27 August 2003

Socialist Postal Worker – pay action special 2003

Reject the bosses’ derisory offer – vote yes for action

• For basic pay for postal workers of £300 a week with no strings or job losses

• No to 30,000 redundancies

• For a 35-hour, five day week with no loss of pay

• For a substantial increase in London Weighting

• Reject management’s imposed plans for change

IN THE last few weeks Royal Mail Management – especially in the form of Allan Leighton – have signalled that they want a bare-knuckle fight with postal workers who are members of the Communication Workers’ Union.

They claim that they are offering 14.5% but this is untrue. The only definite money on offer is 3% in October 2003 and 1.5% next April. On top of that Royal Mail wants its ‘Major Change’ proposals to see 30,000 jobs axed – effectively destroying the service.

Running down

Management plans are a sure-fire way of running the postal service down further to allow the privatisation sharks to sink their teeth into postal deliveries. Already – even before the ballot over industrial action started – plans were being drawn up for private companies to deliver letters if a strike goes ahead.

Postwatch – the so-called consumer watchdog that reports to the government – has called for the suspension of the Royal Mail’s monopoly for up to 12 months because they claim that the prospect of a year’s business in thought necessary for private companies to invest in the mail infrastructure – even if a strike lasts for a lot less time.

Royal Mail management are preparing to face down the union and postal workers to introduce wide-ranging attacks on our conditions and prepare the way for eventual privatisation.

Essential to deliver yes vote

That’s why it is essential to deliver the biggest possible yes vote for action in this current ballot – it is about more than wage negotiations, it is about the whole future of the industry being run as a public service.

We’ve seen what a disaster privatisation has been for other public services, like rail, the coal industry and even in BT, where decade of hundreds of thousands of job losses have been followed by the company being driven to the brink of financial ruin.

Just over a decade ago the Post Office was making millions of pound each week in profit, which was being siphoned off by the government.

Now they claim Royal Mail is losing £750,000 a day but while their figures are debatable, any loss that the company is making is down to the bosses’ incompetence. It is certainly not down to the ‘high wages’ of the workforce.

Strike action

If we go down the road of strike action we have to make sure that our anger is matched by a determination to win from our union leaders.

So far they have stood up to management pressure and bullying. But as the threat of action looms nearer all sorts of pressures will be brought to bear.

Just witness what happened in the firefighters’ strike when the union leaders constantly gave in to pressure to call off strikes and this disorientated and demoralised many FBU members.

Blair’s government is looking for his equivalent of the miners’ strike. Despite throwing everything at the firefighters they still did not break the union because of the determination of the rank-and-file members to ensure their leaders didn’t capitulate.

Firefighters

But, the firefighters did not achieve the victory either that seemed within their grasp at one stage.

Any strike now in the public sector has to be all out to win. And it needs to get the backing in the form of solidarity action from other public-sector unions.

The Left union leaders – known as the ‘awkward squad’ – now control most of the major unions in this country – potentially over four million workers could be drawn into action in defence of another public-sector union.

An injury to one is an injury to all and a victory for one group of workers would inspire confidence in others. There is potentially a whole number of issues where public-sector workers could unite in action – from London weighting to pensions.

Left leaders

The Left leaders need to turn words into action. They were elected because union members were dissatisfied with the old union establishment who were too cosy with the bosses.

And as the defeat of Mick Rix in Aslef shows, union leaders cannot simply believe that having Left credentials will see them retain their leadership of the unions. It’s time to build support for the Left amongst postal workers and CWU members.

Union members want leaders who will deliver on the promise to improve our living standards and conditions of work. For too long we’ve let management get away with imposing poverty pay and sniping at our working conditions.

We say enough is enough:

• For all-out action to defend our jobs, wages and conditions and to stop privatisation.