Billy Hayes, the general secretary of the Communication Worker Union (CWU), denies saying that his organisation was in a stronger position than the miners were at the start of their strike 25 years ago. Nevertheless, the miners’ historic, year-long struggle for jobs is a suitable reference point for postal workers.
The difficulty the CWU has in reaching an agreement with Royal Mail management has echoes of the challenge that the National Union of Miners (NUM) and Arthur Scargill faced. Eventually, of course, the NUM returned without an agreement with the state-owned National Coal Board (NCB) and pit closures followed soon afterwards.
No agreement was possible because the state, directed by the Thatcher Tory government, was determined to shut pits that were deemed “uneconomic”, mines that did not make a profit. A quarter of a century later, the state-owned Royal Mail, directed by the New Labour government, is adopting a similar standpoint.
Commercial profitability is what drives Royal Mail management. “Modernisation” in their terms means the destruction of tens of thousands of jobs. By all accounts, the draft agreements have been so vague that the CWU executive has felt unable to sign on the dotted line and call off the strikes, whatever the recommendation of the negotiators led by assistant general secretary Dave Ward.
Tens of thousands of jobs have already gone in recent years with the CWU doing little about it. Signing up to the management’s agenda this time could well sound the death knell of the union as a fighting force because membership could be halved within a short time.
So if the CWU leaders are serious they have no time to lose in mobilising against the management AND New Labour. It is simply dishonest for them to call on business secretary Lord Mandelson to intervene. Mandelson has – and it’s on the side of the management.
New Labour is the main enemy. This government imposed capitalist, profit-making criteria on the Royal Mail, which is why thousands of post offices have closed and the delivery service has deteriorated as a result of cost-cutting measures. It has long ceased being a public service in the accepted sense of the word.
New Labour is ready to return with plans to part-privatise the Royal Mail, which it has shelved and not abandoned (if they lose the election, the Tories will carry on where Mandelson left off). The massive state financial deficit from bailing out the banks makes a sell-off a racing certainty.
One of the key lessons of the miners’ strike is that no single group of trade unionists on their own can defeat the government and the state, which in this case includes the employers and the anti-union laws that serve to weaken effective industrial action (the Tories are planning to impose new laws on top of those retained by New Labour).
The future of the CWU is at stake and union leaders must say so loud and clear. They need to mobilise the membership in indefinite strike action and defy the anti-union laws to picket out the strike-breaking force being recruited by Royal Mail.
In place of redundancies, the CWU should demand job sharing at no loss of pay to advance the right to work in a period of mass unemployment. In place of overpaid Royal Mail management, there is a case for a joint worker-consumer control of the service.
Making the post a genuine public service will require a government that is not in the grip of big business and the banks, as all the major parties are. That’s a tall order but the CWU, by being decisive and rejecting naked commercialism, could help open a discussion about achieving a real political change.
If the union leaders are serious about winning this fight, they need to show it or step aside for those who are committed to saving every job.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
For revolutionary solutions to create a sustainable, not-for-profit economy in place of global capital alongside a real democracy based on People’s Assemblies. Visit our web site at www.aworldtowin.net
Showing posts with label CWU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CWU. Show all posts
Friday, October 30, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
The challenge facing postal workers
Just how right postal workers are to fight for their jobs is borne out by today’s figures showing that the British economy, far from “recovering”, remains critically ill on life support. The sixth successive quarterly fall in output is the longest continuous decline since records began in 1955.
The estimates mean the depth of the current slump in output is close to the 6% fall seen between 1979 and 1981. None of the measures adopted by the state, including virtually zero interest rates and pumping £175 billion into the financial system is having a significant impact. The banks have simply taken the money and used it to finance another bout of speculation.
To lose your job in this situation is tantamount to joining poverty street. You can’t survive on dole payments and if you’ve got a mortgage, there is no help with housing costs either. There are few decently-paid jobs out there and mail workers would be crazy to accept management-imposed “efficiency” changes at their expense.
Their solid strikes this week show Royal Mail workers don’t accept that they should sacrifice their livelihoods on the altar of cost-cutting. Some 60,000 jobs have already gone in the last few years and the burden on those remaining is already intolerable.
This has drawn the accusation from management and New Labour that mail workers are standing in the way of “modernisation”. But what is this “modernisation” that Lord Mandelson and others are so fond of? Mandelson, of course, was the architect of “modernising” the Labour Party. This proved to be a cover for the actual destruction of what had gone before and its replacement with something quite different.
