Thanks to the Unison activist who sent in this report, from a protest at the Dartford scab mail centre:

I went to the Dartford scab mail centre in Kent this morning with the aim of trying to organise the agency workers organised to undermine the national postal strike, and convince some to reject scabbing and help organise against it. The action was organised by the Socialist Workers Party through Right To Work.

Around 20 solidarity activists and trade unionists made it out at 5 AM to Dartford. Charlie Kimber (SWP) spoke about the importance of action. Our aim was to flag up the issue of the scab mail centres through this action, and try to win a hearing from workers and persuade them to tell their labour agency that they don’t want to do scab work. By taking action the aim is to convince CWU workers and the wider trade union movement to develop a strategy to deal with the centres if the strike is not won quickly.

We got to the mail centre around 5:20 and began to leaflet workers. We explained we were there in solidarity with postal workers, that the work they were being asked to do was undermining the strike and we were asking workers not to do it. One worker stopped to talk to us, explaining he was made redundant a year ago, and just looking for work like everyone else. He said they were offered jobs with possibility of permanent work in future. Charlie explained of course they would say this but really there wouldn’t be any permanent jobs, workers would just be discarded after the strike is finished. In the end the worker said fair enough but he had to work. He wouldn’t actually say what they were doing inside.

[a Guardian reporter has showed what is going on inside at the Bristol scab centre, parcel basketball!]

We tried to leaflet everyone. I estimate around a third to a half took a leaflet. The response was hostile from some workers who said they just wanted to work. Many said they were unemployed and trying to feed their families. One gave a short interview to the reporter from ITV who questioned him about the fact he was strikebreaking and he said he had a wife and kid to feed and needed to work. When confronted with the argument that that was what postal workers would say, he just said he didn’t care, he had to look after his family.

Workers did stop and talk more if they were approached out in the parking lot rather than in front of the doorway where a manager was standing, no doubt to intimidate any from speaking to us. Several seriously listened to the arguments, and one activist reported that he had got the phone number of a worker who would be willing to talk with Right To Work and discuss possible action, which is a great development if we can follow through on it. Fundamentally these workers have been enlisted in Royal Mail’s scab army by unemployment and no doubt Agency threats that if they don’t take the job, they won’t get another.

One activist found a letter in one of the rubbish bags which one of the workers had obviously binned was it had no postcode showing casualised labour, means slipshod work with no checks and no regard for peoples mail.

Once most of the staff had gone in a couple of us rummaged through the bins by the main entrance. They were stuffed full of mail tags showing where all the mail was diverted from. Lots was from London but there were plenty of tags from places like Belfast, Bradford and Edinburgh showing the mail was being diverted from all over the country. Almost all of it seemed to be international mail from placesoutside Britain. Places mail was coming from were Australia, Poland, Hong Kong, Singapore, France and plenty more. I grabbed a handful of tags to show to postal workers on picket lines and at solidarity meetings.

It is worth mentioning that while it doesn’t matter where a worker (or scab) is from, the hysterical headlines about migrant workers was shown to be a typical media spin. In reality the workforce was very mixed and not a migrant majority by any means. Lots of young white men and women, most working-class, a few who looked like students.

M, Unison and Workers Power