It's war in Royal Mail

Two things from libcom.org about the imminent UK postal workers' strike against EU-prescribed 'market reforms', starting from a real terms pay cut.  A Royal Mail manager is quoted predicting something comparable to the miners' strike or Rover Longbridge.  Postal workers, who have repeatedly and successfully used wildcat tactics in recent years, voted 77 per cent in favour of strike action; meanwhile Communication Workers' Union leadership remains eager to capitulate, sorry, 'negotiate'.   The first text is an interview with a postman from anarchist newspaper Freedom (www.freedompress.org.uk).  The second is a  Libcom forum post .

It’s war in Royal Mail

June 19th, 2007 by Freedom

A battle between postal workers and managers over the future of the Royal Mail looks set to turn nasty following a litany of attacks on working conditions, staffing numbers and now wages. As one of the most significant workplace battles of recent years comes to the boil, Freedom talks to Pat (the postman) about how class warfare is in the post:

“The strike is important because the CWU is one of the last of the big unions and, although undeniably reformist, is viewed as a threat by the business-friendly major political parties.

“The leadership might be Labour, but at grass roots level the CWU has a large hard core of militant trade unionists. Many of them have previously worked in other industries with a history of fighting the employer. Others began their working lives as Postal Cadets, seeing their conditions improve when the old UPW/UCW was a byword for militant action, and deteriorate as the leadership fell under the spell of Blair.

“If we lose, we are looking at massive job losses, even more unmanageable workloads, mail being delivered in mid-afternoon, closure of smaller delivery offices. Because Royal Mail and the Government have friends in the media, we have little support among the general public, but given time they will see closure of local post offices, later delivery times and a massive increase in unwanted junk mail.

“That the CWU might sell us out is a concern. (CWU General Secretary) Billy Hayes’ constant clinging to the Labour link is an embarrassment. No matter how many hospital wards or schools close, regardless that child poverty has increased, that they’re engaged in an illegal war or that thanks to his party and its treatment of asylum seekers racism is on the rise Billy remains a puppet. The CWU even closed its internet forum because of irate posties telling Billy and his chums exactly how life really is. It’s possible that Gordon Brown will phone Billy and ask him to call the whole thing off. If that happens, it gives the Government a free hand to work us into an even earlier grave.

“This had been about more than the pay issue and workers have taken the opportunity to include the stringent absence procedure, the arbitrary conduct code, and harassment by junior managers, late start times, inadequate equipment and not being allowed holidays when required in their decision to vote Yes. If our office is any barometer of feeling, it will be solid. One or two scabs might turn in, but their effect will be minimal. Leighton has misjudged the mood just as he did in 2003 when we lost the pay ballot.

“We can win. There is plenty of militancy on the shop floor. We’ve been fighting the bosses since the day we left school and some managerial fart in a suit carrying sandwiches in his briefcase and sod all in his head holds no fears for us.

“For trade unionists, a victory over Royal Mail and therefore the Government would be a boost. For many younger staff, this will be their first experience of industrial action. A victory would give them confidence and a clear view of what can be achieved by solidarity.

“The more support we have from our anarchist comrades and those on the left who see this as a genuine workers’ struggle and not just another recruiting campaign for their particular pressure group the easier the victory will be. The more CWU members realise their interests lie outside of any political party the better for us and the worse for Leighton, Crozier and that whole mob of asset strippers.”

Lurch   forum post Posted: Sat, 16/06/2007 - 09:28

Terry Wrote:The CWU have asked Alan Leighton to recognise the overwhelming opposition to the pay cut (in real terms) and his plans and to return to serious negotiations. He seems to be in denial, and is refusing to reconsider his stance, insisting there will be no change to the offer or plans.

I don’t think Leighton is “in denial”. To a large extent, he and those beside and above him are aware of what they’re doing.

The strike vote in the Postal Sector – which has been notable for various wildcats over the past decade (in 2000, strikes in the Post Office accounted for half the total of UK strike days, according to one source) – is the result of a specific management proposal to further erode wages and conditions of service, to heighten exploitation, to wring more surplus from the proletariat, to further remove the state from the direct path of workers’ wrath and to atomise any response.

This ‘management’ is of course not just the affair of the Post Office. For a start, on an EC-wide basis, there are currently talks between the gangsters about how to reduce costs and stimulate investment in this sector by further ‘opening up’ services formerly under the direct control of or run as a monopoly by, the state, in each national entity.

This discussion among thieves envisages direct attacks on the conditions of workers in each country as part of this approach. It is said in The Guardian that French representatives are particularly concerned about how best to arrow this attack on ‘their’ postal workers and I think Jeff Costello has mentioned the relative strength and solidarity in the French PO.

In Britain, the state has already directly intervened: it was no coincidence that within 2 days of the result of the strike ballot, an all-party select committee of MPs made public its criticisms of the Post Office management, saying that its job was not to manage the sector’s decline but to make it a “dynamic and profitable business.” In short it was there to reinforce the PO management’s drive to ‘modernise’ conditions and practices.

The initiative is with Leighton and the bourgeoisie: it’s obliged to attack, yes, and it’s attacking.

The Daily Telegraph of June 3 describes it thus: “Senior Royal Mail executives were last night bracing themselves for a bruising fight they expect to last for as long as three months.'This will be bloody. We have had the miners, we have had Longbridge and now we have this," said one director. Another executive described the likely strikes as "the tipping point" in Royal Mail's history.”

As for the union, the very act of calling for a strike vote, and waiting for the result, and then calling for more talks with management, is a means for the CWU to attempt to impose a framework, a straightjacket, on the workers’ response. Will there or won’t there be a strike? All-out or rolling one day? Will it cover the Royal Mail, The Counter Services and the cash-handling section, or will they each go their own way?

Questions are being posed in a way that assumes and attempts to determine that workers themselves will have little control over the process of their own struggle. There isn’t yet an open struggle (although there was a wildcat of 150 postal workers in Luton on June 6 in solidarity with a sacked driver), but a political one is certainly underway.

So postal and other workers are facing bosses and the state that are prepared for a fight, want a fight. It’s us who will be in denial if we don’t recognise this.

Which is why discussion amongst the postal workers – and by those who would support them – is crucial at this stage. How do we face up to this attack? What are the lessons of the last nationwide strike? How do workers give themselves the means to have some control over the aims and tactics of any strike? Is there a potential to involve other workers subject to very similar attacks – to extend any movement through workers’ solidarity, not appeals to ‘the public’, etc etc. None of us believes in god or the fates: nothing is yet determined in advance. ‘Workers: it’s your turn to speak and to act’.