New Labour is not a “modernised” version of its predecessor. Instead, it is the political executive of the business and financial classes. This explains Mandelson’s vehement attacks on postal workers and the government’s sabotaging of a compromise deal with the Communication Workers’ Union.
The “modernisation” of Royal Mail in the same way is not intended to create a better place to work or to improve the service to the public. Instead, it is aimed at making it profitable so that the service can be privatised – by whichever party wins the next general election.
Placing the postal strikes in the context of the deepening economic crisis, it is important to support mail workers in developing a strategy that challenges the capitalist mantra of cost accounting and efficiency savings that inevitably lead to job losses and more intense exploitation for those left. The strategy would focus on an alternative, not-for-profit approach. For example, where new technology is applied, the results could include a shorter working week at the same levels of pay. It would expose the fact that in class society, the interests of workers and employers can never be identical.
We have to study alternatives to the capitalist approach, whereby cost reduction is always carried out to the disadvantage of the workforce. In any case, as we have seen, the profit-based approach leads inevitably to an over-reliance on credit and debt and thence to an uncontrollable crisis such as the one we are in now.
Bringing about change along these lines requires imagination and a capacity to look beyond the immediate struggle to protect jobs and livelihoods. By rejecting government-orchestrated intimidation and pursuing their strikes, postal workers are creating the conditions for doing just that.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
The estimates mean the depth of the current slump in output is close to the 6% fall seen between 1979 and 1981. None of the measures adopted by the state, including virtually zero interest rates and pumping £175 billion into the financial system is having a significant impact. The banks have simply taken the money and used it to finance another bout of speculation.
To lose your job in this situation is tantamount to joining poverty street. You can’t survive on dole payments and if you’ve got a mortgage, there is no help with housing costs either. There are few decently-paid jobs out there and mail workers would be crazy to accept management-imposed “efficiency” changes at their expense.
Their solid strikes this week show Royal Mail workers don’t accept that they should sacrifice their livelihoods on the altar of cost-cutting. Some 60,000 jobs have already gone in the last few years and the burden on those remaining is already intolerable.
This has drawn the accusation from management and New Labour that mail workers are standing in the way of “modernisation”. But what is this “modernisation” that Lord Mandelson and others are so fond of? Mandelson, of course, was the architect of “modernising” the Labour Party. This proved to be a cover for the actual destruction of what had gone before and its replacement with something quite different.
New Labour is not a “modernised” version of its predecessor. Instead, it is the political executive of the business and financial classes. This explains Mandelson’s vehement attacks on postal workers and the government’s sabotaging of a compromise deal with the Communication Workers’ Union.
The “modernisation” of Royal Mail in the same way is not intended to create a better place to work or to improve the service to the public. Instead, it is aimed at making it profitable so that the service can be privatised – by whichever party wins the next general election.
Placing the postal strikes in the context of the deepening economic crisis, it is important to support mail workers in developing a strategy that challenges the capitalist mantra of cost accounting and efficiency savings that inevitably lead to job losses and more intense exploitation for those left. The strategy would focus on an alternative, not-for-profit approach. For example, where new technology is applied, the results could include a shorter working week at the same levels of pay. It would expose the fact that in class society, the interests of workers and employers can never be identical.
We have to study alternatives to the capitalist approach, whereby cost reduction is always carried out to the disadvantage of the workforce. In any case, as we have seen, the profit-based approach leads inevitably to an over-reliance on credit and debt and thence to an uncontrollable crisis such as the one we are in now.
Bringing about change along these lines requires imagination and a capacity to look beyond the immediate struggle to protect jobs and livelihoods. By rejecting government-orchestrated intimidation and pursuing their strikes, postal workers are creating the conditions for doing just that.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Friday, October 16, 2009
Plot to destroy postal union
New Labour and Royal Mail management have hatched a thinly-disguised plot to destroy the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) if postal workers go ahead with their strikes next week over jobs and pay. That’s the clear message from the leaked document obtained by BBC’s Newsnight.
Behind the strategy is business secretary Lord Mandelson, who more and more seems in charge of the government. Gordon Brown is beholden to Mandelson after he blocked attempts to remove him as prime minister earlier this year. Mandelson has described CWU’s strike plans as “suicidal” and has come out against intervention by the arbitration service ACAS.
