01.08.1996

CWU members say no deal

The postal executive of the Communication Workers Union earlier this week overturned their general secretary’s recommendation to accept a compromise with Royal Mail. It decided to resume strike action next week against RM’s ‘teamworking’ proposals and convened a meeting of branch secretaries and area representatives.

Teamworking is management’s latest attempt to screw more work out of less staff in worse conditions.

The top CWU leadership, while rejecting management’s latest detailed proposals, has been very careful not to reject the concept itself. In fact it has already provisionally accepted pay restructuring as part of any final deal.

In the latest edition of the union journal AC&C company director Alan Christer is wheeled out to ‘support’ the union’s case against management: “Teamworking could be excellent for employees,” he says. It is only Royal Mail’s “control and command” attitude he criticises (CWU Voice August/September). Apparently new, more efficient means of exploiting the workforce are fine if they are “designed and implemented by the people who will be involved”. The union leaders think we should help management out by putting forward our own ‘acceptable’ cost-saving, job-cutting schemes.

However the leadership will not have an easy time persuading the members to settle. One branch secretary told me: “I have had half a dozen phone calls in the last half an hour complaining about this week’s two-day strike being called off.” Members are fed up with having to ward off constant attacks on their working conditions, as RM attempts to streamline itself in preparation for possible privatisation. They are looking to make real gains.

Last week postal workers in Edinburgh and Dunfermline held a one-day unofficial strike, even though the national action had been called off. A mass meeting in Edinburgh was attended by 700 members protesting at disciplinary action against four workers, following picket line incidents on a previous strike.

Peter Manson