How the “friends” of Royal Mail workers helped the CWU inflict defeat – Part 1 & 2
How the “friends” of Royal Mail workers helped the CWU inflict defeat – Part 1 & 2
How did Ward, Furey and the CWU Postal Executive get away with imposing their hated pro-company agreement against Royal Mail workers? This question cannot be answered outside of the role played by "pseudo-left" groups who posed as workers friends, but who protected the bureaucracy from a rank-and-file rebellion. This is an an Important article.
One month has passed since the Communication Workers Union (CWU) led by Dave Ward and Andy Furey succeeded in pushing through their pro-company “Business Recovery, Growth and Transformation Agreement” in a ballot whose results were announced July 11.
The impact of the CWU’s agreement is already being felt by tens of thousands of Royal Mail workers: punitive new attendance procedures and reduced sick pay; the shuttering of parcel collection offices; cuts to indoor sorting time forcing delivery workers to pound the streets for longer with impossible workloads; unknown numbers earmarked for redeployment and redundancy as automated super hubs come into operation.
Ward and Furey are despised figures among militant postal workers. Thousands have resigned from the union, while discussions are underway at delivery offices and mail centres on the lessons of the year-long dispute.
The struggle at Royal Mail has exposed the unbridgeable gulf between the privileged bureaucracy serving as an arm of corporate management, and the membership.
Rank-and-file opposition erupted —just four months into the dispute—after the CWU’s cancellation of strikes following legal threats from the company. Workers began denouncing Ward and Furey, demanding action to defeat the company’s aggressive “revisions” to terms and conditions. But the CWU stared this down, entering talks at conciliation service ACAS and allowing the company to impose its workplace agenda through bullying and coercion.
From October through March, the World Socialist Web Site’s coverage of the dispute won a growing audience among Royal Mail workers. Its exposure of the CWU’s pro-company agenda chimed with the sentiments of thousands of workers who were determined to fight.
This led to the formation of the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee (PWRFC) on April 2, 2023. The committee advocated a path of independent struggle against the CWU bureaucracy. Affiliated to the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), it forged links with postal workers in Belgium, Germany, Australia and the United States. The committee’s statements circulated widely at Royal Mail, especially after the CWU’s pro-company agreement was published in April.
Between April and June, the CWU bureaucracy was plunged into crisis, terrified that workers’ anger would coalesce into organised mass resistance, breaking its stranglehold over the dispute.
The rank-and-file committee won a sympathetic hearing among postal workers, but Ward and Furey maintained control and were able to ram through the company’s attacks. Their ability to do so was made possible by Britain’s pseudo-left organisations. Groups such as the Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Party and Workers Power intervened throughout the dispute to promote illusions that the CWU bureaucracy could be pressured to fight for workers’ interests, concealing its fundamental role as an arm of corporate management and the state.
These groups, representing sections of the upper middle class including those with lucrative positions in the apparatus of the trade unions, formed the “left” flank of efforts by the Stalinist Morning Star, the pro-Corbyn Canary and newly formed campaign group Enough is Enough to protect the labour and trade union bureaucracy from a rank-and-file insurgency, block the fight for socialism and channel workers behind a future Labour government.
Dave Ward’s political backers
In April, Ward addressed an online meeting of CWU reps, attacking “extreme political groups who sometimes look to infiltrate trade unions” and who have “no interest in you and the future of this company”. Acknowledging widespread opposition to the CWU’s pro-company agreement, he declared, “What I don’t accept is that they [political groups] should over-influence our members in this particular dispute.”
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn with Dave Ward (right), General Secretary of the CWU, August 1, 2016. [Photo by Anthony Devlin, PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo]
Ward’s attack was a pathetic attempt to whip-up prejudices against socialism and Marxism while he and the CWU sought to “over-influence” workers on behalf of Royal Mail shareholders. In his 1998 essay, “Why are trade unions hostile to socialism?”, David North reviewed the historical development of trade unions from the mid-19th century, showing their universal tendency to suppress the class struggle, which finds its most conscious expression in the union bureaucracy’s hostility to socialism: “Standing on the basis of capitalist production relations, the trade unions are, by their very nature, compelled to adopt a hostile attitude toward the class struggle. Directing their efforts toward securing agreements with employers that fix the price of labor-power and determine the general conditions in which surplus-value will be pumped out of the workers, the trade unions are obligated to guarantee that their members supply their labor-power in accordance with the terms of the negotiated contracts. As Gramsci noted, ‘The union represents legality, and must aim to make its members respect that legality.’ The defense of legality means the suppression of the class struggle.”