Mandelson withdrew plans to for a partial sell-off of Royal Mail because potential buyers signalled that the service needed “modernising” first. Since then, management has unilaterally introduced new working practices, leading to a series of localised strikes by postal workers.
Next week’s two days of national strike action (22 and 23 October) have been called in a bid to force Royal Mail to reach an agreement with the union on a way forward. But the leaked document shows that management and the government are not interested in a compromise but want to fatally weaken the CWU to prepare the state-owned service for privatisation.
The Royal Mail document marked “in strictest confidence” talks of “shareholder support” for the hard-line position - the government is the company’s only shareholder. Dated 24 September, the secret plan suggests that Royal Mail will effectively “de-recognise” the CWU by denying union reps facilities to carry out their activities.
The document also raises the possibility of managers delivering the mail and scab labour also being recruited. The PowerPoint presentation, obtained by BBC's Newsnight has a section marked “objectives” which states that “through the dispute” Royal Mail will “deliver the necessary 2009 changes with or without union engagement”. It refers to strikes as an "enabler" of its aims, saying "strikes make things worse".
Billy Hayes, general secretary of the CWU, told the BBC: "There is no question the document is genuine, what's more worrying is that Peter Mandelson seemed to know the document quite well. It does seem like an organised attempt to sideline the union. What we need is an agreement to modernise the company with the consent of the workforce. We want an agreement and we want to negotiate with good faith."
This is clearly not on the agenda, however. The government and management intend to break the union’s resistance and carry through their own programme of rationalisation and redundancies to add to the 63,000 workers already cut from the payroll over the last few years.
Right-wing papers like the Daily Mail are already salivating about the prospects of a re-run of the miners’ strike of 1984-8, when the Tories deployed the state to batter the union and impose pit closures. And yet the CWU inexplicably continues to fund New Labour to the tune of £1 million a year and express surprise at Mandelson’s position.
The argument has been that funding buys “influence” with the government and that the Tories could be much worse. Well, it seems more likely money down the drain when you consider Mandelson’s position and it’s hard to see the Tories planning anything harsher than the current government.
New Labour wants to demonstrate to big business and the middle-class electorate that it can be “tough” with the unions and workers. That’s why the government also intends to postpone the introduction of rights for temporary workers until 2011 required under European Union law.
The CWU is facing a fight to the finish with the government and management and it better get ready for this. Postal workers will need the active support in industrial action of other trade unionists, especially those in the public sector facing imminent pay cuts and job losses, if they are to defeat the New Labour government.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Behind the strategy is business secretary Lord Mandelson, who more and more seems in charge of the government. Gordon Brown is beholden to Mandelson after he blocked attempts to remove him as prime minister earlier this year. Mandelson has described CWU’s strike plans as “suicidal” and has come out against intervention by the arbitration service ACAS.
Mandelson withdrew plans to for a partial sell-off of Royal Mail because potential buyers signalled that the service needed “modernising” first. Since then, management has unilaterally introduced new working practices, leading to a series of localised strikes by postal workers.
Next week’s two days of national strike action (22 and 23 October) have been called in a bid to force Royal Mail to reach an agreement with the union on a way forward. But the leaked document shows that management and the government are not interested in a compromise but want to fatally weaken the CWU to prepare the state-owned service for privatisation.
The Royal Mail document marked “in strictest confidence” talks of “shareholder support” for the hard-line position - the government is the company’s only shareholder. Dated 24 September, the secret plan suggests that Royal Mail will effectively “de-recognise” the CWU by denying union reps facilities to carry out their activities.
The document also raises the possibility of managers delivering the mail and scab labour also being recruited. The PowerPoint presentation, obtained by BBC's Newsnight has a section marked “objectives” which states that “through the dispute” Royal Mail will “deliver the necessary 2009 changes with or without union engagement”. It refers to strikes as an "enabler" of its aims, saying "strikes make things worse".
Billy Hayes, general secretary of the CWU, told the BBC: "There is no question the document is genuine, what's more worrying is that Peter Mandelson seemed to know the document quite well. It does seem like an organised attempt to sideline the union. What we need is an agreement to modernise the company with the consent of the workforce. We want an agreement and we want to negotiate with good faith."
This is clearly not on the agenda, however. The government and management intend to break the union’s resistance and carry through their own programme of rationalisation and redundancies to add to the 63,000 workers already cut from the payroll over the last few years.
