What strike action would be most effective?

[Martin Walsh]

croxie your wrong we were balloted for strike action. Overtime bans and work to rules come under the wording of action short of a strike and would need a further ballot. I have dealt with our employment solocitors PB on a number of occasions over the last few months due to the London dispute and we have not been balloted on those issues.

Now the PEC will decide the course of events tomorrow after listening to the divisonal reps and regional secretaries give our views.

However in my exeperence it is easier to get people out on strike then to get them to do the job properly.

part action is a non starter as well Royal Mail use an 1886 law to deduct a full days pay for taking part action and have threatened London and others who use this tactic at first.

[Sci_Dog]

I just hope and pray whatever action the Union plans on taken it's effective. Not the absolute shambles of strikes in 2007! Different units in different parts of the country out on different parts of the week. With the space in between the striking it give most units a good start on the whatever backlog had already been built up. It really had minimum impact. We need absolute maximum impact and disruption this time to show RM were not gonna be pushed over. They give us a mere £400 last time to call off strikes. Not this time. Not this f**king time!

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!

[Ahebban]

The momentum of rolling strikes was lost once CWU agreed to the moratorium for talks back in 2007. The no-strike moratorium has already been offered and rejected by RM because they were not prepared to reverse their EA. All RM is concerned with now is consolidating their current position. You may be rest assured that come April 2010 there will be a new wave of drastic cost-cutting measures imposed across the board.

The most effective weapon that CWU has is the rolling strikes. The national roll-out of days, allied with the local disruption already in place, will severely impair the distribution and delivery of mail nationwide. But, in order for it to be effective the membership must be prepared to back up the rolling days with no working o/t, no working days off and doing the job safely and correctly.

The CWU still has the option open to it for increasing the length of one day strikes to two days in hand should it be necessary. The action is starting later than in 2007 so there will be more mail in the system, effective in causing larger backlogs and doing so quickly.

Let the PEC do its job and let the membership show its support.

[infidel]

let the members decide cut out this PEC crap were frontline workers and know what ,when,where to hurt ,divi reps
etc are only the messengers who at this moment in time up here have not even come near for opinion typical of our
branch G/AMAL power to the posties.

[Sci_Dog]

let the members decide cut out this PEC crap were frontline workers and know what ,when,where to hurt ,divi reps
etc are only the messengers who at this moment in time up here have not even come near for opinion typical of our
branch G/AMAL power to the posties.

Gotta agree. We are also the people that lose out financially.

Billy Hayes won't be losing any of his £97,647 annual salary. Don't believe me? Check his profile out on Wikipedia. Nice work if you can get it, eh?

[infidel]

he will if we lose/HAYES IS A DIDDY.

[Martin Walsh]

billy will donate his pay on strike days to the hardship fund he has already done this in the London dispute as others including officers, and PAs.

Now tell me how do we let the members decide have another ballot after all there are 120 000 members so if we are really to allow them to decide we better hurry up as we have to take action within 28 days to keep the ballot live.Equally what are we asking them all out, 48 hours action, rollng action or 24 hours.

I know from personal exerperence that when we decide the London strikes we have a legthy meeting with all the Branch officials from each branch and it is painstaking as some want more or different days as some strikes fall on the same rest days etc.

But we get there in the end and after 15 strike days we are still solid even Royal Mail in the talks say that 95% of members are still out on strike.

The PEC must decide and its is the role of your divisonal rep to put the views of the branchs within their division. We do in London and had a confernce call with all the Branch"s on Friday and have an agreed policy which we will be pushing for on Monday.

[BELIAL]

Would that policy include a rejection of the previously flawed method of suspending planned action in return for talks?

[Martin Walsh]

Yes the only suspension of strike action should be if they agree that local negoations could now take place on rewinding the executive action issues and start agreeing for paying for change and a committment to reaching an agreement on all the issues.The

Now this is not going to happen so we must take action to force them into such an agreement. Thats the message we will be giving members have lost to much to now have a pause just to allow talks to go on without Royal Mail conceding on some major issues.

[postghost]

People.
Stop.
Using.
Cars.

People.
Stop.
Coming.
In.
Early.

