BBC are reporting that the CWU and Royal Mail have reached an agreement. The deal, details of which haven’t been released, is to be put to a vote of the Union’s postal executive on Monday.
Some CWU reps have been victimised in the wake of the return to work. Reports have come in of victimisation attempts at depots such as Oxford and Reading; both depots have a tradition of militancy. There have also been attempts at victimisation in North London:
>Brief update: some offices in London are out to defend 3 reps who have been summarily dismissed (again!). Negotiations are happening even as I type, with Crozier in >attendance for the first time. If they fail, the whole of London will be out on unofficial strike, and chances are it will spread. Merseyside are also out.
Reports of wildcat strikes - not uncommon on the post (shame it’s not the same everywhere else!) - are also running around on various left wing email lists, and “Mount Pleasant” - the biggest sorting depot in London - keeps getting banded about. Royal Mail felt so threatened, they sought - and won - a legal injunction against the strike.
The posties cannot afford to lose the momentum they have gained. Despite the injunction, they should keep the current momentum and keep the upper hand away from management. Not all that impossible, I should think.
Meanwhile, the current action on the Post should be watched by all local government workers as we face a ballot to overturn the insulting 2% imposed on us by the Supreme Leader Brown. If the posties lose this one, it will make action in the municipalities much harder.
It’s a rubbish deal, Kit.
First, it will be interesting to see what happens if the leadership can’t sell the deal to the members. Can posties rely on them to re-enter negotiations to hammer out a better settlement?
Second, whither the political fund? Moves continue afoot against the funding of Labour in the unions. For those opposed to disaffiliation, it’s incumbent upon them to illustrate how CWU members are getting value for money.
In the US the labor laws are much more repressive. Everyone would be in jail for mentioning a wildcat strike, or an email conspiracy.
Regards.
But Renegade, I thought that dockers (longshoremen) in San Francisco had taken a day’s strike action against the Iraq war. (Or have I got my facts wrong?) That would be illegal in Britain.
Come on Kit, get blogging again lad!
I just joined a ‘Stop crazed CWU left wing Dinosaurs11!!!eleven!1 group on facebook and decimated it.
On your slogan… well, I say that graffitied in two places in manchester. The first time I thought, ‘why the fuck should I’, and the second time was in a pub toilet, where someone had written next to it ‘I’m watching you, student cunt’.
Be warned. ;o)
By decimated of course I mean ‘took over as admin, before banning everyone and leaving’.
I am the human virus. And also kinda bored.