20.06.1996

Postal workers demand action

Rank and file put CWU on the offensive

After several years of piecemeal attacks on postal workers in all parts of the country, Royal Mail has finally provoked even the Communication Workers Union leaders into calling two national one-day strikes.

Previous attacks, often resisted by local unofficial action, have now been drawn together under RM’s Employee Agenda ‘teamworking’ scheme. Team-working manages to attack all aspects of workers’ pay and conditions: from unsocial hours payments to overtime arrangements; from shift allocation to meal breaks; from job description to union rights.

However, instead of rejecting the whole notion, the union leadership maintains that it is “not good enough” (CWU Voice June 1996). The CWU points out that, although the proposals include a rise in basic pay, at least 30% of members will be worse off, on RM’s own admission, because of losses in other payments.

Forced into action by a two-to-one ‘yes’ vote for a strike, the leaders are still maintaining that teamworking itself, which “many British industries have brought in”, might still be acceptable. It is just that “Royal Mail have got it wrong.” They are ‘mistakenly’ demanding that workers “work at 100% all the time and continuously improve” and work an extra 15 minutes unpaid when required after finishing time.

The union leaders are most hurt by The Sun’s headline, ‘Lefties plot post strike’. Joint general secretary Alan Johnson retorts in June’s CWU Voice: “Describing the CWU as militant is like calling The Sun analytical.” Even the journal’s editor cannot resist adding an ironic “Steady on, Alan!”

What Johnson and co cannot seem to grasp is that a militant, fighting union is what their members are now calling for. My own postman tells me that local managers want him to start his shift two hours earlier at 4.00am. Workers at Mount Pleasant sorting office in London are complaining about what acting branch secretary Ron Rodwell describes as “dreadful working conditions” because of congestion. Ron adds: “Alan Johnson gives the impression of a moderate trade union leader being dragged into a dispute he doesn’t want. I don’t think he is lying.”

In their editorial in CWU Voice, Johnson and fellow general secretary Tony Young offer their deepest apologies for having to call the strike: “The CWU will never use industrial action as a negotiating tactic. The sacrifice involved to our members and the effects it can have on the companies we deal with make it imperative that we only take action as a last resort.”

But most of all they apologise to Tony Blair. They are aware that industrial action may be “politically sensitive and particularly welcomed by the government”. But, the union leaders hope, “It is unlikely they will gain much support from their ‘enemy within’ nonsense.”

Royal Mail is very much aware that strikes this Friday and next Thursday are mainly designed to allow the members to let off steam. But local activists have other ideas. “You cannot negotiate your way out of this particular case,” Ron Rodwell told me. “Final agreement will depend on the actions of members in this and future strikes. And I am confident it will be overwhelming.”

Peter Manson