Why we need a national postal strike

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Our union, the Communication Workers Union, is heading for a national strike. Up to 400 offices are balloting or on strike with more requests to take action coming in every day. Already London offices have taken seven days of strike action in the past six weeks. Now the leadership has promised to publish a timetable for a national strike ballot on 4 August. Many workers in the union are unsure of why the union is doing this and unsure of what the issues are behind the growing dispute. The short answer is, the future of our whole industry and union is at stake.

Some workers will have cold feet about striking. The 2007 strike saw a magnificent turn out and solid strike that was dropped by CWU tops just as victory was in sight, and flexibility imposed. Now there is a recession, and many are feeling the pinch and afraid that they could lose their jobs.

These fears are understandable, but we can't allow them to hide the bigger picture, that our whole future is under threat and we have no real alternative to striking in our defence. London, Scotland, other offices around the country are affected by the recession as much as anyone else, yet they have taken action because they recognise what is at stake. We can't stick our heads in the sand, it won't stop Royal Mail systematically stripping away our jobs, wages, conditions and hiking workload in the future.

Our livelihoods and industry at stake

There has been a lot of misinformation put about by management about the current strikes. They say it is about local issues that other areas have already signed off on - flexibility, or georoutes - so you don't need to strike, its just London being bolshy.

They claim that the union is lying, that they are talking to the union and nobody will be forced to go part time. And of course they are laying it on thick with the blackmail that if we strike it will hurt the business, customers will leave and our jobs could suffer. All of this is just spin. Here’s the facts:

Jobs

Royal Mail's modernisation plan, according to the Hooper review published in December 2008, will mean the next two-three years could see up to 50,000 full-time jobs being cut, half of mail centres being closed and up to two-thirds of delivery offices being closed. So look around your office and imagine one third of people disappeared - or maybe the whole office! There won't be enough buy downs and EVR for all those people, and with so many offices closing, where will all the people made surplus by walk sorting machinery and CD Vans go? Onto the dole, most likely, after all where are we going to get a job in this recession?

When Royal Mail says they have no plans to force anybody to go part time, or for compulsory redundancies, that isn't a guarantee they won't in the future - but that's what they want people to think now, so they don't feel threatened enough to go on strike.

Pay

Royal Mail continues to argue that postal workers are 25% overpaid and 40% underworked. That is why despite £321 million in profits, we got a pay freeze this year and managers got massive bonuses worth thousands of pounds. And if we don't stand up to them now, they might in the future decide to actually cut pay - what would stop them? Both Labour and the Tories are talking about cutting public sector pay in the next year, so Royal Mail will have the perfect excuse. Getting our pay down 25% means going back to wage levels before Single Daily Delivery - or even lower in real terms, due to last year's inflation which means our wage buys less than before.

Union busting

Royal Mail says it is talking to the union, but this is just a bare-faced lie. They have ripped up the 2007 Pay and Modernisation agreement after they got the flexibility they wanted, and refused to negotiate with the CWU on the future of the business, including closures, cuts, and everything else. Instead they launched a massive closure programme, with well over a dozen mail centres (one fifth of the total) on the hit list including bastions of the union such as Oxford and Liverpool Copperas Hill.

It is now clear that Royal Mail wants to follow TNT's operations in Holland and impose a majority part-time, casualised workforce that do not work in the office and so have little contact with the union, and for the most part are not in it. For months they have refused to discuss their modernisation plans with the union nationally, ignoring requests for talks while pretending to negotiate with local reps (who they just ignore).

On top of all the other stuff, there will almost certainly be more cuts to our pension benefits (the deficit is now hitting £10 billion, thanks to Royal Mail putting it all on the stock market, another brilliant idea brought to you by the City suits at the top).

To sum up, modernisation is meant to bust our union, which is how we collectively stand together and force Royal Mail to give us pay rises, respect workers and adhere to health and safety. If we lose the union, we are really up the creek without a paddle.

This is a strategic question for every worker. With a union, we can always hope to recover from a defeat like 2007 or win a pay rise in the future even if we didn't get one this year. Without a union, all these things go out the window, we won't even be able to defend what we've got.

Fight for our Future

This is the future Royal Mail has in store for us, and it won't go away. We fight now or we will be in a much weaker position to fight in the future when the cuts really start coming through. We need to take this chance to stand up to Royal Mail and knock back their plans to slash and burn our industry. If we don't, privatisation will become inevitable and roll over our industry and union like a bloody tank.

It's now or never. We can let them pick our jobs and offices off one by one and lose our union strength, our jobs and our wages, and face a future of speed ups, wage and pension cuts, bullying managers and privatisation. Or we can seize the moment, when so many are already moving into action, and rally our strength for a real victory over postal bosses.