While Ward and the bureaucracy repeatedly attacked the WSWS, they promoted the Labour Party and its right-wing politics. Labour MP Darren Jones was invited by the CWU to its national briefing of reps on April 21, presented as the saviour of postal workers and given a standing ovation. Jones publicly supported the CWU’s surrender document.
The Socialist Workers Party are expert at providing tame “left-wing” criticisms of the labour and trade union bureaucracy, while serving to politically block any independent movement of the working class.
The SWP’s long-established theory of the trade unions is one that justifies the bureaucracy’s domination over the working class. According to the SWP, “the bureaucracy play a contradictory role within capitalism. On the one hand, their role is to fight for the interests of workers. On the other, their function is to resolve the tensions between workers and bosses… But it is more complex than simply saying that trade union leaders’ role and experience mean that they will always mechanically sell out”. This is because, “Even only at the level of the bureaucracy, there is a range of different pressures interacting and shaping the development of any dispute… The combination of these pressures in particular moments in a dispute can tip the balance in one direction. The dynamic is not black and white.”
The “dynamic” being described is that of the SWP’s slavish defence of the bureaucracy. This was on full display at Royal Mail. While the Socialist Equality Party and the WSWS called for the formation of rank-and-file committees to draw up strike demands and seize control of the dispute from the CWU bureaucracy, the SWP disarmed postal workers in the face of an impending betrayal. Less than three weeks before the CWU unveiled its pro-company agreement, it posted an article, “CWU union leaders could call new Royal Mail strikes,” urging them to launch “hard hitting action to bring Thompson and the board to their knees.”
Socialist Worker March 24 article, "CWU union leaders could call new Royal Mail strikes" [Photo: screenshot: socialist worker]
The CWU bureaucracy were then deep in talks with Royal Mail at ACAS, facilitated by former Trades Union Congress president Sir Brendan Barber, aimed at retaining their long-standing partnership with the company. Its only disagreement with workplace revisions was that they were being implemented unilaterally, instead of via agreement with CWU national officials.
After the negotiators’ agreement was published, the SWP adapted to workers’ angry denunciations of Ward and Furey. An April 21 article, “It will take organisation to stop this deal”, presented the fight entirely in organisational terms, urging only that “Workers should vote to reject the deal when it is put to a ballot—and demand more, harder-hitting strikes immediately.” But who was going to organise such strikes? The SWP’s suggestion that a “No” vote would pressure the bureaucracy to escalate the struggle was pure fantasy. Most workers who later voted for the agreement did so because they recognised a “no” vote by itself would not defeat the surrender document under conditions where the CWU executive was already implementing the company’s savage assault.
Spooked by the prominence of the WSWS and the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee, the SWP rushed to promote a series of bogus “rank-and-file” initiatives, including Postal Workers Say Vote No, NHS Workers Say Vote No and Strike Map. These united the SWP with sections of the trade union bureaucracy, Corbynites and other pseudo-left groups such as Counterfire and Workers Power to direct rank-and-file opposition back behind the bureaucracy.
On April 25, the Socialist Worker reported one such event, “Build the strikes, link the fights, reject bad deals”. It cited a key participant from the National Education Union (NEU) who explained the group’s purpose was to “push trade union leaders to move forward”. The SWP urged support for a model resolution by Strike Map’s steering group (aligned politically to Corbyn) calling on the “leading bodies” of the NEU, Royal College of Nursing, and British Medical Association to “coordinate future strike dates” and “force action from the government”. The unions’ “leading bodies” took no notice of such appeals. Both the NEU and RCN cancelled industrial action to ram through below-inflation pay deals negotiated with the Sunak government.
Workers Power
Workers Power, a splinter group from the SWP buried in the Labour Party, played a critical role for the CWU bureaucracy in heading off a genuine rank-and-file rebellion.
On April 21, Workers Power member Andy Young, a CWU rep from Leeds sacked during the dispute, wrote to the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee (PWRFC) asking to join. He was invited to attend its Zoom meeting on April 23, where he opposed the committee’s formation, claiming it was “premature”. He then voted to abstain on the committee’s resolution adopted by postal workers in attendance, “Organise to defeat CWU-Royal Mail agreement: Vote NO! Reinstate all victimised workers! Build the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee!”
