pistol wrote:Hm food for thought indeed, much of a muchness really aint it....a little give on one side..a lot of take from the other..it's down to personal preference really as to wether you got movement in your chosen area of importance.(pensions,flexibility,etc) my thoughts go out to offices that have No/weak Reps..the dums at those offices must be rubbing thier hands together and foaming at the mouth.Take everything on board and weigh up all your local pro's and cons before jumping in with the masses and start screaming yes or no..
Why weigh up the local pros and cons when we can vote a big massive f***ing no? They let local offices deal with job cuts with the efficiency agreement and look where that got us - Manvers, Stoke, Burslem, and we only know about them because they fought, how about all the offices that knuckled under without a fight? Letting them siphon off the major issues for "joint working groups" that will do a similar dodgy deal on them is divide and rule like somebody said. Leaving local offices to agree the flexibility stuff is deliberately allowing RM to get it through in 90% of the places, and then maybe tweak things a bit everywhere else. That approach - the Ward and Hayes approach - would be a disaster.
Its not just about this or that bit about the deal, it is about abandoning a strike right at the point when it was massively successful, to negotiate this piece of shite. Twice now. With members left for days (or in august september, weeks) without being told in order to "cool them down". That is treachery, they are all a bunch of bureaucrats who do not represent our interests because they dont share them, theyre well pade and have got a nice comfy office life where everything is about meeting royal mail and pushing little proposals over the table at each other. Out with them all.
What we need to do is win a massive no vote and start demanding the strikes resume. Talk to staff, one by one if necessary, to get a majority on board, and sign statements and send them in demanding the strikes are restarted.
We need a rank and file meeting asap, what are the times and place for this national one on sunday? Every single person on this website should get there and bring anyone they can with them, get your branch behind it too. 4000 people is a hell of a lot, everyone of those people is in an office. And if we had a rank and file movement we would be able to attract far more people, because then the people in your office know its not just you, the lad/lass who always comes up and chews on their ear about striking, standing up to the boss, but that it is a real movement.
We should demand the leftwingers who voted against it come out of the shadows and lead a fight against it. We didn't vote for them to just sit in meetings and raise your hand, if they are real lefts they will break their vow of silence and loyalty to their NEC mates and condemn them, and come out fighting and campaigning against the deal. So send them an email while your at it!
Dont leave the union, that is exactly what ward and hayes want, they want the militant wing to be downhearted and give up. No way, too much is at stake, and we can win it. Unite and fight!
:lfo :cfo