We're not alone. Several sections of workers have already scored victories, such as the second Lindsey unofficial strike and Linamar dispute in June. Many more are going into disputes alongside us - tube workers, construction workers, possibly steel workers. Millions are sick of a situation where the government bails out bankers while making workers pay for the crisis we didn't cause with our wages, jobs and homes.

Let's not be just another casualty of the crisis, when we can unite with these other workers, build a mass solidarity movement of working class people behind us, and deal the bosses and their pet Labour politicians a bloody nose. Why should we pay for their crisis?

What's there to win? The future of our whole industry and union!

BOX How Royal Mail is ripping up the 2007 agreement.
How Royal Mail is ripping up the 2007 agreement

The Pay and Modernisation agreement that ended the 2997 strike was a crap deal with four “phases”. The first three phases were all about us giving in to flexibility and signed off by summer 2008.

But then, when Royal Mail had what it wanted, it refused to accept phase 4, which meant negotiating with the union on the future of the business, covering closures, cuts, and everything else.

Instead they pulled out of the agreement after they got the flexibility they wanted and launched a massive closure drive of mail centres, with well over a dozen lined up for closure already (one out of five!). We should pull out of it too and refuse any more flexibility!

So when your manager tells you that Royal Mail is talking to the union, ask them what happened to phase four.



How can we win the strike?

The 2007 strike was a defeat plucked from the jaws of victory. CWU leaders turned the strike on and off, dragging the strike out unnecessarily for months. Then after a real push, with back to back 48 hour strikes to be followed by indefinite rolling strikes, our leaders surrendered when the courts ruled against some sections coming out, just when a real crushing victory over Royal Mail bosses was in sight. Of course this has made some suspicious of taking further action.

How can we ensure that this strike is not run the same way? If all those wanting decisive action and a real victory unite in a rank and file network at the grassroots of the union, then we can pressure the leadership in a way we couldn't in 2007 to keep up the action, and take action without them where necessary like many sections did in 2007.

That way we can defend victimised workers or continue the action if the bosses' courts rule in favour of Royal Mail. In fact the courts backed down when Royal Mail tried to get an injunction banning the London mail centres from striking, when the workers threatened to walk out anyways! That is a lesson to us all, a shame the same did not happen in 2007, but it shows it is possible and something we can organise for to ensure such action is national not just some areas going out.

Every office should elect a strike committee, based on the most active people who can build the action, keep an eye on management tricks and counter their propaganda. If we demand that the strike and all negotiations are controlled by a national strike council of delegates from these local office committees, we can ensure that there isn't a sell out.

It's our union, lets make it one that we directly control to help us win.

At the moment, the CWU tops have set a ballot timetable - not the ballot itself - for 4 August, when conference set the date for 2 July! There are rumours on whether it will be a real strike ballot, or a “ballot on whether to have a strike ballot.”

No more hesitation and stalling, either in the ballot or the strike: demand an immediate ballot now!


Labour is behind these attacks, let’s stop funding Labour

London Division is threatening to ballot its members on disaffiliation, let’s follow this example in every branch. The unions should break from Labour and form a new party that fights to ensure workers’ don’t pay for the capitalist crisis.

Protest at the Labour Party Conference
27 Sept, Brighton National Demonstration


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[stokes11eg]

Glad you clarified the position regarding the "Ballot' or rather the Ballot time table. It seems clear that really, the Union is dragging it's feet once again---it seems as though THEY--rather than the Managment are trying to make sure we go of the boil-he who hesitates is lost .Can al you Reps not get back to top brass and get them MOVING?

[barkersboy]

Well written and informative. I have serious reservations in regard to CWU Head Office taking over the current regional.area and local office I/As taking place as we speak. At the end of the 2007 actions HQ recommended Acceptance of the "Agreement"?????. Many branches went against the recommendation and pleaded for NO vote. At that time I was actively urging people to vote no and I was saying we would be doing this all over again wthin 2 years; and here we are. I believe there is great merit in the way offices are taking current action as individual units. What is needed is branch and local reps to coordinate actions across the nation and take away the outcome by the inept HQ mob. Let HQ do the negotiating but report back to reps. When the reps are happy or not they can make their own recommendations to their members as individual units. Billy and his mates are not going to upset the labour party and inflict further pain on the doomed government. Why are we still funding the Labour party? Can anyone give me a sensible answer. It can not be 'tradition' because the labour party (Brown/Mandelson) have totally walked away from all workers of every union.
Let us get this on and lets win because I do not want to spend my working life in a victorian sweatshop, I dont want to request "a moment off please sir so I can visit the toilet" "please sir can I have a tea break, I am hungry and thirsty".