The next day, Young set up “Postal Workers Say Vote No”, a Facebook group which attracted hundreds of postal workers based on its purported opposition to the CWU’s surrender document.
On May 3, Young wrote again to the PWRFC, asking it to support the “no” campaign initiated by Workers Power, including financial help to distribute a “model motion” drafted for CWU branches. The model motion typified the two-faced character of Young’s group. It began with the claim that, “The Business, Recovery, Growth and Transformation Agreement has blocked a few of the worst policies Royal Mail tried to impose on workers and our union, but it has conceded on others and is a big step back in terms of pay, terms and conditions, and guarantees.”
The PWRFC replied to Young:
“Your opposition to the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee reflects your defence of the bureaucracy. That is why you refused to endorse the committee’s resolution. You cited at our meeting the 2007 ‘vote no’ initiative by you and other activists as a model for the ‘open campaign’ you are proposing—based on its endorsement by a lone member of CWU’s postal executive which supposedly ‘allowed us to launch it on a much larger scale’. This is a rebellion on one’s knees. It ended in defeat and blocked a genuine fight by postal workers.
“Your real aim is an alliance with a faction of the bureaucracy against the workers. At our meeting, you stated that a ‘no’ campaign must be based on a ‘united front’ with workers, reps and CWU ‘officials that want to reject the deal, as long as they put no conditions on that’. But where are these phantom officials? You have invented an opposition from CWU officials so that you can rule out a struggle against this bureaucracy.
“The Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee is open to all workers who want to defeat the CWU’s sell-out deal. We will not allow the committee’s freedom of action to be compromised by the types of alliances and backroom manoeuvres that typify the efforts of your Workers Power group, the SWP and similar outfits that function as ‘left’ advisors to the trade union bureaucracy.”
Statement by Postal Workers Say No, July 27, 2023. [Photo: Screenshot]
Workers Power used the Postal Workers Say Vote No group to promote fruitless appeals to the CWU national officials and reps who were busy enforcing Royal Mail’s dictates. After the CWU pushed through its sellout deal, the group announced a name change to Postal Workers Say No (PWSN), explaining their aims as follows: “We are not a genuine rank and file network much less movement yet, but aim to build for one”.
This “aim” cannot even be regarded as aspirational. PWSN’s July 27 statement outlined the group’s support for the bureaucracy in unmistakeable terms: “We will support all positive efforts by the union leaders eg [sic] organising drives to rebuild membership, but oppose them whenever they fail to defend workers interests or move against them.”
It stated that PWSN would also, “Expose backsliding from the deal” [!] adding, “We can critically support opposition candidates that gain members’ support by promising a more fighting policy (even if they called for a yes vote).”
Conclusion
The 2022-23 Royal Mail dispute was part of a developing wave of class struggle across the UK and worldwide driven by the deepest cost-of-living crisis in decades. Workers set out to defeat savage demands for corporate restructuring by shareholders and investors dictated by the capitalist market. All over the world, the working class is coming into head-on conflict with the bureaucracy of the trade unions, which have transformed over the past four decades from defensive organisations of the working class into arms of corporate management and the state.
The growth of corporatism in the trade unions was analysed by Leon Trotsky, co-leader of the Russian Revolution and founder of the Fourth International, more than 80 years ago. He wrote: “There is one common feature in the development, or more correctly the degeneration, of modern trade union organizations in the entire world: it is their drawing closely to and growing together with the state power.” He explained, “Monopoly capitalism is less and less willing to reconcile itself to the independence of the trade unions. It demands of the reformist bureaucracy and the labour aristocracy who pick the crumbs from its banquet table, that they become transformed into its political police before the eyes of the working class.”
Corporatism has since become fully entrenched in the trade unions of all countries; a process accelerated over the past four decades by the globalisation of capitalist production. Digital communications technology has enabled the capitalist class to scour the globe, locate production wherever labour costs are lowest and integrate the production process across national borders. The nationally based trade union and labour bureaucracies, defending capitalism as the source of their privileges, have responded by repudiating their old reformist programs, insisting that workers must accept the destruction of their wages, conditions and living standards so that the corporations can be “globally competitive.” Hence the CWU’s demand that postal workers “sacrifice” to save Royal Mail from bankruptcy, i.e., protect shareholder profit. No matter how much workers give up today, it will never be enough, as “the market” demands an increased return on investment each year. Failure to deliver is punished in the form of credit downgrades and the withdrawal of funds as billionaires like Daniel Kretinsky move vulture-like to find new sources of profit.
