action, be it local, branch, area or national. Dingo, among others, has explained in posts elsewhere clearly what the CWU are up against.

The 'privatisation' campaign is certainly raising awareness of the issues involved and drawing support from all corners, which is to be welcomed. However, the campaign in respect of gaining a National Agreement is not proving so effective as yet. The patchy action taken in various parts of the country is to be welcomed, and it is the responsibility of the CWU leadership to build on that by engaging all CWU members, at all levels, in supporting the need for a National Agreement. The momentum must not be allowed to stall. It needs to be built upon throughout the summer period throught dialogue and action, so that the CWU can be in a position to really put the squeeze on RM come the autumn. It is then, and only then, that RM will come back to the negotiating table and actually behave like a company of the 21st century and not one stuck in the past (an accusation it levels at the CWU at regular intervals).

Royal Mail may well appear ahead in terms of the 'propaganda stakes' as can be seen from the quote above. RM is being very selective in which elements of the 2007 Pay & Mod Agmt it chooses to focus on, make public and beat posties countrywide over the head with! Just because phases 2 and 3 may well have been 'successfully introduced' does not necessarily mean that they have been successful in producing a mutually beneficial end product! Everyone working within RM knows the true position at Mail Centres, Delivery Offices etc countrywide. Units deal with the consequences of that Agreement on a daily basis. One example is Unit budgets. These were, and still are, deliberately set below an attainable level, year on year,thereby justifying the current practice of meeting 'efficiency', 'modernisation' and 'operational' needs through imposing a pay freeze, squeezing jobs and employee's terms and conditions and refusing to negotiate a new National Agreement. What else can RM expect if it refuses to negotiate with a legitimate trade union at national level but action at local level! Common-sense should tell you that. I could go on and on, but I would simply be covering old ground and excellent postings elsewhere on RMC.

RM wish that its workforce, comprising union and non-union members, full and part-time alike, to honour the commitments made in 2007. I call on everyone to read through that agreement again and highlight each element that RM currently does not practice within your Unit. I suspect it will make interesting reading.

In order that I do not slip into 'mud-slinging' mode, the following saying comes to mind: The pot calling the kettle black

[Martin Walsh]

The strike could not have been delayed until the others were re -balloted as the law requires that unless action is taken with 28 days of the result then the ballot is void.

It never ceases to amaze me that some people look on having 10 000 workers out on strike with no deliveries , no collections , no rdcs working and no network runs and one mail centre on strike as a shambles.

This is simply not true. Last Friday `s strike was just the start of what will be a long fight. The next action we will have will include Rathbone , Mount and Nine Elms. We are meeting with all Branch`s on Friday to discuss a number of strike dates ( a programme of action ) as well as linking with other offices around the Uk to have all offices which have been balloted taking strike action at the same time. In addition we will be discussing the issue of London funding the Labour Party.

London`s descion to stand down picket lines in order to keep things legal was done to ensure that the ballots in Rathbone , Nine Elms and the Mount were kept legal. We have let all the main players for Branch`s know our positon for next time so I wont repeat in on here.

Now with regards to Royal Mail`s tactics it is quite clear they want to isolate London by saying we have low productivity , and that all other offices have had the
changes which London is being proposed now. Plus Royal Mail are backing away from attacking other areas so they can concentrate on attacking London.

This is the clasic tactic of divide and conquer. This dispute is not about defending London or the satus quo its about getting national agreement on the future for all in the UK.

[k979aaa]

It is not a shambles as it has shown the employer who does the work and that we are not slaves and we have reminded them of the fact!. It is our right too withdrawal our labour and the good postmen and women of London exercised that basic right last Friday!.

[wakkono]

the whole idea of 1 day strikes need looking at. I went out for all of the days in 2007 and to be honest it got me nowhere. I lost pay, we got shafted by cwu for doing a deal which included lapsing duties, all this talk of protecting full time duties is a load of crap
As for screwing the ballot up, this happened last time we went on strike, what the fu ck is the cwu playing at ?
do yourself a favour guys ,your getting screwed left right and centre at the moment by mamnagement,1 day strikes wont work as been proven in the past, leave the cwu and save yourself over £100 a year !