Right-wing papers like the Daily Mail are already salivating about the prospects of a re-run of the miners’ strike of 1984-8, when the Tories deployed the state to batter the union and impose pit closures. And yet the CWU inexplicably continues to fund New Labour to the tune of £1 million a year and express surprise at Mandelson’s position.
The argument has been that funding buys “influence” with the government and that the Tories could be much worse. Well, it seems more likely money down the drain when you consider Mandelson’s position and it’s hard to see the Tories planning anything harsher than the current government.
New Labour wants to demonstrate to big business and the middle-class electorate that it can be “tough” with the unions and workers. That’s why the government also intends to postpone the introduction of rights for temporary workers until 2011 required under European Union law.
The CWU is facing a fight to the finish with the government and management and it better get ready for this. Postal workers will need the active support in industrial action of other trade unionists, especially those in the public sector facing imminent pay cuts and job losses, if they are to defeat the New Labour government.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Friday, October 09, 2009
Postal workers need first-class leaders
The three to one majority in favour of strike action by postal workers is proof enough that trade unionists are prepared to sacrifice to fight for their jobs and conditions. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the leadership of the Communications Workers Union (CWU) who seem ready to settle for very little indeed.
Postal workers undoubtedly want to keep their (low-paid) jobs at a time when mass redundancies are sweeping through the economy. That’s why they enthusiastically supported the ballot for strike action.
But far from fighting for every job, the CWU leaders actually want the Royal Mail to include them in negotiations about “modernisation” and actually accept that this will mean fewer staff. Union leaders have accepted that “jobs have to go” – they just want to have a say on where the axe falls.
Management has unilaterally reduced services, torn up collective agreements, cut earnings and intimidated staff. This has led to a series of well-supported local walk-outs over the past few months.
What angers the CWU leadership, however, is that they have been cut out of the process. General secretary Billy Hayes says that it “is our view that a labour-intensive industry cannot be modernised unless the workforce is treated with respect”.
So the union’s main demand? In the words of Hayes: “…our members and negotiators are demanding a new national agreement to carry through the modernisation of Royal Mail.”
Adopting management-speak, Hayes calls for a “new engagement with the workforce” so that the dispute can be resolved.
Not only that, CWU leaders are pleading with the New Labour government to put pressure on Royal Mail management to step in. Well, they already have done – on the side of the employers of the state-owned service.
As you will recall, the government only postponed a part-privatisation of the service because no buyer could be found in the middle of a recession. New Labour patently refuses to fund the £7 billion Royal Mail pension deficit – a drop in the ocean compared to the hundreds of billions thrown at the banks.
The government is responsible for imposing a market-driven, commercial framework on the postal service in line with its mission to erode the lines between public and private services in the interests of profit-driven corporations.
Yet Hayes once again appeals for New Labour to carry out its “responsibilities” in line with a motion carried at the party’s recent conference. This is worse than hopeless. Rank-and-file posties deserve better leadership than this. They must demand that the aims of any strike action are crystal clear:
• No redundancies whatsoever. Royal Mail is making a profit while chief executive Adam Crozier is on a £3 million-plus package after shutting thousands of post offices
• Occupation of any sorting office/workplace threatened with sackings
• A halt to the commercialisation/privatisation of the mail service
• Instead of “engagement” with management, fight to bring the service under the democratic control of workers and users.
• Immediate disaffiliation of the CWU from New Labour. Why fund a party that is intent on destroying jobs?
• Launch a campaign with other unions to show how not-for-profit services benefit the public and how this is the way forward in the midst of a capitalist economic crisis.
There are real indications that Royal Mail is provoking a strike, knowing that the CWU leadership is weak and will try to settle at the earliest opportunity. Rank-and-file postal workers must become aware of this and be prepared to replace their leaders with those who are committed to the defence of jobs, pay and services.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Postal workers undoubtedly want to keep their (low-paid) jobs at a time when mass redundancies are sweeping through the economy. That’s why they enthusiastically supported the ballot for strike action.
But far from fighting for every job, the CWU leaders actually want the Royal Mail to include them in negotiations about “modernisation” and actually accept that this will mean fewer staff. Union leaders have accepted that “jobs have to go” – they just want to have a say on where the axe falls.
