Postal workers in the UK have been holding 1 and 2 day strikes to resist Royal Mail's oppressive "team-working" plans, designed to cut costs and impose faster and harder workrates. The posties want better pay, shorter hours, a 5 day week, and protection of the 2nd postal delivery.
An Edinburgh postal worker writes -
DURING SEPTEMBER Royal Mail, the Tory government, and Labour leader Blair all chorused that the postal workers should hold a second ballot and end the strikes. Then a Friday/Monday strike hit the post office like never before. Almost 2 weeks were required to properly recover from the disruption. More weekend strikes were eagerly awaited. But in late September our Communication Workers Union (CWU) leaders ordered a suspension of the strikes. We were to be balloted once again just to confirm to the Doubting Thomases that our resolve remained firm.
That was the story for public consumption. The truth of the matter smacks more of intrigue, corruption and betrayal. Union boss Johnson insisted the strikes stop, stating that in the Union letter informing Royal Mail of the July ballot result the number of spoilt ballot papers had been tippexed out! This, claimed Johnson, laid the Union open to legal action and bankruptcy, and so a new ballot was essential. Swearing the CWU National Executive to secrecy, Johnson threatened to bring in Executive members from British Telecom to over-rule the postal executive . Significantly this all occurred when the strike was entering an increased offensive, and when "New" Labour desire calm in the class war to ensure election victory. (Johnson is a Labour executive member and Blairite.) Motions of no confidence in General Secretary Johnson and calls for nation- wide escalsation of the strikes have been passsed unanimously at mass meetings of CWU Scotland No2 branch (Edinburgh, Lothians and Fife).. FLYING HIGH Throughout Fife and the Borders flying pickets have defied the anti picketing laws to bring home this dispute's importance to the smaller more isolated Delivery Offices. Royal Mail's private police video-taped flying pickets to identify them. Once again CWU Union HQ co-operated with Royal Mail and ordered that the secondary picketing stop. Pickets ignored this. Pillar box locks have been super-glued to frustrate scab managers clearing the letters. Scab offices have had their entrance gates chained and padlocked, offering pickets the amusement of seeing scumbag managers scaling 12 feet gates to get to work.
Country-wide there have been numerous unofficialwalk-outs against victimisation of local activists or because management broke agreed working practices. Milton Keynes struck for a week, and Oxford for 3 days in early October, to oppose victimisations. Dunfermline and Edinburgh South East Delivery Office are fighting for the reinstatement of 2 sacked posties and others on suspended dismissal by conducting 2nd delivery strikes. This will be escalated when the time is apt.. Many branches are now demanding that the issue of dismissed or disciplined strikers feature in any future agreement with Royal Mail. Victimised postal workers will NOT be forgotten. There will be no sacrificial lambs just so an agreement can be concluded.
TOO VITAL TO LOSE
The danger of a strategy of one day strikes is that it can create a passivity among members and allows the Union's officials to dominate the course of the strikes. Self-organisation and self-initiative can be stifled. Nevertheless, it is possible, as activists within Scotland No2 branch have shown, to act independently and confront Royal Mail (and the Union right wing). If we can no longer trust our General Secretary and his cohorts, the rank and file must bring victory by co-ordinated grass- root action.
The postal strike has now become too vital to lose for ALL trade union members inALL industries. A victory for Royal Mail will be a victory for the Tories, but, more importantly for the future, it will be a victory for Union bureaucracy and Tony Blair's New Labour. Very soon the whole movement must mobilise. In Edinburgh, from an initiative of CWU activists, a "Workers Liason Committee' is sharing experiences and providing asistance by joint actions to all trade unionists or others in struggle. The WLC so far has helped water workers resisting local re-organisation, the unemployed fighting new job seeking rules, a Nigerian campaign against Shell Oil and a closure of a local mental health hostel. Increasingly it's becoming more and more clear that we all face a common problem - capitalism and the drive for profits before peoples welfare. The longer we have been fighting Royal Mail in defence of our jobs and conditions, the more we've come to understand that the established trade union organisation not only handicaps us in our fight but actually acts against us. Now is the time for not just postal workers to endeavour to re-organise but for us all. Edinburgh & Lothians Workers Liason Committee, c/o CWU, 15 Brunswick St., Edinburgh.