Socialist Party members in CWU
It’s clear that Royal Mail believed that financial pressures from the 18 days of strike action, alongside the use of agency and casual staff to stop the vast majority of overtime, would break the back of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) postal strike.
This clearly failed. The strikes remained solid, resulting in Royal Mail writing to the CWU on 23 December, requesting negotiations, and a removal of the vast majority of agency staff.
We met in London
CWU postal reps from all around the country have met in London for an update on the talks, and to help prepare for the reballot required by the anti-trade union laws.
There was a clear mood of defiance among those there, and we are prepared to go again. The strike was not just for Christmas!
It was reported that there had been some movement by the management since their “best and final offer”. For example, bosses had extended ‘no compulsory redundancies’ to the end of year, and withdrawn their changes to the ill-health retirement procedures. But Royal Mail was still a long way off presenting an agreement that would be acceptable to the CWU.
Although management had stated in letters to the CWU that they would “pause” their revision changes, this had clearly not flowed down to all local management, as they were still progressing with revision plans in some areas. This caused some major issues, but management have now pulled back.
Reps also raised that victimisation of CWU reps and activists must be resolved, and there can’t be any agreement while we have reps and members sacked or suspended. Another issue was the cuts to the Customer Service Point (CSP) jobs, where a lot of work is performed by disabled members, which in practice would mean compulsory redundancies for these members.
Labour
The lack of support from the Labour leadership was highlighted by reps. Branches also raised that, although they were raising money themselves for the hardship fund, we need to have a big public appeal for a national hardship fund.
Now reps must get around all the members to make sure there is a huge ‘yes’ vote in the reballot, which closes on 16 February. Every office will be holding gate meetings. Members hope to win an agreement but must get ready to fight again.