These facts of modern-day capitalism dictate the political tasks before the working class, showing the necessity for an international socialist strategy. The overthrow of the capitalist oligarchy and the reorganisation of global economy to meet human need not private profit is posed as an urgent task.
The determined, year-long battle at Royal Mail has provided an object lesson in the pro-capitalist politics of the pseudo-left. The SWP, SP and Workers Power emerged historically from petty-bourgeois tendencies which broke from Trotskyism and the Fourth International in the post-World War II period. Adapting themselves to the temporary stabilisation of capitalism, they rejected the struggle to build an international revolutionary party of the working class. All that could be accomplished, they insisted, was to place pressure in the existing Stalinist and reformist leaderships to fight for reforms, through strikes and other forms of protest.
The restoration of capitalism by the Stalinist bureaucracy in the former Soviet Union, the abandonment of reformism by the Labour Party and their naked embrace of capitalism, and the corporatist degeneration of the trade unions has blown this perspective apart. It has seen the pseudo-left tendencies lurch ever further to the right in their role as the last line of defence for the bureaucracy.
The PWRFC and the IWA-RFC provides the vehicle for organizing the struggles of the working class and the political strategy this demands:
1) Complete independence from the trade union bureaucracy and the Labour Party. Not the futile perspective of stiffening the spine of Ward and company, but the building of an insurgent movement of the rank-and-file to break their stranglehold and drive them from office.
2) For an international struggle by the working class against the common enemy. Instead of a fratricidal contest over who will sacrifice most in the interest of the corporations and shareholders, unity with all workers throughout the UK and internationally who are fighting in defence of their jobs, wages and conditions.
To take this fight forward means building a new socialist leadership in the working class. This is the most important lesson from the struggle at Royal Mail.
Royal Mail workers confronted a political struggle from the start against a Tory government rushing through essential services legislation to break the strike and a Labour opposition whose leader Sir Keir Starmer threatened to sack any shadow cabinet MP who visited a picket line. Their vicious response to the strike was part of efforts to suppress a growing strike wave they feared could bring down the government, jeopardising NATO’s proxy-war in Ukraine against Russia. In October, with Truss’s premiership in meltdown, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace was summoned to the White House for urgent discussions that were later described as “beyond belief”.
If thousands of Royal Mail workers were blindsided by Ward’s betrayal of the strike, this was above all the responsibility of the Socialist Party, SWP and similar petty-bourgeois groups which built him up for years as a “left”. After Ward became general secretary in 2015, defeating incumbent Billy Hayes, the SP urged delegates to the CWU’s conference to “let Ward know they expect him to deliver on the more assertive stance that his election campaign indicated.” Despite Ward having worked with Hayes to ensure smooth passage of Royal Mail’s privatisation in 2013, the SP wrote, “Socialists in the union should demand that Dave Ward campaigns on the union’s progressive policies and gives members and reps the confidence to stand up to management.”
The backing of Ward by Britain’s pseudo-left was consolidated through their joint support for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who spent his five years in power suppressing the class struggle and capitulating to the Blairites on every front.
In 2016, SWP National Secretary Charlie Kimber interviewed Ward in Socialist Worker under the headline, “CWU leader Dave Ward says, ‘We need a strategy to beat the Tories’”. Kimber gushed, “Like us, you’ve been enthusiastic about Jeremy Corbyn’s election”. Ward responded by saying Labour had to be “prepared to say it will shift wealth to workers.” But he cautioned, “we have to be patient. If Corbyn is elected saying he will renationalise three industries and he manages one, that’s still an improvement, still a success.” Kimber then politely alluded to “the difficulties Corbyn is facing over an issue like Trident,” i.e., the Parliamentary Labour Party’s insistence that Trident nuclear weapons would remain Labour policy. Ward replied, “I think saying we’re all against nuclear weapons is the wrong starting point.” Ward’s de facto endorsement of nuclear weapons passed without comment by the SWP. Corbyn retained support for Trident—alongside NATO—in Labour’s election manifesto.
