Should we strike to show our opposition to privatisation?

[Sippin40oz]

The CWU talks tough about privatisation and encourages marches and so on but what about a strike? Surely of all the issues that we have faced together this has to be the most important one to take a stand against? The government seems unwilling to listen to any reason and ignored the massive marches against tuition fees recently so that route is probably a waste of time.

should we be voicing our discord on the picket lines before its too late?

[kingofmcr]

royal mail and the cwu ..have treated us like rubbish over the last year and a half ..worsening conditions ..and im expected to march to preserve it ..when all i feel like doing is marching out the door

[Darren Bent]

We can't say this for sure.

I means what if the new owners of Royal Mail do a much better job and treat us better and giver us better workload. It can't be that difficult. But again we won't know who is buying us or what is their plans.

We are very unhappy with Royal Mail and CWU for sure.

[norwichchris]

Of course we should be out on strike. We have no alternative! :dcfo

[Badwolf]

Of course we should be out on strike. We have no alternative! :dcfo

Why !!? The last 2 strikes got us nothing but more misery and broken promises

[post_bitch]

why?

why not wait and see who takes over and if they mess us abotu pay cut etc THEN strike

what reason is there to strike apart form ownership change?

id be more into tottaly BLANKING the union when they ask

[steven100]

Anyone who believes better conditions etc are nothing but deluded, more mail, longer hours and more profits for the bigwigs.

[Judgee]

Never going on strike again. Supported every strike since I started but have now left the union and don't intend to strike again. Time and time again the Union have "won" us some really bad deals, the last being the D2D scandal. Screw them all and thier nice little private deals with management!

[Ahebban]

The first goal of any campaign is to raise awareness - within Royal Mail itself and the public - without it any form of protest is worthless. Whether the current campaign will be successful will depend largely on how many people attend the various rallies being held up and down the country and the reaction from the public to them. The rally at Kingston will not by any means be the largest held, but it brought home the message to the townsfolk of Kingston that the privatisation of Royal Mail needs to be taken seriously.

If CWU members, and RM employees in general, do not take up the gauntlet and make the message heard then what chance is there of change for the future? We can all bitch and moan at Royal Mail, the CWU, the Government etc, but that changes nothing. Neither does leaving the CWU. All that a dwindling membership does is give Royal Mail hope to continue and accelerate on its present course, knowing that opposition is getting weaker. To make your voice heard it has to be in sync with others and that is why the union movement, and in particular the CWU, is so important to the debate over privatisation.

Will we win the fight against privatisation? I don't know - but we will certainly lose if we do nothing. And if that means strike action is required to make our voice heard, then so be it.

[chrisj]

By the time the governement in power decided to sell then we humble workers have very little power to stop things. We cannot stop things like these through a strike; what we need is for the CWU to stop cossetting with RM and go all out to expose their failures in as many media as possible. The CWU need a PR (Max Clifford) and communication (A Campbell) guru(s) to get our points across.

The last strike was badly timed and not properly coordinated or explained to customers/public - as such we have lost the support of the majority of the country that thought we were striking for money in a recession/downturn.

I tried so hard to explain to the people around me that all we needed to do was work to our times (no strikes) and that people should stop plugging the holes, staff shortage and poor management... But we chose to go on strike just before Xmas; even so, some selfish Union members had deals with managers and broke the strike in various ways.

[malcolm3011]

royal mail and the cwu ..have treated us like rubbish over the last year and a half ..worsening conditions ..and im expected to march to preserve it ..when all i feel like doing is marching out the door

I agree last 2 times i went on strike and lost money for the union to totally cave in and sell us all down the river, sorry but you wont catch me striking for cwu again

[bedrock]

i have been sold down the river so many times by the union in my 21yrs with royal mail i will never vote to strike again till that shower of shite in london get in the real would,i have been a member of two other unions in my working life and this one is the most crap one i have been a member of. roll on the elections for the senior officers of the union let,s have a good clear out and get some people in who know what it,s like to live on the basic wage of a postman

[fishtank]

The yes votes i get,the no votes i kind of get....the don't cares.

[smokerjim]

The CWU talks tough about privatisation and encourages marches and so on but what about a strike? Surely of all the issues that we have faced together this has to be the most important one to take a stand against? The government seems unwilling to listen to any reason and ignored the massive marches against tuition fees recently so that route is probably a waste of time.

should we be voicing our discord on the picket lines before its too late?

How can we go on strike? Legally we are only able to withdraw our labour from our employer ( Royal Mail Letters / Greene / whoever, whenever ), but what you propose is to strike against our shareholder ( HM Govt. ) selling it's shares....if you want recognised support for a strike you will not get it, and if you did, you can bet even more draconian anti-union legislation would be drafted....the NUM took on Thatcher & EVERY union LOST, what you suggest would lead to the same result.

If there is another way I'd follow it, like....get some s**t hot media savvy consultants in, get Dave Ward a tie, get Billy "unavailable" for interviews and get someone that can string a coherent sentence together to cover for him, get an easy to understand image and keep mentioning it at every opportunity ( ie have trains, elecetric, gas, water companies been better for customers since privatisation, or better for a priviledged few? ) anything would be better than the whimperings we've had so far, but we can't strike as CWU would be destroyed ( and new owners might refuse to recognise a new union ).

[enzio]

The yes votes i get,the no votes i kind of get....the don't cares.

that the bigest problem we have in this job now so many people just want to bury there heads in the sand. How can people not care get f####### opinion because if you dont care things will get worse