UK National Postal Strike

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Read up-to-date reports here:

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=12264

[Updated regularly.]

[apathy maybe]

You could have at least told us what it was all about. This sort of thing belongs in NewsWire unless you want a discussion...

(From the first two paragraphs of the article).

The post strike brought total closure to Royal Mail today with only a few handfuls in total crossing picket lines across Britain.

It was a hugely defiant and united response to the attempt to cut workers’ wages, impose harsh new conditions and destroy the present postal service.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Well, I never know where to post such things!!

Newswire it is in future, then!

[apathy maybe]

That's fine. It's just that I came into the thread expecting to find a bit more information and possibly a discussion. By the way, do you have any other sources? I had a look on the BBC and I could not see anything about this strike.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Right, I have just been down to the local CWU picket line, just round the corner from my flat.

There were about a dozen on duty, and I chatted to them about the strike and got one of their leaflets. I'll post details later.

I told them I was a public sector union rep, and that it was vital that they win, or we'd be screwed next -- with the pathetic 2.5% 'offer' we have been given.

More later....

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Ok, here is a message from the CWU President:


United strike can win for all workers

by Jane Loftus, CWU president (personal capacity)

Every day it becomes clearer that the postal workers’ dispute over pay and in defence of the postal service is crucial for workers across Britain.

CWU union members have responded magnificently to the call for action. Over 95 percent of postal workers struck on 29 June and we were expecting the same during our strike on Thursday and Friday of this week.

Royal Mail management have demonstrated utter arrogance by refusing to enter into any negotiations.

If we win then it will be a boost for everybody. It would breach Gordon Brown’s public sector pay limit and show that there is no need to keep accepting job cuts, worse conditions and privatisation.

If we were to lose – and there is no reason why we should do – it would encourage the government to unleash further attacks on the public sector and to hold down the wages of the people who work in it.

Alistair Darling, the new chancellor, told the Guardian newspaper this week that he was pushing on with Brown’s policy and pay deals in the public sector would have to be kept to 2 percent.

“All pay has to be pegged to performance at work,” he said. “We can’t have inflationary pay deals.”

But our claim is not “inflationary”, and what we’ve been offered is a big pay cut – on top of job cuts and harsh new conditions.

It is no exaggeration to say that our battle is a matter for millions. We are in the frontline – but we know that health workers, teachers, civil service workers, lecturers and local government workers are in a similar position and are looking to us.

Now we need wider support, and we need it at all levels.

I hope that every union leader, every union executive member and every union branch secretary is thinking of the ways they can support us.

And we can build unity from the base. On the picket lines we have been lifted by delegations from other unions. Let’s build on that.

We can beat the government. But we will be much more certain to win, and we will win much more quickly, if other unions continue to work with us and support future action.

I am determined to do everything in my power to bring this about.

The government cannot avoid its direct responsibility for this dispute. Ministers could end it today. They should tell Allan Leighton to stop attacking the workforce and postal services.

As a union we have tried to persuade MPs to get behind us. Now I’d like to go deeper and get into the constituencies, putting pressure on MPs to come in behind us.

This week’s strike will be combined with an extra focus on reaching out to the public. There should be a petition in defence of the postal service – we could get tens of thousands of signatures on it. And we want our members to leaflet so that everyone knows what this dispute is really about.

It is never easy for low paid workers to give up money by going on strike. But we cannot afford not to strike because the issues are too important.

Let’s unite – and we can win together!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can support the posties

Postal workers were to strike from 7pm on Thursday this week for 24 hours. There will be pickets at mail centres on Thursday evening and throughout Friday, and on Friday morning at delivery offices.

Make sure you:

Visit the picket line at your local office. Can you get a delegation from your workplace, union branch, college or area? Can you take a collection?

lHold a meeting at work (or, if necessary, somewhere off site) with a postal worker speaking at it. It doesn’t have to be a huge meeting to make a difference.

Twin your workplace with a local post depot as a focus for solidarity.
Hold meetings across the unions in your area to argue for solidarity with the postal workers and coordinated action in the future.
Send resolutions to your union leaders calling for solidarity with the postal workers and coordinated action in the future.

The PCS civil service workers’ union is in the middle of a battle over job cuts, pay and privatisation.

It has struck twice already this year and is hoping to coordinate its next action with other groups of workers to increase the power of the strike.

Mark Serwotka, the PCS general secretary, spoke at the Marxism festival last weekend. Mark said, “The PCS has been at the forefront of trade union resistance. If we have to fight on our own we will, but our fights would be so much easier to win if they were taking place with other unions.

“We want to start meeting and planning these actions.”
More details here:

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=12380

[ern]

From what Rosa Lichtenstein has posted about the strike it would appear that the CWU is at the cutting edge of defending the postal workers. However, one should not forget that these are limited one day strikes every couple of weeks. That at the same time as the posties are facing attack the counter workers in Post Office are also facing attacks but the CWU has kept the strikes of these two sets of workers separate.
The bosses are out to make an example of the posties (one of the most militant sections of the working class in Britain; there have been many wildcat strikes by postal workers over the last few years and there is a widespread lack of trust in the union, which is one reason why the union has called these strike: to appear to be doing something) and the CWU is doing its bit in the process by keeping the posties isolated and engaged in a series of strikes which can only demoralise the posties. Talking to a postie on a picket on Friday, he felt that the union and bosses should sit down and settle things and thus avoid the strikes which he had not real confidence in.
The fact that the support for the strikes has been pretty solid shows the level of determination amongst the postal workers, but if they remain tied hand and foot to the unions strategy they will be crushed and this will have a powerful impact on the whole working class in Britain.
The ICC section in Britain has produced a leaflet http://en.internationalism.org/wr/305/postal-dispute and an article/leaflet http://en.internationalism.org/wr/306/postal-strike which it has distributed to postal workers.