Socialist Party
Aside from the Morning Star, published by the Stalinist Communist Party of Britain, the most naked defender of Ward and Furey during the dispute was the Socialist Party. With thousands of postal workers denouncing the CWU’s surrender document, the SP was plunged into crisis. It was a full five days before the SP could bring itself to comment on one of the most savage betrayals by the union bureaucracy in recent history.
On April 26, a statement by “Socialist Party members in the CWU” appeared in The Socialist. It claimed the negotiators’ agreement had “forced Royal Mail back on a number of issues”, before noting regretfully that this was “not enough” and calling for a “no” vote by members. The SP claimed the agreement was the outcome of “anti-trade union management, hell-bent on smashing our union”. This was a political cover for the CWU national executive, which co-authored the agreement with Royal Mail’s board. The SP portrayed the bureaucracy’s actions as a “mistake” which could be rectified through friendly advice: “The CWU leadership was unprepared for the type of battle this has turned into… The union’s leadership should have prepared, through discussion at all levels of the union, for escalating action.”
While the CWU executive was being denounced by workers as company stooges, the SP was calling on the executive to fight for Royal Mail’s renationalisation, “particularly when CEO Simon Thompson and co threatened administration.” But it was Ward and Furey threatening financial “Armageddon” against CWU members if they failed to endorse the union-company agreement. The SP’s absurd appeals served definite political ends, subordinating the working class to the Labour Party and to the Sunak government. It even suggested that both Starmer and the Tories could be pressured to oppose Royal Mail’s attacks: “The CWU leadership should have demanded that Keir Starmer publicly commit to the policy passed at last autumn’s Labour Party conference, of taking Royal Mail back into public ownership. That could have put real pressure on Sunak’s Tory government who have backed Royal Mail bosses.”
CWU Bureaucrats attack the SEP's Postal Workers Rank and File Committee
The formation of the postal workers' rank and file committee marks a qualitative turning point in the relationship between the UK Socialist Equality Party(SEP) and rank-and-file postal workers.
This is publically recognised by even the most boneheaded and reactionary CWU bureaucrat. The right-wing attack on the World Socialist Website(see article Communication Workers Union attack on WSWS and UK Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee backfires) is a backhanded compliment. It acknowledges that the CWU leadership has a viable and resolute opposition to its current betrayal of postal workers' struggle.
Postal workers are fed up with the open betrayal of the CWU bureaucracy and are looking for alternatives, as a recent WSWS article pointed out. It quotes one worker: "Is it time we started looking at alternatives?"
This threw the CWU into a frenzy. Its media attacked the World Socialist Web Site and the newly formed Postal Workers Rank and File Committee. The CWU said, "That website is ran by absolute cranks that have zero interest in the welfare of postal workers (or any other workers). Stick with the union. It's your voice. Solidarity."
As Robert Stevens replied for the WSWS, "This piece of red-baiting would not have been out of place in right-wing Tory rags such as the Daily Mail or Daily Telegraph. The CWU is attacking not only socialist opposition to its betrayals but the many CWU members who have written to the WSWS over the last month. The WSWS's interest in the welfare of postal workers" is clear over eight articles, from March 16-26, containing over 10,500 words directly from posties. In their comments, they explain in detail the atrocious situation they face, with many denouncing the CWU leadership for allowing such backbreaking conditions and the unachievable targets set by Royal Mail. The slander on the WSWS and Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee backfired on the CWU, with tens of thousands of postal workers reading the Twitter threads, with most comments posted pulling no punches in denouncing the CWU apparatus."[1]
The WSWS does not need to apologise over its stance, and its "interest in the welfare of postal workers" is clear over eight articles, from March 16-26, containing over 10,500 words directly from postal workers.
Postal workers, send a message to rmpw.rfc@gmail.com to contact and join the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee.
Postal Workers at UK’s Royal Mail establish a rank-and-file committee
The decision by postal workers, with the support of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), to found a rank-and-file committee is, by any stretch of the imagination, a truly historical event.
It is a welcome development despite taking 36 years (the anniversary of my last set to with the CWU bureaucracy). It now offers postal workers a way to fight against the CWU Bureaucracy without one hand tied behind their backs.
I urge all postal workers to join it and prevent what will be a huge betrayal by the current CWU leadership. As was said in an article posted on the World Socialist Website, “The committee will aim to mobilise workers against Royal Mail’s attacks and lead a fight for an inflation-busting pay rise, a defence of terms and conditions, an end to all job cuts and the overturning of victimisations.”