The cwu is a finished union,they cant even organise a decent strike for the workforce and in my office and i know of many more in South Wales the union is not in exsistence. A lot of the guys pay in each week and when we have a problem the cwu does Fu ck all to help most of the time they dont even return our phone calls
Can you expect guys to strike again when so little was gained in 2007... can we depend on the cwu to get us a good deal?... look at 2007 guys and there is your answer

The cwu never even fought to defend the pension changes... that says it all to me

[dvbuk55]

the whole idea of 1 day strikes need looking at. I went out for all of the days in 2007 and to be honest it got me nowhere. I lost pay, we got shafted by cwu for doing a deal which included lapsing duties, all this talk of protecting full time duties is a load of crap
As for screwing the ballot up, this happened last time we went on strike, what the fu ck is the cwu playing at ?
do yourself a favour guys ,your getting screwed left right and centre at the moment by mamnagement,1 day strikes wont work as been proven in the past, leave the cwu and save yourself over £100 a year !

The cwu is a finished union,they cant even organise a decent strike for the workforce and in my office and i know of many more in South Wales the union is not in exsistence. A lot of the guys pay in each week and when we have a problem the cwu does Fu ck all to help most of the time they dont even return our phone calls
Can you expect guys to strike again when so little was gained in 2007... can we depend on the cwu to get us a good deal?... look at 2007 guys and there is your answer

The cwu never even fought to defend the pension changes... that says it all to me

You and your colleagues are not alone in your attitude to the CWU, the 2007/9 Pay and Modernisation Agreement and the seemingly unwillingness of the leadership to engage RM in a decisive action whatever the cost. This feels like death by a thousand cuts, as someones posts state "it's better to go out in a blaze of glory than live life on your knees".

I feel sorry for the postmen and women in London and Scotland who are being forced to defend national issues when the leadership are calling for a 3 month moratorium instead of galvanising the membership into joining the fight. I can say for a certainty that without "something" there isn't a cat in hells chance of branches like ours balloting for strike action, having said that we warned and warned that the 2007 Agreement was the death knell for national agreements leaving so many avenues open to abuse and "local" agreement and two years down the line RM have all but negated any influence the CWU have on our future and the future of the business.

[k979aaa]

Now is not the time to wave the white flag of surrender for even those who do not seek to fight royalmail will soon enough have the fight brought to them by royalmails breaking of national and local agreements arising out of the pay and modernisation agreement of 2007!. I hear all the time what will striking do or why don't the union do something or they are not doing anything for us!. YOU ALL ARE THE UNION it is time YOU done something for yourselfs and fight the fight!. Rights were not given unto us all they were fought for starved for bled for so a days pay lost get a tempory job clean windows dig a garden over!. IF YOU THINK I AM BEING HARD JUST WAIT AND SEE WHAT ROYALMAIL HAVE INSTORE FOR YOU IF YOU DO NOT FIGHT!.

[BELIAL]

I Wouldn't get too excited about this bit of management fluff either . "senior postal workers" could easily equate to Crozier and Brydon though the worker bit is pushing it I agree

[HootyMacBoob]

The cwu is a finished union,they cant even organise a decent strike for the workforce and in my office and i know of many more in South Wales the union is not in exsistence. A lot of the guys pay in each week and when we have a problem the cwu does Fu ck all to help most of the time they dont even return our phone calls

wakkonon why dont you stand for the reps position get voted in, then organize a ballot return a YES vote and then take as much strike action as you think your members can muster.The greatest strength the CWU have is they have the ability to have a rep in every office in the UK a position that many unions would love to be in.Now heres the downside or upside depending on your point of view the CWU depends on volunteers ie those who are prepared to stand up and be counted,raise their head above the parapet,walk the walk and not just talk the talk, you seem to be able to do the talk talk bit pretty well why dont you stand up and walk the walk.