Management has unilaterally reduced services, torn up collective agreements, cut earnings and intimidated staff. This has led to a series of well-supported local walk-outs over the past few months.
What angers the CWU leadership, however, is that they have been cut out of the process. General secretary Billy Hayes says that it “is our view that a labour-intensive industry cannot be modernised unless the workforce is treated with respect”.
So the union’s main demand? In the words of Hayes: “…our members and negotiators are demanding a new national agreement to carry through the modernisation of Royal Mail.”
Adopting management-speak, Hayes calls for a “new engagement with the workforce” so that the dispute can be resolved.
Not only that, CWU leaders are pleading with the New Labour government to put pressure on Royal Mail management to step in. Well, they already have done – on the side of the employers of the state-owned service.
As you will recall, the government only postponed a part-privatisation of the service because no buyer could be found in the middle of a recession. New Labour patently refuses to fund the £7 billion Royal Mail pension deficit – a drop in the ocean compared to the hundreds of billions thrown at the banks.
The government is responsible for imposing a market-driven, commercial framework on the postal service in line with its mission to erode the lines between public and private services in the interests of profit-driven corporations.
Yet Hayes once again appeals for New Labour to carry out its “responsibilities” in line with a motion carried at the party’s recent conference. This is worse than hopeless. Rank-and-file posties deserve better leadership than this. They must demand that the aims of any strike action are crystal clear:
• No redundancies whatsoever. Royal Mail is making a profit while chief executive Adam Crozier is on a £3 million-plus package after shutting thousands of post offices
• Occupation of any sorting office/workplace threatened with sackings
• A halt to the commercialisation/privatisation of the mail service
• Instead of “engagement” with management, fight to bring the service under the democratic control of workers and users.
• Immediate disaffiliation of the CWU from New Labour. Why fund a party that is intent on destroying jobs?
• Launch a campaign with other unions to show how not-for-profit services benefit the public and how this is the way forward in the midst of a capitalist economic crisis.
There are real indications that Royal Mail is provoking a strike, knowing that the CWU leadership is weak and will try to settle at the earliest opportunity. Rank-and-file postal workers must become aware of this and be prepared to replace their leaders with those who are committed to the defence of jobs, pay and services.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Friday, June 19, 2009
Bosses attack as union leaders run up white flag
The sacking by the Total corporation of 900 construction workers at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire last night, who were on strike in defence of their jobs, is part of a growing employers’ offensive against trade union organisation which is also behind today’s strike by 8,000 postal workers in London.
The 900 were constructing a new plant at the refinery in Lincolnshire and were part of about 1,200 contract workers who had taken strike action in a dispute over jobs when, as one part of the project ended, 51 redundancies were announced. Shop stewards say that normal practice would have been to offer the workers vacancies on other ongoing contracts on the site but this was not done.
Victimisation is suspected because the 51 worked for Shaw, the contractor that was at the centre of the dispute earlier this year about the employment of foreign labour. Managers started hiring Italian and Portuguese workers. This sparked walkouts at refineries, gas terminals and power stations across the country.
The strikes at Lindsey have spread to other power stations at Drax and Eggborough in Yorkshire and Ratcliffe in Nottinghamshire, and BP's Saltend refinery near Hull. Workers have also walked at the BOC oxygen plant at Scunthorpe, Fiddlers Ferry in Cheshire and Aberthaw in south Wales, the trade union Unite said. Energy company E.ON said up to 150 contract workers at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station also walked out in support of the Lindsey oil refinery strike.
Total, the French-based global oil corporation, directed its main contractor to end all sub-contracts on the project, thus terminating the employment of all 900 workers involved. They were vulnerable to unilateral action by the company because officials from the GMB and Unite unions had refused to make their strike action official out of fear of the restrictions imposed by anti-union legislation.
In fact, the company said the workers had been involved in "an unofficial, illegal walk out" that was "repudiated" by both Unite and the GMB union. All a spokesman for Unite could say was: "We are extremely concerned about the ramifications of the employer's actions. We are urging all parties to get back around the negotiating table to resolve this situation." Not exactly fighting talk and unlikely to concern Total.
Meanwhile, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) said up to 8,000 members in London were due to walk out this morning with workers in Scotland due to strike on Saturday. The union has accused Royal Mail of cuts which break a national agreement and threatened modernisation. Deputy general secretary of the CWU Dave Ward said: "We are now seeing cuts but not modernisation in the postal industry and there's only so long before this is going have a major impact on services.”