The betrayal being organised by the CWU bureaucracy marks a new stage in its development into an arm of corporate management. How long before Messrs Furey and Ward become members of the board? Their betrayal is not down to being bad people or weak this is the nature of the trade union bureaucracy worldwide.
Workers are trapped inside “trade union” organisations, which have assumed the character of corporatist entities controlled by petty-bourgeois functionaries like (Ward and Furey) whose own interests are in no way connected to even a residual defence of the rank and file’s share of the national income. The union leadership and apparatus act as an industrial police force for Royal Mail management.
The article Growing support for UK Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee, states “The formation of the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee shows that Royal Mail workers can break out of the confines of the CWU’s pro-company agenda and mount a direct challenge to the profits diktats of the company. It is an example others must follow. As the Committee’s founding resolution states, “Millions of workers in the UK are waging the same fight in a strike wave ongoing since last summer. This is part of an international struggle against global corporations and governments seeking to impose the immense cost of pandemic corporate bailouts and rampant inflation on the working class.”
Email rmpw.rfc@gmail.com to contact and join the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee.
The Capitulation of the CWU Bureaucracy
In a clear indication that the Communication Workers Union [CWU] bureaucracy has capitulated to Royal Mail and is preparing to end the current strike, the CWU General Secretary Dave Ward announced that the strike action on 12 and 14 November had been cancelled, which means there will be no strike action for over a month. The union has announced holding two 48-hour strikes around Black Friday and Cyber Monday – 24-25 November and 30 November – 1 December – and adding vague promises of strike action up to Christmas.
The union is wasting further time by asking postal workers to vote on the new Royal Mail 'offer' in a workplace ballot and a no-confidence vote in Royal Mail CEO Simon Thompson. So craven is the CWU bureaucracy's action that its Head of Communication, Chris Webb, was forced to attack it saying loads of CWU members were angry and confused about the announcement and demanded that the union reinstate the two cancelled strike days—alongside the new ones. "People are saying, the union's bottled it, we're surrendering, we're giving up to Royal Mail—why aren't we keeping the pressure up?"
The ending of the two strikes on the 12th and 14th of November came as Royal Mail issued a new pay offer which is a massive pay cut and calls for further draconian attacks on postal workers' pay and condition. Royal Mail is now docking pay and refusing overtime to make workers submit to their demands.
Royal Mail's action is a further declaration of war on postal workers. Already 96 CWU members have been suspended nationally since the strikes began. Royal Mail wants to impose a 7 per cent rise over two years, plus a lump sum payment of 2 per cent this year, even though inflation is already at over 10 per cent. It would be paid only if postal workers agreed to Sunday working, new start times and flexible working. Royal Mail wants to tear up postal workers' conditions that have taken decades to establish, slash jobs, and bring new starters in on worse terms and conditions.
All previous agreements with Royal Mail have been torn up. Union reps will no longer be allowed to have meetings or be released for union business. Overtime agreements are being scrapped. Delivery duties which were organised jointly by management and the union, will now be organised by managers only. Reserves can be sent to any office that needs them, and seniority of duties and holidays are to be scrapped. Workers' performance is now being tracked and assessed by data from the PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). In other words, Royal Mail intends to have a low-wage Uber-style workforce.
The CWU union bureaucracy described the offer as "a surrender document." But that is exactly what they have done. As Laura Tiernan states, "Royal Mail's announcement has blown the CWU's corporatist strategy out of the water".
Instead of rejecting this offer out of hand, instigating indefinite strike action, and establishing a strike fund, the union bureaucracy has called for more talks with an employer that has no intention of talking or backing down. Ward states, "On occasions, there has to be a moment where you focus on trying to negotiate, And it has been hard to focus on the negotiations when you're also out on strike. Sometimes that isn't always helpful." How are negotiations supposed to take place when even Royal Mail's CEO, Simon Thompson, does not even turn up for talks?
Ward explained his reasoning, saying, "We have got to take stock of where we are now, and we do have to put on the table other parts of our strategy to win this dispute. "There will be a hell of a lot of activity we'll be expecting you to undertake, and we don't want that activity to run in conjunction with the strike action that was planned on the 12 and 14 November. "Never believe there's only one tactic that wins a dispute. What we're putting forward is a rounded strategy. We don't just get into a cycle where every strike is followed by the next one, the next one. You have to have a wider plan."