[Martin Walsh]

I have been involved in plenty of disputes both official and unofficial and in my experience there are pros and cons on both.

Unofficial action is hard to control for both Royal Mail and the CWU alike. You dont know how long members can last , how far it will spread and equally Royal Mail become under a lot of pressure from no service. In 2003 London , Parts of Essex , Covertry , Postmouth , Warrington , Greenford , Dartford and several other areas were out unoffically for two weeks and had it gone into a 3rd week who knows what would have happened but Royal Mail blinked and we got the £26.28 deal including the 5 day week and the biggest London Weighting rise in history. This is despite the National membership voting no in the ballot.

Look in 2007 we achieved a massive yes vote for strike action against Royal Mail 24 strings which included people having to work two hours before or after shift on a daily basis , door to door being included into workload without any remuneration , later Saturdays , Later starts with out pay protection and monthly pay. We had 8 days stike action and the support was good in the majority of areas but there were pockets oof the UK where it was not good. We were not getting any where and Royal Mail got an injuction on the ballot and its no good blaming the CWU for the anti employment laws the fact is we have to list numbers in units who are taking action including grades and we all know that indivuals leave , are dimissed or in fact transfer to other units or functions and it is neigh on impossible to get it exactly right when you are announcing strike action in 1500 different units with over 130000 members. Royal Mail never use to challenge ballots so we may have been lured into a false sense of sercuirty that is no longer the case. This is why a review is being carried out to ensure that we can attempt to get things right.

In the end Liverpool and large chunks of London went out unoffically , Liverpool due to early starts and London because they took a large number of Streatham staff of pay for doing the job properly and we were out for a week which led to pressure on Royal Mail and they did the deal late on the Friday night.

Now the deal went through on a 3 to 1 basis with only 10 Branch`s in the country who had a majority voting against the deal.

We got money up front in the way of two pay rises and 2 £ 400 payments. Now I understand that Phase 3 has been used in some parts of the UK in a ruthless and unacceptable way and personally I am now of the view we should withdraw from it. But that in itself will not stop management attempting to lapse walks or duties and neither will it stop them attempting to make you work at 100 BSI and making you work all the hours your paid.

However I do remember a lot of people accusing the Union of agreeing to Monthly pay , Door to Door increases without remuneration and whole range of other things back when the deal was done. However that was never the case and none of those things have been agreed.

Now in regards to members pulling out of the CWU and the CWU being weak and on its last legs. I got to say you cant be serious. The CWU is a voluntary organisation ( not a closed shop ) and we have 90% members with inner city areas being into the high 90s hardly dying on our feet.

Moreover the CWU is not weak , we have more strike action then anyother union. I meet with the RMT officals on a regular basis and they envy us as the RMT are strong in London but not strong elsewhere. Unite are great at recuriting but too big to care for its differnt sections.

So the CWU is not perfect but if you really believe you are better off being outside of the CWU with Royal Mail `s slash and burn tactics then be my guest as I think Postmen and women are the same everywhere once things are expained to them they will support the CWU over Royal Mail 99 times out of an hundred.

[norbert]

please don't jump down my throat on this but speaking to TU Officials and RMT reps past & present - the consensus of opinion is that the UPW / CWU has always had a demanding membership and they think the CWU would be difficult to run given Brown :mfo , Europe and his attack dogs like :lfo ( in the past ) & :cfo

London is a RMT manager's graveyard , many cocked things up down south and were sent to deal with militant areas like Manchester & Liverpool up north .

CWU Branches are stronger - sometimes ! , i.e. one RMT Area Organizer has a huge patch covering the North West , Liverpool & Manchester & North Wales whilst the union was ? over centralized in London .

I think :lfo and his senior managers didn't challenge ballots initially as they'd rather play the " starve 'em back to work " game or " Thatcher / MacGregor v Scargill " game in 2007 . The RMT lads say you'd have only got more if you'd have done a indefinite all out - which could have backfired BADLY like with the NUM or SOGAT .

