Why the rank and file need to get organised

[Stockport]

Why we need rank and file action from below to really defend the post and defend our jobs

I'm not a postal worker anympore but when I was some years ago now - in Newport, Wales, I remember that if we wanted change we'd just walk out and not take any s**t off the managers.

Some twelve years down the line there's still a healthy tradition of rank and file wildcat strike and not taking any s**t, what with the actions in London, Liverpool, Galsgow but as far as I can tell there's no real co-ordination across the union. Sure people speak to each other but there's no established mechanisms for the ordinary posties to communicate.

Like this recent deal- OK it will be put to members eventually but who's called off the strikes for now? Where are the mass meetings and area reps meetings?

I was thinking about how we'll really get a fighting union and rember when I was a lad my grandad led a strike of caretakers and cleaners in NUPE (now Unison of course) across south of England.

That was about how caretakers after years of hard work- getting up at the crack of dawn, lifitng heavy loads being treated as th elowest of the low (any of this sound familiar at all?) - were cast on the scrap heap with a derisory pension and no house and to the back of the housing queue losing the tied house. members in NUPE raised it for years with the union tops and the bosses? Did they get anywhere? Did they buggery.

The only change came when people like my grandad said right we're going out, we'll have meetings, we'll decide democratically and if we vote for it, go for it. He was bitter when teachers corssed the picket line and heads opened the schools but evenutally they got support from the teachers and a lot of schools closed. Towars the end it spilled over into other public sector strikes (it was in the winter of 78 into 79) that became known later as the winter of discontent.

It was a very hard time for my grandad and his family. He was suddenly thrust into a leading a strike that he didn't particularly want to lead but he had no choice he always said. if we don't do something about it who will? He was a nervous man in many ways, lacking confidence in his own abiulities and had been constantly put down in his life- before he was a caretaker he was a fireman on the GWR but an industrial accident had meant he couldn't work again on the railways. But the strike brought out the best in him and the workers began to discover their power.

After a long and at times very bitter battle they won!

For my grandad and my family it had a mixed blessing this time. At only 55 and near the end of the strike my grandad suffered a massive heart attack and never worked again. In many ways the strike gave him a sense of purpose and something he'd done in his life that inspired others and that he continued to be proud of until his last days.

He was only given a year to live but actually lived another 23- sometimes though quite ill and pensioned off (and indeed spending all his savings on buying a house because he got pensioned off before the new agreement he'd helped win). But even in the last few months of his life when he was frail and didn't have much energy if you asked him about the strike he'd come alive and vital and excited like he was living through it all again.

The only way we'll ever change this rotten system is we decide to change it and talk to our fellow workmates and say enouygh's enough let's take action and control it ourselves. We can't depend on the union tops and their deals behind closed doors.

Unless we start taking the lead then Crozier, Leighton and those s**ts are going to win. We can't let that happen!

[pop it in pete]

[Wessex]

Your grandad was obviously a top bloke

[Stockport]

Yeah he was, really. Thanks. He had his contradictions of course but he made a stand and of that he was rightly proud and so am I.

But we need to get really organised again because I reckon the government and the bosses are out to smash the CWU if they can- it might just about be one of the few remaining unions though that can take on the government and win (the RMT being another) partly because it is a strategic industry but also because so many ordinary postmen and postwomen are prepared to fight. My point though is that some kind of network for post worker militants is necessary- sure it's been suggested many times before but now it seems to me it's getting really crcuial over coming months.

[L Tommo]

A top man With morals... I have many a story from My Grandads and family...

ALWAYS STOOD UP TO BULLIES AND PARASITES OF THIS TYPE..

:cfo :lfo ....


In there honour we can not forget them and there morals and actions which has given us the rights and freedoms we have today...

Stockport... CLASS POST MATE....

Your grandad is proud of you...


NEVER LET THE BASTARDS GRIND US DOWN!!!!

[catch]

My point though is that some kind of network for post worker militants is necessary- sure it's been suggested many times before but now it seems to me it's getting really crcuial over coming months.

Regardless of how things go Monday this is a very important point. Any such network should be looking at how to control struggles itself - not the usual 'rank and filist' tactics of leadership slates etc. - that's a dead end and sucks energy out of people. It's dealing with the immediate practical concerns of organising mass meetings as you say that's important. Not only that but any such group should be trying to make links with similar groups in other sectors - the (now defunct unfortunately) workmates group on the tube was one example.

[LondonUNISON]

I think the opening post is a very moving one and shows the human side of these disputes.

While strikes usually start on economic issues (pay, overtime, flexibility etc) they often spill over into becoming much more than that. Very militiant strikes like the miners strike often end up posing the need for a new kind of society altogether. Personally I think its because it firstly poses the class divide in society very sharply and also because it creates bonds of solidarity that people never forget.

Anyway, great opening post.