Ward's pathetic and treacherous plan is to write letters to MPs, asking for a hearing at a parliamentary committee and trying to get a debate in parliament. He also said union leaders wanted a meeting with Royal Mail's shareholders: "We will explain to the shareholders that the CWU is up for change, and we will put forward our change plan."
These shareholders are not innocent bystanders in this dispute. Royal Mail CEO Simon Thompson, along with his private equity friends such as VESA and the Tory government, which has just greenlighted a possible takeover by billionaire shareholder Daniel Kretinsky, who wants to end Saturday letters deliveries, are pursuing a strategy to shatter workers' pay and conditions, placing the company on a competitive footing with Amazon and other global logistics giants. These gentlemen have their strategy; unfortunately, postal workers do not have theirs.
While militant strike action is important, it will not work on its win this dispute. The bureaucracy fears postal workers will start unofficial strikes to protect themselves from Royal Mail attacks. This struggle is at a crossroads. To win it, postal workers must break the stranglehold of the CWU bureaucracy and set up rank-and-file committees, which will take the strike out of the hands of the union bureaucracy. They must link their struggle with other sections of workers, such as railway workers. The demand must be raised for the nationalisation of Royal Mail, the seizure of its vast profits and its conversion into a public utility under the democratic control of the working class.
The Communication Workers Union [CWU] Waives the White Flag
The decision by the Communication Workers Union{CWU} to enter talks at the conciliation service ACAS is a clear indication that it is looking to end the strike and capitulate to the demands of the Royal Mail.
It is no accident that the attempt by the CWU to end this strike coincides with two inter-related developments: the crisis in the Tory party, which has all the hallmarks of a revolutionary crisis developing in Britain and the growing strike movement that is threatening to grow out of the control of the Labour party and trade union bureaucracy.
For the last six weeks, the CWU has sent numerous begging letters to Royal Mail management pleading to be lenient and negotiate with the union, only for Royal Mail to ignore their pleas, escalate executive actions, and threaten mass redundancies. The redundancies are a clear attempt to intimidate postal workers from taking further strike action. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has made it clear that it will not mobilise postal workers against Royal Mail's declaration of class warfare.
As Tony Robson points out, the union issued "an appeal for the Board to meet and discuss the union's "alternative business plan", framed as one offering greater profitability based on "utilising the competitive edge it has already in its deliveries to 32 million addresses across the country."
Royal Mail's agreement to talks is a ruse to buy more time to end strikes over the profitable Christmas period and to give the Tory government time to implement draconian anti-strike legalisation.
From the very first days of the strike, the union has put forward a pro-business agenda. David Ward, CWU leader, said shareholders were on the union's side, boasting on a Facebook meeting that the union had held secret talks with VESA, the same private equity firm pushing through massive attacks on postal workers' pay and conditions.
As for ACAS, the union is asking postal workers to put their faith in an anti-working class and pro-business organisation. It is not some independent organisation, but a mechanism used by big business to end strikes, as the Refuse workers in Coventry found to their cost[1]
The postal workers' dispute is now in danger and threatened directly by the CWU bureaucracy's corporatist strategy, posing the need for the rank and file to take charge. At every Royal Mail and Parcelforce depot, rank-and-file strike committees must be established to fight for the following:
· An inflation-busting pay award, with all future pay automatically indexed to the RPI inflation rate
· The immediate provision of strike pay for Royal Mail, BT and Openreach workers and Post Office workers to co-ordinate effective and sustained joint action
· No negotiations with Royal Mail until all mass redundancies are withdrawn and all executive action ended over the revision of terms and conditions. Any further talks are to be live-streamed.
· Reach out to Amazon workers who have launched wildcat action against sweatshop conditions in a united front of all delivery workers to defeat the race to the bottom
· Royal Mail and Amazon must be nationalised, their profits confiscated to meet pressing social needs and their operations placed under the democratic control of workers.
[1] ACAS sides with strike-breaking Coventry Labour council against refuse drivers-https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/03/16/cove-m16.html
The Global Attack on Postal workers
Employing over 115,000 Royal Mail workers, Royal Mail is currently undertaking a fundamental restructuring of its core business. It aims to concentrate on the lucrative parcel market and ditch its responsibility for letter delivery. It would appear to be deliberately trashing this side of the business to sell it to any private equity firm greedy enough to buy it. The 500-year-old company has also changed its name to International Distributions Services plc.