[portadown]

one out all out

[wranglered]

the whole idea of 1 day strikes need looking at. I went out for all of the days in 2007 and to be honest it got me nowhere. I lost pay, we got shafted by cwu for doing a deal which included lapsing duties, all this talk of protecting full time duties is a load of crap
As for screwing the ballot up, this happened last time we went on strike, what the fu ck is the cwu playing at ?
do yourself a favour guys ,your getting screwed left right and centre at the moment by mamnagement,1 day strikes wont work as been proven in the past, leave the cwu and save yourself over £100 a year !

The cwu is a finished union,they cant even organise a decent strike for the workforce and in my office and i know of many more in South Wales the union is not in exsistence. A lot of the guys pay in each week and when we have a problem the cwu does Fu ck all to help most of the time they dont even return our phone calls
Can you expect guys to strike again when so little was gained in 2007... can we depend on the cwu to get us a good deal?... look at 2007 guys and there is your answer

The cwu never even fought to defend the pension changes... that says it all to me

Well said...I am out...the CWU are there to improve my terms and conditions...show me anywhere where we have seen this happen in the last 3 years....I will look after myself thank you.... along with any colleagues around me who need help...union or no union, we still have employment rights we can enforce under the law if we feel we are being treated badly...

RM have had to reinstate me after sacking me....I did all the defence work myself...my own branch went missing and raised complaints against me whilst I was on the dole...all these complaints failed because they had no foundation...my unfortunate experience of CWU officials all up the chain has not been good...with the very odd exception... they blood suck off us, talk a good fight and then let you down...

Heard just yesterday the union are running courses for "Environmental Representatives"....PLEASE!!!!

Someone on here said we have reps but we don't have activists...that's the way the CWU have liked it for so many years...now the chickens are coming home to roost and they are clueless and desperate in their responses...no activists so why not try Environmental representatives????

...not with my money any more thank you....

There has been/will be 6 employment tribunals coming from the office I worked in...the union only backed one and even lost that....then of course there is the pathetic time it takes Simpson Millar to handle personal injury cases...years in some cases...whereas using your own no win no fee merchants see RM admitting liability in weeks...ok, you pay a bit out, but from what I have seen you get higher payments from these more vigorous lawyers who actually have to earn a living...

Now if by some miracle we actually go on strike, I will respect the picket line and not cross it...but I have to say the chances of a national strike are frankly zero...

Finally, for those of you within spitting distance of Nottingham, why not pop down and see my ET against Royal Mail for harassing me for being a trade union member, victimisation for raising health and safety concerns, whistleblowing and a refusal to give me flexible working to help my disabled wife????

SEVENTEEN DAYS WORTH STARTING ON WEDNESDAY JULY 1ST.....

Needless to say the union won't be there, but nine of my RM colleagues will be there to give evidence against their employer on my behalf....

A bit of a David v Goliath struggle, but someone, somewhere, has to make a stand when RM want to operate, in my opinion, on the very edge of employment law....

Save your money everyone...do it yourself.....

[stokes11eg]

Hear-Hear.Very good luck to yourself, and I hope things go your way.It gets you to wondering if we should all transfer our Union Fees to a Firm of solicitors who specialise in Employment legislation?I expect a lot of part timers who are not in the Union would find this more acceptable and ''join up'!

[norbert]

Hear-Hear.Very good luck to yourself, and I hope things go your way.It gets you to wondering if we should all transfer our Union Fees to a Firm of solicitors who specialise in Employment legislation?I expect a lot of part timers who are not in the Union would find this more acceptable and ''join up'!

unfortunately isolating people happens - you'd be a scalp :lfo :cfo :mfo - too many branches living in the past , too used to a long gone relatively benign RM , what these idiots just don't get is who is going to be next ? - it's not a game anymore

Shouldn't have to get as far as tribunals & solicitors and there's that idiot troll on here looking for brownie points blaming the union for not allowing his managers to exercise their full rights

Corrupt and abused :lfo :cfo :mfo