After weeks of closed talks, the Postal Executive met yesterday afternoon and voted to call off the strikes scheduled for today and Monday. Post workers must demand to immediately see all the details of the latest offer and have a chance, this Sunday, to meet, discuss the deal and decide for themselves what is the way forward.
Otherwise they run the risk of being fobbed off by Royal Mail bosses, who could get the backlog and Christmas out of the way before returning to the attack. As we all know, the Tories are talking to private companies about privatising the service – and breaking the Communication Workers Union is a precondition for that.
According to the BBC’s Greg Wood, “If the strike is called off, it does not mean that the dispute has been resolved.” Instead, he added, it would amount to “a framework for proper talks, instituting a period of calm during which they can take place”. More ominously, the BBC quotes postal expert David Stubbs, from Europe Economics: “An agreement on a national level does not necessarily mean an agreement on a local level…and that could sow the seeds for a future dispute.”
The deal on offer agrees a “period of calm” until the end of the year. Royal Mail claims it will resolve all the issues currently in dispute at local level. At the same time, Royal Mail will open up new talks on “modernisation”.
The central question of job losses, workloads, loss of pay through reduction of hours has therefore not been progressed an inch.
Yes, Dave Ward claims the union has been promised a central role in this process. But that was also the case in 2007, the last time posties brought management to their knees. And the bosses broke first the spirit, then the letter of the agreement, leading to the current strike action. What would stop them doing it again?
Ward said, “It will take exceptional efforts to rebuild trust” because of the “bitter” nature of the dispute. But who is he kidding? Royal Mail management has spent the past six months bullying strikers, favouring scabs, mucking about with their shifts and hours, and imposing other changes. They don’t want to rebuild trust. They want to break the CWU.
The only reason Adam Crozier and Peter Mandelson have signed this new deal is because they know the CWU’s trump card is the period up to Christmas.
The worst thing that could happen for our side is that the 30,000 temps are used to clear the backlog. The busiest time of the year, during which businesses need the delivery service to get mail and internet orders delivered, comes and goes. Then millionaire Adam Crozier swans into the negotiating room and declares that, after all, they do have a different vision of “modernisation” to the union after all, and the executive action starts all over again.
What a criminal waste of every postie’s sacrifice that would be!
In fact, this whole ploy is a union-busting exercise. Royal Mail tried to break us before Christmas, but we were too strong. They now calculate that, if they attack us again in the New Year, many postal workers will be too broke to strike again, and that their sprit will be broken, too. But they have miscalculated before – and maybe this time too, if rank and file postal workers act fast!
Postal workers should demand the union immediately reinstate the action unless and until the members vote to call it off. It was the decision of 120,000 postal CWU members to call the action. Only they, the striking members, can rightfully decide whether to call it off, not 19 members on the Postal Executive or Brendan Barber of the TUC!
Districts and regions, like London, Edinburgh and Bristol, which have their own strike ballots to fall back on, should use them to continue the action. Others that don’t should demand the strikes are reinstated or – where possible – walk out anyway. By doing this, rank and file postal workers would also send the strongest possible signal to Royal Mail bosses that the only way they can get us back to working normally before Christmas is to
• Guarantee no job losses to bring in the new machines, but a 35 hour week with no loss of pay
• Repudiate privatisation
• Unwind all the executive action taken since April
• Drop the charges against all members disciplined and reinstate all those sacked during the strike
• Force the government to underwrite the pension fund.
Emergency branch meetings all over the country could be held this Sunday. All sides should be heard, not just the leadership’s. The full details of the deal should be printed off so everyone knows what is and what is not on offer. Branches should vote to demand the strike action continues and an immediate recall conference is convened – with or without Billy Hayes, Dave Ward and the Postal Executive Committee – to discuss how to win this dispute.
Let Royal Mail – and the CWU leadership – know: we don’t need a “period of calm” to chew over vague forms of words, but a storm of strikes, unless Royal Mail concedes to our demands for a quality service delivered by a decently paid and treated workforce.
Victory to the post workers!
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