A Striking Postal Worker speaks out!
A postal worker and trades unionist explains why the public should back
the posties in their battle! This statement is circulating around the trades
union movement and internet. Please pass it on……
• Defending public services
Royal Mail bosses are determined to run down the postal
service, making it slower, more expensive and less
reliable. They hope that if it gets bad enough the public will support another effort to
privatise the company. Many post workers have been in the job all their adult lives. We
are committed to delivering a service based on need. The bosses and the government
are in this for the short-term, and are only interested in profits.
• Fighting to keep full time jobs
Royal Mail is slashing thousands of full-time jobs. More than 50,000 posts have been
cut since 2002 and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Ultimately, they want to replace
almost all full-time jobs with workers on part-time or temporary contracts. But part-time
work means part-time pay, part-time pensions, part-time sick pay – and part-time
rights.
• A battle for decent pay
Royal Mail boss Adam Crozier is Britain’s highest paid public servant. Since arriving at
the company in 2003 he’s pocketed £6 million in pay and bonuses. Post workers, on
the other hand, are among the poorest in Britain. We earn around £100 less a week
than the average skilled worker and many of us can only survive on overtime. Now
Royal Mail is telling us we have to accept a pay freeze – and that at least part of our
overtime should be compulsory and free.
• Stopping the union-busters
Our CWU union is the biggest barrier to those who want to cut jobs, services and pay
in the post – and that’s why the company and the government are trying to drive us out
of the industry. To get their way they are bullying and intimidating our members, and
using managers and non-unionised casual staff in an effort to break our regional
strikes. Bosses everywhere are watching what happens in this dispute. If Royal Mail
can drive the union out of the postal service, others will try to do the same.
• If the postal workers win, every worker wins
Our battle is one of the first in what will be a wider war. All political parties are
preparing massive cuts in public spending and if the Tories win the next election, they
will be absolutely ruthless. The post workers’ strike is about drawing a line in the sand
and telling any future government that we will not accept the smashing of our
services. If we are beaten, bosses everywhere will say: if we can take on the CWU and
win, we can break you too. We must not allow them to do that.
He should try working for a living in the real world. It must be nice to be able to afford to go on strike over a failing industry.
Comment by QM — 28 October, 2009 @ 5:04 pm
capitalism is failing
I dont like working for that either
Comment by sean — 28 October, 2009 @ 7:18 pm
Excellent! We are smoking them out! It takes a bit of class struggle to rip apart the nationalist illusions. The foul comment at post no 1 is by “Quite Man” - who is one of the noisy empty vessels of the right wing ‘English Nationalist’ blogosphere - part of the online rabble of EDL / BNP apologists.
These slippery characters sometimes try to pose as the defenders of the working class, rallying their lumpen football hooligan EDL street army against British Muslims.
While they pretend to stand up for the common folk of this land, we know they are anti-working-class right wing nutjobs and elitist cranks. And here we have proof! Cheers for that ‘Quite Man’!
So the hardworking low paid folk who deliver your letters on a rainy and cold morning ‘don’t live in the real world’ eh?
So the Royal Mail is a failing industry eh? Actually the Royal Mail is a great and successful British institution that’s only ‘failing’ because of European Union privatisation directives!
These EU directives open the Royal Mail up to foreign competition by butchering jobs, working conditions and public services. So the patriotic English Nationalist supports the European Unions artificial ‘market’ and exposure to their socially engineered globalising ‘competition’?
So our ’salt of the Earth’ professional Englishman wants to shit all over our postal workers on behalf of the EU and the greedy bankers?
Brilliant! We should spread his obnoxious comment here far and wide. This will help all those postal workers who were a bit sympathetic to nationalism, to EDL and BNP type sentiments to wake up and see which side their bread is buttered! Cos left is right and right is wrong! Nice one, ‘Quiet Man’ - keep making your stupid noise, as loudly as you can!
We’re listening!
Comment by Barry Kade — 29 October, 2009 @ 3:59 am
Well put Barry,
‘Quiet Man’ and his ilk stand up for the working man as much as the Countryside Alliance stand up for foxes or as much as Thatcher stood up for womens rights.
