A Coventry postal worker
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) recently announced its intention to hold a national strike ballot if any postal worker, anywhere in the country, is made compulsorily redundant. This is to be welcomed as Royal Mail, under the stewardship of new boss Moya Greene, seems intent on ripping up the agreement it signed up to just a year ago.
This new business plan includes the closure of half of the mail centres around the country, which will lead to compulsory redundancies. This is contrary to last year’s agreement. And it won’t end with mail centre closures.
CWU members can learn from the stand of the four unions taking action on 30 June. We need to be unified in action against the planned attacks on all our jobs. And we need our union leaders to begin to coordinate action with other unions whose members face attacks on their jobs, pay, conditions and the services they provide.
We face a further attack on our pensions if Royal Mail is privatised. We were shunted onto an inferior pension scheme two years ago and the CWU leaders accepted it. This was unforgivable. It’s down to members to put pressure on the leadership to allow us to take action in order to defend ourselves from all attacks.
