Please excuse my ignorance

[whitemoor66]

I've been reading a lot of posts on here in the last week or so and there is obviously a lot of provecation from RM management going on at the moment, that could lead to unofficial IA and many posters are stating that people should not rise to the bait whilst official IA is taking place as this could give the official IA to be called to a halt by legal means. Why are there differences to taking unofficial IA when there is or is not official IA going on. Can anybody please explain.

[k979aaa]

In a word breech of contract as we are employed for hours from a time a place and as employers must pay us we should be available for work unless given reasonable notice!.

[whitemoor66]

In a word breech of contract as we are employed for hours from a time a place and as employers must pay us we should be available for work unless given reasonable notice!.

But...what is the difference and why could it lead to the official IA being halted by legal means? Any IA means you are in breach of contract.

[BELIAL]

This is very explosive stuff. The crux of the debate involves the very principles of democratic and free society . All law ultimately depends on the public acceptance of control for the common well being. As soon as the public perception of our system of jurisprudence recognises partiality and discrimination then the whole legal framework of modern Britain is corrupted and corroded. You can't fool all the people all the time,a step too far could snowball

[k979aaa]

In a word breech of contract as we are employed for hours from a time a place and as employers must pay us we should be available for work unless given reasonable notice!.

But...what is the difference and why could it lead to the official IA being halted by legal means? Any IA means you are in breach of contract.

The reason being is that you as employee and employer can give due notice if the case in either was not so we would have no society as such we need employers just as much as they need us!. But bad employers (royalmail) who do not engage their staff the means to do this is through our representatives the CWU but royalmail is hell bent on its own plan of the bonus culture whilst whipping it's employees into line!.

[whitemoor66]

Thanks for your replies k979aaa, but I still do not know the answer. Remember i am one of the good guys. I did a year of college, courtesy of ASLEF, but this one did not crop up. Learnt a bit about Employment tribunals by the way. Came in handy. Does anybody know the difference? Am I missing something?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

It would be unlikely that a wild cat action by one office would cause the situation you are suggesting. But, the CWUs fear is that if one driver refuses to cross a picket line because they did not stand it down, then that driver would be suspended. The MC of that driver, would then go out on a "wildcat" and it may be possible, as happened in Scotland that DOs who are fed by this MC go out in sympathy or because they are handling scab mail. Its also possible that any Network driver may refuse to cross a wildcat picket line and then his unit goes out. So as you can see its possible that 1 action by 1 picket line could cause a siginificant part of the pipeline to go out on unlawful IA.

This would present RM with a publicity coupé as they would use the "Militant" or "Like Miners" tag to paint us all as terrible people for going on unofficial, unlawful and unballoted action.

This would put immense pressure on the CWU as they have a legal responsibility to make sure strikes are legal and they would have to spend time trying to get the strikers back to work if they failed to do that, or it was found that the CWU had instigated the action then their funds could be sequestered and we would be unable to even continue our own official action because the CWU would have no funds.

So while on its own 1 unit going wildcat is not a major problem for the CWU, its the snowballing effect that RM would hope for that is the problem, and what we have to keep an eagle eye out for.

[k979aaa]

Thanks for your replies ka797aaa, but I still do not know the answer. Remember i am one of the good guys. I did a year of college, courtesy of ASLEF, but this one did not crop up. Learnt a bit about Employment tribunals by the way. Came in handy. Does anybody know the difference? Am I missing something?

Thanks whitemore66 i know how hard you suffered under royalmails slash and burn policy and how you won a victory for one and all it takes guts courrage to do that!. I/A is lawafull action ie voted for and given due notice to the empolyer 7 days as U/I is a spur of the moment thing by the members of the union or anyone for that matter you do not have too be in a union too stick together!. But it makes more sence to be in than out so in essence with our democratic right we the CWU DID VOTE 76% FOR ACTION!.

[whitemoor66]

POWER to the C.W.U. Good luck.

[BELIAL]

And then again you could say ,up yours ,you make the rules to suit,and we no longer recognise the authority of the fat cats ;privileged,and political classes.
It worked with the poll tax riots ,but I think our lords and masters call it sedition, and if there ain't enough of you ,you get banged up for treason and endagering the benefits of preferential social status .
Still, present prison pop 87,000 and bursting ;posties 120,000 and a big problem