[Cheung Mo]

If pay has to be pegged to performance at work, than the MPs currently in power -- including George Galloway -- must collectively own billions upon billions of pounds to the people of the United Kingdom.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The 1 day strike rule should be broken by the workers if they really want to win.

What we can and must learn from the NYC transit workers' strike (http://freepeoplesmovement.org/fpm/page.php?130)

[catch]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 01, 2007 02:34 am
The 1 day strike rule should be broken by the workers if they really want to win.

It has:

A wildcat over the suspension of suspended drivers (http://libcom.org/news/glasgow-5-000-postal-workers-unofficial-action-31072007) spread spread across most of Scotland], then [url=http://libcom.org/news/royal-mail-wildcats-spread-north-england-03082007]down to Northern England (http://libcom.org/news/royal-mail-wildcat-strikes-spread-post-piles-01082007)

There was also a week-long wildcat in Oxford two weeks ago.

We've done a bulletin for the postal strike here which we'll be delivering around the UK.

Dispatch Issue #1 (http://libcom.org/library/dispatch-public-sector-pay-dispute-1-august-2007)

It's important to note that there's a good chance of this spreading to the rest of the public sector - civil servants, some NHS and education workers, local government workers. That's unlikely to start for 3-4 weeks minimum though the way things are going (long union consultations before they ballot etc. etc.)

[Socialistpenguin]

Seems that Royal Mail have finally started to open negotiations with the unions. From their point-blank refusal to do so a couple of weeks ago, this is an important concession. Of course, what the union and the Royal Mail will agree to (if anything), remains to be seen.
From the CWU website:



POSTAL STRIKES SUSPENDED

Following a meeting held today between Royal Mail and CWU a Joint Statement has been agreed that means detailed discussions will take place on all the relevant issues between the two parties.

As a result the next wave of Postal strikes due to commence today after 19.00 hrs are suspended.

Statement – Royal Mail Dispute

At a meeting today between Allan Leighton, Adam Crozier, Billy Hayes and Dave Ward, it was agreed:

- that both parties commit to talks on all the issues between them, hosted and facilitated by the TUC. Both sides commit to reach an agreement by 4 September.
- that, during this period the talks are on a confidential basis with no media or internal briefings unless explicitly jointly agreed. The CWU Executive and Royal Mail Board will receive regular updates on progress and would also be expected to undertake this confidentiality clause.
- that, for that period, Royal Mail will not serve notice or take any unilateral action to impose changes by executive action.
- that, for that period CWU will suspend industrial action.
- that, the signatories to this joint statement will review the process as and when necessary.

The statement is signed by Allan Leighton and Adam Crozier for Royal Mail and Billy Hayes, General Secretary and Dave Ward Deputy General Secretary for CWU.

http://www.cwu.org.uk/news.asp?step=3&NID=1776

[catch]

Well this, when taking into account the possibility that much of the rest of the UK public sector could potentially be on strike at the same time by the end of next month, has to be one of the more significant strikes in recent years, and yet it's been all but ignored on revleft.

Anyway for those who don't know there were wildcats across Scotland, and in Chester, Liverpool, Newcastle and Hartlepool just before the next round of official strikes got called off. There's also a continued work to rule by a number of delivery offices which is helping to maintain the backlog (still as much as a week in some areas).

We've produced a bulletin (http://libcom.org/library/dispatch-public-sector-pay-dispute-1-august-2007) for the dispute - was ready for the second round of (now cancelled) strikes, but we distributed some outside the main central London mail centre on the morning before they were called off. Also some have been distributed in Brighton, Scotland, and by individual posties in offices in a few places.

Also continued updates on the situation in the postal service, the rest of the public sector, and a few private sector strikes around some of the same issues at http://libcom.org/pay-2007

[catch]

looks like a deal will be announced on monday according to rumours going 'round at the moment. Contents unknown.

[Leo]

It seems as if the deal's off. This came from royalmailchat.co.uk today:

""Talks have concluded this evening (Sunday 9th September) without an
agreement being reached.

Royal Mail has stated that the period of calm is over and they will now
prepare to run the business and move change forward."

Word is RM came to the table and cancelled the previous agreement.
Postal Executive will meet tomorrow (Monday 10th September) to receive
a full report and consider the next steps. "

[Zurdito]

I was at a talk by a CWU representative the other day who claimed to be a revolutionary Marxist, and then, in between blustering about "the nature of capital", he slipped in that liberalisation of the public services was "inevitable" and that unions responsibility was simply to defend their members interests within the process.

Another example of useless British union leaders. The way to score a victory here isn't to reduce the debate to what will be seen as "selfish" whinging and "save your own skin" manouvering whilst ignoring other workers - rather, the public sector unions must unite to fight the issue of privatisation and liberalisation as a whole. This is the only way they'll get solidarity from other unions (a chance to openly our draconian anti-strike laws), and ever hope to swing the mass of the working class behind them.

Time and time again union activists tell me that they get great support from the passing public when they campaign on poltiical issues, but contempt when they campaign narrowly for terms and conditions (grossly unfair of course). So why don't our union leaders listen tot heir members and lead a struggle against Brown's liberalisation programme? It's not because such a fight would be unfeasible because actually it'd be much more winnable than the isolationist ones they currently pick - rather it's because they've not got the lsightest inclination of really representingtheir members.

Sorry, but struggles the CWU is picking are just a case of trying to push back the tide, unless they actually unite with other workers and make a political stance to be seen to protect OUR public services and not just THEIR jobs (not that I'm criticising them for that, rather, I'm explianing how so many workers often sadly see these things).