You are here: Home / London

Dispatches Disses Posties

February 8, 2010 By admin 2 Comments

Tonight’s Dispatches documentary “Post Office Undercover” barely concealed its anti-union, pro-privatisation bias. Two journalists Joe and Karim went undercover as agency postal workers to expose the problems in Royal Mail.

The hidden camera showed again and again postal workers forced to deal with too few staff and unsustainable workloads. But put through the Dispatches camera’s special filter lens, this ended up interpreted as lazy workers and greedy unions. Nowhere was it asked why cuts were needed, if Royal Mail is already making a big profit.

Royal Mail managers were exposed for their laidback attitude to stealing, angry customers, and damaged mail, but the aim wasn’t to show a public service shredded by cutbacks and competition, but a dysfunctional company that can only be saved by privatisation.

The bias became blatant with the string of “experts” who were wheeled out to pronounce on how crap Royal Mail and the CWU are:

- Richard Hooper, handpicked by Peter Mandelson to run an “independent” commission and back Labour’s plans for privatisation (which he did, obliging chap that he is).

- A free market guru from the rightwing Adam Smith Institute who is against the one-price-goes anywhere USO.

- The slimy Post Switch website founder Jonathan DeCarteret who’s aim is to help “companies switch from Royal Mail to rival operators”.

Not a single union representative was formally interviewed (not counting working reps spied on by camera).

Yet what did the programme really show, to those without a privatizing agenda?

- Untrained agency staff out delivering for long hours, even till after dark (the agreed delivery span is 3.5 hours)

- Agency staff sent out without an experienced worker to show them round, leading to long hours or mail being brought back to office (Royal Mail policy is to have new starters who are put on new walks to be shown round without fail for the first six weeks).

- Agency staff were untrained, not seriously vetted or supervised, despite Royal Mail’s claims when they were training up a quality temporary staff (to scab on last year’s strike) and its zero tolerance to stealing. At one point agency staff are left to let in others without any ID being presented, then asked to write down their names fifteen minutes into a shift!

- Keys lost, mail returned by untrained agency staff, putting more work onto the normal staff, who then have to deliver the extra left over (and late) mail the next day without necessary equipment such as keys, working trolleys etc.

And that was just the first half of the programme! The second half was the real hatchet job on the workers and the union.

The managers accuse their workers of not telling the truth about how long it takes to work. “These guys are slowing down –They’re deliberately taking out less. They’re not working normally.”

It shows offices like Brixton where the previous four day week has been forcibly returned to five days, supposedly the manager says for “modernisation and efficiency.” Yet when asked whether staff claims are true, that eight hours is too little to deliver all their mail, he admits “on certain days it probably is.”

The workers are more to the point and angry about it: “These walks have doubled, that’s why we’ve been striking, its out of order”. A senior rep at Tooting office says “a lot of workers think its wrong. It’s the Managers fault, we’re only on an 8 hour day and can’t do it.”

The camera spies on managers and union reps in the canteen “haggling” over the amount of overtime that will be allowed to help shift the mountain of Christmas mail – what Dispatches doesn’t bother to say is that Royal Mail for the last three years has cut back on the amount of extra hours allotted to offices at Xmas, expecting workers to work flat out to cover the extra load while they keep up standards of delivery.

In the undercover footage the Reps say the workers won’t accept what Royal Mail is offering and want double the overtime proposed – too right! Ultimately they get 29 hours extra offered over Christmas but in return have to clear the office. Hardly unreasonable.

The reporter asks managers why they tolerate the union’s demands. One Brixton manager explains how managers have been forced to retreat in the face of postal workers determination and strength: “In some of the offices the management hasn’t got the power. It’s a struggle just to get them out on the street.”

Meanwhile a Tooting Manager tips the real gameplan behind returning to the four day work week: “Keep them happy for Christmas. We’ve got another fight next year.” Yet when they take away the four day work week again in January, managers are forced to backtrack when the workers threaten to strike. Workers were told on Saturday it would go to back to the five day week on Monday!

