BRITAIN: Postal workers beat New Labour

November 12, 2003
Issue 

BY MARCUS GREVILLE

LONDON — On November 3, 30,000 striking members of the Communications Workers Union (CWU) won a spectacular trade union victory against Royal Mail management and its New Labour masters, when the postal bosses acceded to almost every main deamnd raised by the CWU.

The unofficial strike, which began on October 17 in response to the suspension of 28 drivers in outer London after they refused to take special delivery items to destination addresses rather than depots.

Attempts by Royal Mail management to paint the strike as nothing more than a demand by greedy London workers wanting an unreasonable London living allowance backfired as the strike spread to most large postal centres across England.

In reality, the strike was over the right of the union to represent CWU members on the job and to negotiate on their behalf. Royal Mail went on the offensive in August after postal workers rejected a pay rise that the management said was worth 14.5% over 18 months.

The CWU claimed the money for the increase in pay was to be tied to changes that would lead to the loss of thousands of jobs. The CWU wanted a bigger initial pay increase and the promise of further talks on changes to working patterns proposed by Royal Mail which included stopping two mail deliveries a day. This proposal would lead to the elimination of 30,000 postal jobs.

While a national ballot of postal workers rejected a call for a strike in September, the result in London was overwhelmingly in favour of strike action. As one London postal worker wrote to British Guardian, losing the ballot to strike "was not a mandate to force new working conditions upon us, nor to tear up the national industrial framework".

The union leaders came out in support of the unofficial strike, as did key leaders of other militant unions such as the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union and the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) — referred to as the "awkward squad" by the corporate press.

The final settlement is being kept undisclosed for five months at management's insistence, but in the agreed joint statement Royal Mail accepts that the CWU did not instigate unofficial strike action, agreed not to prosecute any employee taking part in the unofficial action and agreed to abide by the existing national agreements.

The defeat of the Royal Mail management, which conceded every main demand of the CWU, is certain to boost the confidence of leaders of the "awkward squad", as well as members of all other unions engaged in industrial struggle.

With the FBU just starting another raft of industrial action and London Underground train drivers being balloted in the next weeks to strike over safety, this could be New Labour's winter of discontent.

[Marcus Greville is a member of Australians Against the War UK. Email <aatw_uk@yahoo.co.uk>.]

From Green Left Weekly, November 12, 2003.
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