Here again, union leaders are begging rather than fighting. They have offered the employers and the government a three month no-strike deal if they agree to work with the union on modernisation and, according to Ward, “move to get the company on a sound footing for the future".
The Lindsey sackings and the postal workers’ struggle demonstrate that the refusal of union bureaucrats to fight the employers and, in the case of the CWU, the government which is going ahead with plans to part-privatise the service, is one reason why unemployment is soaring throughout the country. Employers are aware that union “leaders” live more in fear of the anti-union laws than them and are acting accordingly to impose the economic crisis on the backs of workers.
Ending the wretched system of sub-contracting in the construction industry and defeating New Labour over privatisation requires policies of social ownership and workers’ control of the corporations and the mail service – and leaders that will fight to carry them into practice.
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
The 900 were constructing a new plant at the refinery in Lincolnshire and were part of about 1,200 contract workers who had taken strike action in a dispute over jobs when, as one part of the project ended, 51 redundancies were announced. Shop stewards say that normal practice would have been to offer the workers vacancies on other ongoing contracts on the site but this was not done.
Victimisation is suspected because the 51 worked for Shaw, the contractor that was at the centre of the dispute earlier this year about the employment of foreign labour. Managers started hiring Italian and Portuguese workers. This sparked walkouts at refineries, gas terminals and power stations across the country.
The strikes at Lindsey have spread to other power stations at Drax and Eggborough in Yorkshire and Ratcliffe in Nottinghamshire, and BP's Saltend refinery near Hull. Workers have also walked at the BOC oxygen plant at Scunthorpe, Fiddlers Ferry in Cheshire and Aberthaw in south Wales, the trade union Unite said. Energy company E.ON said up to 150 contract workers at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station also walked out in support of the Lindsey oil refinery strike.
Total, the French-based global oil corporation, directed its main contractor to end all sub-contracts on the project, thus terminating the employment of all 900 workers involved. They were vulnerable to unilateral action by the company because officials from the GMB and Unite unions had refused to make their strike action official out of fear of the restrictions imposed by anti-union legislation.
In fact, the company said the workers had been involved in "an unofficial, illegal walk out" that was "repudiated" by both Unite and the GMB union. All a spokesman for Unite could say was: "We are extremely concerned about the ramifications of the employer's actions. We are urging all parties to get back around the negotiating table to resolve this situation." Not exactly fighting talk and unlikely to concern Total.
Meanwhile, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) said up to 8,000 members in London were due to walk out this morning with workers in Scotland due to strike on Saturday. The union has accused Royal Mail of cuts which break a national agreement and threatened modernisation. Deputy general secretary of the CWU Dave Ward said: "We are now seeing cuts but not modernisation in the postal industry and there's only so long before this is going have a major impact on services.”
Here again, union leaders are begging rather than fighting. They have offered the employers and the government a three month no-strike deal if they agree to work with the union on modernisation and, according to Ward, “move to get the company on a sound footing for the future".
The Lindsey sackings and the postal workers’ struggle demonstrate that the refusal of union bureaucrats to fight the employers and, in the case of the CWU, the government which is going ahead with plans to part-privatise the service, is one reason why unemployment is soaring throughout the country. Employers are aware that union “leaders” live more in fear of the anti-union laws than them and are acting accordingly to impose the economic crisis on the backs of workers.
Ending the wretched system of sub-contracting in the construction industry and defeating New Labour over privatisation requires policies of social ownership and workers’ control of the corporations and the mail service – and leaders that will fight to carry them into practice.
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Brown delivers the message
The leaders of the CWU postal workers’ union have waited and waited for the intervention of the government in their pay and jobs dispute with Royal Mail. Yesterday it finally arrived. But it was not what the CWU leadership wanted to hear. New Labour broke its silence – and came down firmly on the side of the employers. Prime Minister Brown and business secretary Hutton denounced the strikes as “unjustifiable”. Brown told postal workers to “get back to work” while Hutton said the union should accept what he described as a “perfectly fair and reasonable offer”.
The postal workers have so far stood steady and firm in their series of strikes for jobs, pay and pensions in the face of an arrogant employer. Yesterday, after the official two-day strike had ended, a management provocation was answered by unofficial walk-outs in Glasgow, Liverpool, London and other parts of the country. The postal workers are up for a fight and have forced their leaders into some fighting talk and a limited strike action.