All of these incidents are painted in such a way as to make the workers look greedy and uncaring. One worker is shown to be unsympathetic to customers queuing (around the block) for parcels, but now Royal Mail is closing offices and hiking the price of redelivering packages to customer’s local post office. Who is really to blame for short fuses on both sides? Modernisation cuts and privatisation clearly lead to a worse service for the public and deeper exploitation of the workforce.

Karim slates postal workers for abandoning their walks in the January ice. A postal worker explains to him that the manager refused to let them out early so they would have the time to take care and deliver, instead piling the work, but this is uncommented on. The workers were right to protect themselves.

Karim patronizingly states that HE doesn’t have trouble delivering in the icy conditions. “There’s nothing wrong with this path at all” – where a thin strip of concrete is surrounded by ice as far as eye can see!

Of course Karim is only playing at being a postie for a few weeks. If he falls he will have a Channel 4 journalists job to go back too, not an injury that will make years of working life painful or a Rottweiler Royal Mail manager that might even see him or her lose their job.

It’s a shame Adam Crozier isn’t transferring to run Dispatches instead of poor old ITV staff, then these two journalists could experience the old Royal Mail management magic first hand! It might change their tune.

Filed Under London, Royal Mail Tagged With Adam Crozier, Agency staff, Dispatches, London, Rank and File Control, Royal Mail, Workload hikes

Support London’s call to restart the national strike

November 21, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

“This is a national agreement they’re breaking, it’s a national union, therefore it requires national action.”

London division officials are demanding the PEC restore the national strike, under pressure from their own members. Finally! It will surprise nobody that London Royal Mail managers have refused to budge on cuts or dismantled scab mail centres.

London postal activists, reps and branches should demand that the calls to lobby the PEC are put into effect by calling a demonstration at the PEC to show national leaders a little bit of the anger – and determination to fight – that exists among posties in London and further afield.

Branches all around the country, especially the 500+ that balloted before the national action began, should send in emergency resolutions to back up London and make sure that we stay united. Royal Mail will try to say, “this is a London thing, the militants are trying to sabotage the agreement”.

Nothing could be further from the truth, all the reports from Bristol, Glasgow and elsewhere show that Royal Mail is not retracting cuts or dragging its feet. The lack of progress after 3 weeks has even leaked out into the press, with one source close to the secret national talks has said “So far, it’s been a case of talks about talks.”

The London call for restarting the national strike has come late but is a welcome move that the rank and file need to push forward. If the PEC does not heed the call, London workers should vote with their feet and walkout.

A wasted month – let’s recover lost ground

The same London officials were quick to line up behind Dave Ward and the PEC to sell the Interim Agreement (IA) three weeks ago. They have argued that the deal isn’t a “sell out”, the local and national ballots are still live, and Xmas strikes could still hit the Royal Mail if it would not seriously negotiate its 2009 local cuts and 2010 modernisation plans. Well if proof was needed, now it’s here!

The truth is this is spin. The London CWU leaders by backing Dave Ward’s strategy have wasted a precious month. The IA has stopped the national strike’s momentum, and undermined the magnificent action of London postal workers who have led the CWU with 18 to 23 days of unpaid strike action. While many London officials have defended the deal, the term sell-out is unavoidable:

1. Royal Mail just wants to play for time

If this agreement came at any other time it would still be wrong because it has allowed the backlog to be cleared in many parts of the country. However this is not just any old six week period. Dropping the strikes at Christmas time, when we are strongest, is downright destructive. Even if the PEC calls a strike this Tuesday, the earliest we will be out is 1 December – four weeks wasted.

In other words, as many postal activists argued, Royal Mail has used the process as they always intended: to delay. Momentum has been broken and a demoralising near silence from the leadership, just like in August-September 2007 where negotiations saw nearly 6 weeks without a peep from the tops. A month has been thrown away to “explore” whether Royal Mail could be trusted. Thousands of angry CWU members, especially in London, have been proven right.