[BELIAL]

Yes the only suspension of strike action should be if they agree that local negoations could now take place on rewinding the executive action issues and start agreeing for paying for change and a committment to reaching an agreement on all the issues.The

Now this is not going to happen so we must take action to force them into such an agreement. Thats the message we will be giving members have lost to much to now have a pause just to allow talks to go on without Royal Mail conceding on some major issues.

Could you clarify,cos that reads like' yes no' to me.
Sorry to bang on but like it or not that on,off,on,off of 2007 did more than anything else to sap membership moral and momentum and always gave the impression that management called the shots

[whitemoor66]

Sorry to bang on, but what makes people think they can play with the RM and pick and choose when they want to strike? I speak from experience. I was working to rule in a BT exchange and at about 3 am the place was swamped with managers (ex Engineers) and their minders and everybody was removed from the building. We were forced out and into strike action (9 weeks worth) and went back with our tails between our legs and back working under direction of management. Funnily enough, we had to go to King Edward Buildings to sign a good behaviour agreement before we set foot in our workplaces. Rule books were torn up. That was in 1983 and was not about pay but about privatisation and interconnection with Mercury (Who funnily enough, was a competitor, introduced to provide competition but who only wanted to cream off the best bits. Does that sound familiar?)
The second time was in 1987. A work to rule started, management shut engineers out of key exchanges in London and tried to bus other union members from all over the country to work in London. A refusal to get on the bus was deemed as strike action and the result was a full all out national strike. Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings. I don't want anybody to be under any illusions about how straightforward things will be. There is going to be one hell of a ruck with a lot of establishment interference.

[SpacePhoenix]

I believe that continuous rolling strikes would work, ie-
monday Deliveries
tuesday Mail Centres
wednesday drivers
thursday mail centres
friday deliveries
saturday drivers

monday deliveries
tuesday drivers
wednesday mail centres
thursday mail centres
friday deliveries
saturday drivers

Or any variation, but we should be out on strike every day until there is a resolution! Also work to rule when we are in work. This would mean that we would lose only 2 days pay each week! These strikes should be announced tomorrow until xmas!

When you refer to drivers, do you mean all network and RDC staff?

[heston]

maximum impact ,is the only way,3 days every week,mon,wed ,fri,weeky,when we return tues thurs sat,the time they manage to turn round the backlog on the working days we are out the next,also our govt will lose massively in respect of lost tax revenue,120,000 staff on a 3 day week ,will pay a lot less tax/ni contributions,no pain no gain,do it light the fuse ,sit back and watch them buckle,this isnt the time to show restraint,lead negotiators should as a priority focus on a media campaign,starting with the achilles heal of royal mail,adam crozier,his popularity is as low as its possible to imagine,mps,us,public,all deplore him,we are all united in that common theme,dave billy,his removal should be our first task,no agreement can be reached with him,which would satisfy the rank and file,he cannot be trusted, he is expendable,he has tryed to destroy the cwu,the post office network,he and his bunker associates,must be removed,watch management morale crumble if he is removed, NO TALKS ,NO DISCUSSIONS,NO AGREEMENT ,TILL THIS BULLY HAS LEFT THE COMPANY, :mfo :mfo :mfo :mfo

[waitaminute]

Sorry to bang on, but what makes people think they can play with the RM and pick and choose when they want to strike? I speak from experience. I was working to rule in a BT exchange and at about 3 am the place was swamped with managers (ex Engineers) and their minders and everybody was removed from the building. We were forced out and into strike action (9 weeks worth) and went back with our tails between our legs and back working under direction of management. Funnily enough, we had to go to King Edward Buildings to sign a good behaviour agreement before we set foot in our workplaces. Rule books were torn up. That was in 1983 and was not about pay but about privatisation and interconnection with Mercury (Who funnily enough, was a competitor, introduced to provide competition but who only wanted to cream off the best bits. Does that sound familiar?)
The second time was in 1987. A work to rule started, management shut engineers out of key exchanges in London and tried to bus other union members from all over the country to work in London. A refusal to get on the bus was deemed as strike action and the result was a full all out national strike. Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings. I don't want anybody to be under any illusions about how straightforward things will be. There is going to be one hell of a ruck with a lot of establishment interference.

We cannot win ,but we can die trying