But the main (and only) strategy of the leadership of their union, the CWU, has been try to get the government to intervene and enforce a “fair” settlement. This was always an entirely hopeless and forlorn perspective. Far from being some kind of arbitrator (as governments were sometimes up until 1980), this government has a different agenda entirely. Not only does the government stand four-square behind the belligerent Royal Mail management, but, behind the scenes, it is dictating and determining the policy and direction of the company. To what purpose? To make it fit to compete with UPS and the other private carriers of mail and parcels, and then to privatise it.
It has become the tried and tested method of governments, Tory and Labour, since the great Miners Strike of 1984-5 to lie about their real intentions and then to rely on the trade union leadership to “believe” those lies and to confine any action to the perspectives and agenda laid down by the government. Behind the statements of Royal Mail about “flexibility”, the “need to modernise” and so forth is the plan to break it up and sell it. They offer below-inflation pay rises and refuse to guarantee jobs in order to streamline and rationalise the business for privatisation.
This all stems from the very nature of New Labour as an outfit that no longer even pretends to protect the interest of workers or their unions, but rather gives total support to the corporations, the banks and the speculators. It is not just the postal service that is facing break-up and the threat of privatisation, leading inevitably to lower wages, pensions and unemployment, but all public services including health, education, local government, the BBC and the civil service. This is not a popular policy. At a rally earlier this week for the postal workers, Mark Serwotka , general secretary of the PCS said the New Labour governments had privatised “more of our work than the Major and Thatcher Governments combined”. He said his union was gearing up for a full-scale battle with the government.
The CWU is now in a fight to the finish with New Labour. This is a political struggle against a capitalist government. If the union leaders were blinded to this harsh reality before yesterday’s statements by Brown and Hutton, their members are certainly aware of it today. The CWU has to mobilise the entire membership in all-out action, asking for the support of other trade unionists in the privatisation firing line. And they should also recommend to the membership that the union should end its financial support and affiliation to New Labour.
Peter Arkell
The postal workers have so far stood steady and firm in their series of strikes for jobs, pay and pensions in the face of an arrogant employer. Yesterday, after the official two-day strike had ended, a management provocation was answered by unofficial walk-outs in Glasgow, Liverpool, London and other parts of the country. The postal workers are up for a fight and have forced their leaders into some fighting talk and a limited strike action.
But the main (and only) strategy of the leadership of their union, the CWU, has been try to get the government to intervene and enforce a “fair” settlement. This was always an entirely hopeless and forlorn perspective. Far from being some kind of arbitrator (as governments were sometimes up until 1980), this government has a different agenda entirely. Not only does the government stand four-square behind the belligerent Royal Mail management, but, behind the scenes, it is dictating and determining the policy and direction of the company. To what purpose? To make it fit to compete with UPS and the other private carriers of mail and parcels, and then to privatise it.
It has become the tried and tested method of governments, Tory and Labour, since the great Miners Strike of 1984-5 to lie about their real intentions and then to rely on the trade union leadership to “believe” those lies and to confine any action to the perspectives and agenda laid down by the government. Behind the statements of Royal Mail about “flexibility”, the “need to modernise” and so forth is the plan to break it up and sell it. They offer below-inflation pay rises and refuse to guarantee jobs in order to streamline and rationalise the business for privatisation.
This all stems from the very nature of New Labour as an outfit that no longer even pretends to protect the interest of workers or their unions, but rather gives total support to the corporations, the banks and the speculators. It is not just the postal service that is facing break-up and the threat of privatisation, leading inevitably to lower wages, pensions and unemployment, but all public services including health, education, local government, the BBC and the civil service. This is not a popular policy. At a rally earlier this week for the postal workers, Mark Serwotka , general secretary of the PCS said the New Labour governments had privatised “more of our work than the Major and Thatcher Governments combined”. He said his union was gearing up for a full-scale battle with the government.
The CWU is now in a fight to the finish with New Labour. This is a political struggle against a capitalist government. If the union leaders were blinded to this harsh reality before yesterday’s statements by Brown and Hutton, their members are certainly aware of it today. The CWU has to mobilise the entire membership in all-out action, asking for the support of other trade unionists in the privatisation firing line. And they should also recommend to the membership that the union should end its financial support and affiliation to New Labour.
Peter Arkell
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