Mother hubbard for the record the union in 2009 asked everyone not to do revisions as Royal Mail had announced they were no longer to pay for change.
Too many offices done local deals on geo route for nothing.
London took a decision not to agree any revisions and if they took executive action then we would all go out. We did and we stood strong for 19 days.
Now we were not the only ones as some of Scotland, Bristol and a number of offices took action along with the VOCs.
The fact is there was a deal almost done before the 1st national date and then if you remember the union discovered the leaked Royal Mail document which was on news night how it was going to attack the union. The following day the CWU called the first national strike day and invited the press into a conference at cwu HQs.
If London and not taken the strike action that we did then the national dispute would have been longer. Remember even then it was an interim deal which allowed for longer talks. That interim deal allow for the resolutions to the executive action and we managed to get Royal Mail to move back.
Now it is laughable that you say London has led to the demise of the CWU. Look in 2003 when the rest of country voted no and Royal Mail were introducing the change to single daily delivery without agreement. Where was everyone else ? London took strike action which led to the longest unofficial action since the miners dispute some of us out for 3 weeks. That dispute was supported by places like Southend , Coventry , Warrington , Postmouth and it got the union back in the negotiating room. As a result the pay and major change agreement came out which paid people £26.28 for moving to one delivery and for the first time ever got delivery postmen and women a 5 day week. Tell me had London not got a yes do you think Royal Mail would have agreed this ?
So when I put up something which shows what you can do if you stick together as an area and force management to abide by the agreement , people should take their chips off their shoulder and demand the same.
The simple reason North London got those agreements is that management knew that unless they moved away from 100BSI and agreed a reasonable improvement then they would not get a revision in any part of North London and if Royal Mail choose to take executive action then they would be not just fighting North London they would be fighting London. Thats called Unity some of you may want to try it.
For the record I support any office in dispute and the times we have gone out because other mails have been moved into London is countless. But some of you would rather attack others who are standing up and forcing management to do what your complaining they are not then actually do something about it yourselfs.
It is not easy but you have to meet the members and explain that the only way they will gain concessions is by standing together. We work on that in London and we meet the members regularly and they prove they trust the union by supporting in ballots. 94% of those who voted on the strike ballot voted yes in London where some divisions did not get over 70%.