Red Postie

What’s this blog all about?

This blog is meant to be a Socialist contribution to our debates on the way forward, and for a class struggle, rank and file approach, set up by Workers Power supporters in the post.

However we also want it to be a resource and sounding board for postal workers to contribute to and use, with info on what’s happening in the offices, hubs and mail centres, news about the tactics and tricks managers are using and how workers are organising to foil these, both using the agreements and laws and through direct action. So send in your stories, news, and ideas and we’ll put them up. If you want to quote a story or post it somewhere go for it, but please attribute it and link to this blog.

Why this strike is key to our future

As postal workers we are a strong industrial section of the unions, one of the last in Britain where workers still have the confidence and organisation to stand up for ourselves and take unofficial action when necessary.  Defending our wages, pensions, jobs and union is important not just for us but the wider labour movement. If we are successful, it will be a green light for other sections of workers to fight back against cuts and privatisation.

The Labour government has driven Royal Mail towards privatisation under both Blair and Brown, installing a downsizing management team and opening the market to competition.  Our campaign against Labour’s attempt to privatise Royal Mail this year saw Brown and Mandelson back down… for now.

Going further back, our response to Royal Mail’s attacks in 2007 saw a magnificent strike and widespread wildcat action.  Royal Mail was on the ropes, but our sacrifice went down to defeat as our CWU leaders threw in the towel and pushed through a rotten deal, allowing Royal Mail to impose flexibility and hike our workload.  However postal bosses failed to smash the union and open the floodgates fully to “modernisation” (management and government spin for restructuring and downsizing) so now they are back to finish the job.

This year’s dispute is the big one, with our jobs, conditions, wages and pension on the chopping block, along with our union and the postal service itself. They want to smash the CWU and impose a part-time casualised workforce with few rights, no pension and no doubt in the future falling pay.  The postal service will become centred on the needs of big business and private operators, with a worse, more expensive service for the public.

Our response has to be a massive yes vote and immediate, rapidly escalating strike.

We don’t need to delay for talks – we can talk and walk at the same time.  Rather than ineffective one-day strikes, we need a rapid escalation up to all-out action to break Royal Mail’s offensive, going unofficial if the government tries to use the Tory anti-union laws against us.

We are in a powerful position and we can win – there is no alternative delivery network, companies hit by the recession are desperate for Christmas profits, and the government is tottering.

We can amplify our power by initiating solidarity committees with other unions to raise funds, counter government lies and coordinate strike action to maximise our impact. If we set up such bodies, we will be in the best position possible to call on other sections of workers for solidarity action if the bosses’ courts try to repress us.

As resistance grows to the crisis around Britain, a national postal strike dealing real blows to the bosses and their Labour government could spark a mass movement against cuts, closures and privatisation.

We shouldn’t give a penny to Labour, a bosses party that has attacked our union since 1997.   We need to follow London Division’s initiative, balloting its members on the Labour link, and demand our union breaks from Labour.  Branches should hold real ballots (London’s was indicative and non-binding) and throw our resources behind a new, fighting anti-capitalist party to lead the fightback and develop it into a revolutionary struggle for socialism.

Our leaders misled us throughout these years, bending the knee to the market, efficiency, flexibility and bringing us dangerously close to privatisation.  Hayes, Ward and the PEC don’t really want to fight, they want to cut a deal that will still see our jobs, offices and conditions cut down to size, damaging the union itself. We need a rank and file movement in the CWU, based on the fighting sections and organising members, activists and reps who want a more militant policy and complete victory.

This blog is meant to be a Socialist contribution to our debates on the way forward, and for this class struggle, rank and file approach.