2. The agreement has built in divide-and-rule

The IA is meant to divide London from the rest. RM will bend over backwards to avoid confrontation in some areas, so it can point the finger at London as militants obstructing “modernisation”. If strikes are back on this will be a key part in a media offensive against our union. Some postal workers were already nervous about Christmas strikes thanks to the hysterical squeals by journalists, business groups and government ministers. The pressure will be even worse this time.

The question is, after surrendering once, will our national leaders all of a sudden discover their backbone and call the whole union out in such an atmosphere, especially when some regional officials will no doubt argue behind the scenes against being called out again?

The danger is that we will go back to the situation before the national strike, with stronger areas like London going it alone. That is why it is so important that every branch piles on the disagreement and calls on the leadership to immediately revive the national strike.

What about trust?

Mark Palfrey, a leading London official recently interviewed by the Commune before the IA, laid out how Royal Mail bosses were completely untrustworthy: “Basically, RM completely went back on an agreement they had made – there’s no other way of putting it. They’ve broken their own agreement. They’ve broken the terms of the existing national agreement, and they’ve broken large numbers of the local agreements our branches have… They’ve done this by what they call executive action, which means without agreement.” So why have the same London officials wasted the last few weeks backing Ward’s arguments to give Royal Mail a chance to rebuild trust? Royal Mail was never going to change its spots for the IA – it wasn’t required to!

Palfrey also said, “There’s a war going on…We’re in a war with Royal Mail, a war that we must win.” But what general supports a truce without concessions from the enemy, when our side had the upper hand and was giving them a pounding? The fact is Ward and PEC are looking for any way out of a strike they never wanted to call in the first place.

The London Division leaders have defended the Interim Agreement out of loyalty to Ward – just like they did for the 2007 Pay and Modernisation deal. Their support was crucial to allowing the IA to go ahead. But this has put a dent in the national strikes’ momentum and threatens to divide the union – it therefore hits the interests of their London members most of all.

Just as they have led the national action, it is London posties who will have to develop an independent rank and file movement to force the national strike back on track, with or without the leaders, and take back our union from the bureaucrats in order to lead it to victory. London branches against the IA can take the lead and call a national meeting to kick start such an initiative.

Lobby the PEC on Tuesday: restart the national strike!

Filed Under 2007 Pay & Modernisation Deal, Dave Ward, London, National Strike, Rank & File Control, Royal Mail, Uncategorized Tagged With Dave Ward, London, Rank and File Control, Royal Mail

Labour party booted out of London CWU (indicatively)

September 25, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

At a rally in London on Wednesday the results of the London Division’s indicative ballot were announced with 96% or more in favour of suspending funding to Labour, effectively disaffiliating from the party that brought you the European Postal Directive, Allan Leighton, Consignia, Crozier, Postcomm, competition in the postal market, Hooper report, Mandelson, privatisation…need we go on?!  We all remember Gordon Brown’s sympathetic support to our strike in 2007 (“they should get back to work”) and Mandy’s heartfelt response to the CWU’s demand that the government take on the pension (“I have instructed it will not happen. It is time for the union to wake up to the need for change”).

Instead of throwing more money (£1 million last year!) at Labour the unions should come together and build a new, anticapitalist party to unite our resistance to the capitalist crisis.

Originally London CWU tops pledged to defy union rules and disaffiliate, before backing down. Now there is a clear message from the rank and file: stop shackling us to this party that is attacking us.

Let’s roll out real ballots around the country, rules or no rules.  After all, its not like the PEC has broken conference decisions left right and centre – they were supposed to ballot us in March 2009 if Labour had not backed down on privatisation or pension cuts. And what happened to that 2 July timetable on industrial action?

Filed Under Labour Party, London, New Anticapitalist Party Tagged With Labour Party, London, New Anticapitalist Party