Comment by Stupot — 29 October, 2009 @ 1:49 pm
Sir: All workers and small and medium businesses need to
support the postal workers in their dispute with Royal Mail management and the government. Without a comprehensive, universal postage system private monopolies will carve up the profitable bits of the enterprise and
charge treble today’s prices without being able to deliver
anything like the service we all currently enjoy. These outfits and any rump Royal Mail left to serve them will still be in receipt of government subsidies, probably a great deal more of them, just like the private train operating companies, but instead of ploughing these
subsidies into the service they will be put aside to cover shareholder dividends and management bonuses. On the railways trains are deliberately cancelled, tickets go unsold or uncollected and stations are abandoned to the rats and rapists simply so that subsidies are not `wasted’ on the service but pocketed by the owners to be invested in far more profitable ventures in Dubai or gambled on the Stock Exchange. If new and draconian conditions and huge job losses are imposed on the core workforce no doubt Royal
Mail management will claim the credit for turning a profit
but the social costs of their actions will not be included on headman Crozier’s balance sheet any more than will his ludicrous remuneration package. The costs of long hours and intensified exploitation are well documented but who will pay for the fact that increased productivity has resulted yet again in huge job losses or even less available work for our record numbers of unemployed youngsters? What happened to this pathetic government’s promise of full employment? Taxpayers no doubt will pay
and if not them our increasingly hard-pressed but growing
army of social workers, prison staff and police officers. If Royal Mail management get their way the only winners will be self-serving monopoly carriers and monopoly suppliers of goods big enough to negotiate bulk deals. Small and medium businesses and their workers will be driven to the wall not by the strike but by its defeat. Demand Royal Mail listens to their workers and customers and draws back from its provocative stance immediately.
Comment by David Ellis — 30 October, 2009 @ 12:51 pm
great stuff!
Comment by anon 3 — 31 October, 2009 @ 8:56 am
Excellent post by David Ellis at (5). I agree with every word.
Victory to the CWU!
Comment by Karl Stewart — 31 October, 2009 @ 11:12 am
Thank you Karl that is very big of you to say that given recent disagreements.
The CWU are making a hash of getting their message across and I think it is because they are desparate not to politicise the dispute but contain it as much as possible and negotiate some post-privatisation fringe benefits such as continued recognition etc. but the dispute urgently needs politicising. Royal Mail must remain in the public sector. This would be a huge victory for workers everywhere and another nail in the neo-liberal coffin. If public sector workers (and this is debatable given years of under-investment) do enjoy better working conditions, decent pensions etc then the battle cry of the working class must be the opposite of the privatisers: `make me a public sector worker too’.
Comment by David Ellis — 31 October, 2009 @ 5:39 pm
where are the women cwu officers/members
not heard one quoted or speaking on behalf of the union
would be good if the CWu could come over a little Macho (which only reflects manangement machoness and male domination in the post)
Comment by sean — 31 October, 2009 @ 6:14 pm
#9
Sean - we had a woman CWU rep from East London speaking at the Hackney support meeting organised by the trades Council this week. If you look at the CWU Executive, Jane Loftus is the Vice President and was the president last year, and there are 6 or 7 other woman members of the EC - Maria Exall being particularly well known. I’ve heard a number of them speaking at meetings.
Comment by PW — 31 October, 2009 @ 7:02 pm
Can some one explain in simple terms, I do not understand e.g the part on pay, if you work in factory you earn only the min wage, you do more exercise in lifting and walking but do not say a word, work is hard but all company’s are at the moment as they battle to get results. The royal mail seem no different to a normal job but they are on strike. They were offered pay outs that would have been much wanted by some to drop to part time, again not a strange thing as most companies do this now (this has now been withdrawn). I read that they want to know they can not lose the jobs, how can anyone expect this? No one can predict the future. They do not like the modern plans but the UK is so far behind the rest of the world it really does need them this will require job cuts but as with any industry it needs to happen. I would agree that talks are needed over where the profits are going, making sure its stays in the UK only and that it develops. But how does dragging the company under by strikes solve this, People at the top need to come up with better ideas (normally filtered up from the bottom)Can some one tell me where i am missing the point as i do not disagree at all i just do not understand and can only see a bad ending either it goes under and everyone loses the jobs or an outsider will need to to give the get out of jail card (cant see the goverment doing it not after want the bankers are already costing)I may have this all wrong but i do not work for the royal mail and i am interested as every one i know do not like whats happening!
Comment by Nicola — 3 November, 2009 @ 9:48 pm