POST WORKER BULLETINS

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Strike bulletin, 20 August

Wallasey: Around 65 workers in Wallasey’s main sorting office in Liscard Village started an unofficial strike on Monday. One worker said, “ “Royal Mail are trying to use bully boy tactics on us and we’re just not having it. They don’t care about morale at all. It just needed something big to set it off, and this attack was it.”

“They’re cutting seven posts but still expect the same amount of work to be done. It’s fundamentally unfair and they haven’t consulted properly.” Another worker reported, “Our hand was forced when we arrived at work on Monday to find all fittings had changed, five walks and a driving duty had gone and management had chosen our duties for us instead of going down the seniority list. Also we had been served with 28 days notice of executive action but all changes were implemented before the time scale was up!! Merseyside CWU has been in talks and announced on Thursday that there would be a return to work on Friday after management had promised to negotiate.


Liverpool mail centre: Liverpool Mail Centre refused to handle scab mail on Wednesday night, platform staff were taken off pay for not handling mail from striking mail depots. The rest of the mail centre sat upstairs for two hours until a solution was thrashed out. A return to work was resolved once the striking mail depots official strikes ended. Otherwise the whole of Merseyside would have been on strike by lunchtime, Early shift working normally, a commonsense result. They will not handle scab mail!

East Midlands airport and Network drivers: A number of drivers from East Midlands Airport VOC have had a whole day’s pay deducted after they refused to cross picket lines on Wednesday. In response, most of the day shift has since walked out on unofficial strike. So far, some 15 drivers from Warrington and the Home Counties have also had the sanction applied to them after they respected a picket line at the PRDC in west London. Managers had previously called the drivers into meetings individually and demanded that they sign “waivers” that said they would cross pickets – but many refused.
Pickets at the NDC at Crick, in Northamptonshire, report that their “vigorous picketing” had been successful in turning back dozens of Royal Mail lorries.
It is crucial that union activists move quickly to respond to this attack by launching unofficial strikes. No one should have to face loss of pay, or other sanctions,
for standing up for the most basic of trade union principles – not crossing picket lines.

Even before Royal Mail’s latest attack some network drivers already felt that their fight would go unofficial when Royal Mail unleash Network 2009.


Stoke: Over 100 postal workers at Stoke mail centre have been on all-out indefinite strike action since Tuesday of last week.
Bosses want to close the office and transfer work to Wolverhampton. This would mean an 80-mile round trip. The company has said even if workers agree to such transfer, they would have to accept changes to their shift patterns and loss of earnings. Those who do not agree will be deemed to have either “sacked themselves” or taken “voluntary redundancy”. Andy Plant, the CWU branch secretary, reported the strike is “100 percent solid”. “We’ve got about 40 people on the picket line in rotating shifts from 5am to 6pm, and the support from the public has been great. Around 200 postal workers in delivery offices in the city took unofficial action in our support last week. They are back in work now but are set to start a ballot for official action.” “We want them to honour our national agreements in fully transparent fashion. Until we get that, we are going to remain in dispute. It is vital that other trade unionists continue to show solidarity and spread the word.”

Rush donations and messages of support to Stoke mail centre strike, CWU Midlands’ No7 branch, CWU Union Room, Lindsay Street, Hanley, Stoke on Trent, ST1 4EP. Email midlandregion@cwu.org

This leaflet is from Post Worker, a paper produced by rank and file postal workers across Britain. It represents a broad range of views and is designed to stimulate debate as well as encourage active participation in the CWU. Send your articles and pictures to postworker@phonecoop.coop or phone 07871
927008. To send articles or pictures or to order please phone 07871 927 008 or email postworker@ phonecoop.coop or write to PostWorker c/o 109 Evelyn Court, Amhurst Road, London E8 2BQ.

[Postworker]

Hello fellow posties on RMC!

The Post Worker Editorial Committee decided recently to produce a frequent E-Bulletin compiling dispute reports from around the UK. This Bulletin is intended to be as widely distributed as possible for the duration of the current dispute.

Comrades can either print off the Bulletins to hand out at work, or e-mail them to workmates, etc.

Attached is a pdf of the first Bulletin.

Postworker

P.S. If you have any reports of your own that we could include in future Bulletins, get in touch at postworker@phonecoop.coop and we can go from there.

[Postworker]

Hi again,

This is our leaflet on the ongoing indefinite strike action being taken by the Stoke Mail Centre members.

Maybe you could hand it out round your office, or e-mail it to everyone on your CWU contact list.

Thanks,
Postworker

[BELIAL]

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