To undertake this restructuring, it is carrying out a vicious attack on postal workers' pay and conditions that is unprecedented in this industry in modern times. Along with other wholesale changes, it demands new delivery schedules to compete with parcel delivery services such as Amazon, which employs a super-exploited gig workforce. Royal Mail wants delivery rounds to start two hours later each day, from 9 am, with the last post at 7 pm or later. It wants compulsory Sunday work. If successful, it will amount to the Amazonisation of the postal service.
Worldwide postal networks are also launching systematic and widescale privatisation of their core businesses. Two related developments are driving this privatisation process or Post Office reform. Firstly, the exponential growth of electronic mail has placed massive demands on postal services worldwide to cut costs and improve efficiency to remain competitive. Computers now generate over 80 per cent of all correspondence sent.
Secondly, the globalisation of trade and industry facilitated by these same technological developments has torn the ground from under the postal service as a nationally based venture. Whereas the post Office once enjoyed monopoly status as a domestic carrier, today, it is forced to compete at home and abroad against its international rivals.
Postal companies around the world are, in the words of a UNI Global Report adopting "solutions aimed at optimising deliveries, such as the outsourcing of delivery services, the prior quantification of tasks using software tools (geo-routing13), the introduction of alternate day delivery, the questioning of the "tenure" of delivery rounds, the non-physical delivery of registered mail, the extension of delivery rounds and, for some operators, the total or partial integration of parcels and letters into one delivery stream. Some postal and parcel operators are also starting to introduce new low-cost ("uberized") flexible delivery models such as crowdsourcing which allows deliveries to be organised locally or even nationally (for the moment, mainly in the US, the UK and Belgium".
Given the globalised nature of the postal industry, it is not surprising that the attacks on British postal workers are mirrored worldwide. Across the channel, postal workers in France have come under sustained attacks from La Poste. Like postal workers around the globe, French postal workers joined their fellow workers during the Covid 19 pandemic playing an ever more "essential" role as they deliver food, medications, money, communications, and much more to millions of homes. Like their global counterparts, French postal workers have been treated as if their lives have no value, and thousands of postal workers were infected with many deaths. Since 2012 there have been 19 suicides or attempted suicides of postal workers.
La Poste is in many ways ahead of its European competitors in undertaking a massive restructuring of its business model to compete with its international rivals. It was one of the first European postal services to change the start times of its postal workers from 6 am to 8 am to compete with its rivals in the lucrative parcels business. This has ended the "job and finish" principle, something Royal Mail in the UK is keen to duplicate.
To offset the decline in Letters, La Poste has, According to a UNI Global Union report, now has postal workers doing "new services such as "Watch over my parents", home delivery of errands, meals or medicines, technical or administrative help (help with tax return forms, installation of TV decoders).[1] Most drivers at La Poste's subsidiary DPD are self-employed, and La Poste has shed over 70,000 of its postal workers.
"La Poste has considerably expanded its European express delivery network through investments in new technologies and a series of external acquisitions (Seur, Exapaq, Pickup Services Siodemka, among others). DPD is now the second-largest operator in Europe behind Deutsche Post DHL, with a market share estimated at 12.9% (with leading positions in several European markets such as Germany, the UK, France, Poland and Portugal). La Poste is also investing outside Europe (Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkey, China and Africa, and South and North America), intending to become a major player in the global e-commerce supply chain. About a quarter of La Poste turnover is already realised on foreign markets."[2]
The German Postal Service was privatised in 1989. It is hell-bent on cutting costs, including introducing low-paid contracts similar to its private business rivals, to furnish the German financial elite with increased dividends and facilitate its business expansion into foreign markets.
In Belgium, Bpost has already attempted the Uberisation of its core business. According to the Uni Global Study, "In 2016, Bpost launched Bringr, an innovative, collaborative platform app allowing smartphone users to find a driver for delivering goods. According to the company, Bringr aims to complement Bpost's existing product range with a service that enables users to find a driver to pick up goods at point A and deliver them to point B. First developed in the USA and the uK, this crowdsourced delivery model, which works on the same principle as popular driving (Uber) or grocery or food delivery services (Uber Eats, Deliveroo), are becoming increasingly popular among delivery companies as it satisfies consumers' growing demands for faster online deliveries while at the same time decreasing the cost of last-mile delivery by lowering labour and other fixed expenses.[3] Over 10% of its workforce is agency workers. In Poland, like its western counterparts, the Polish postal services face fierce competition from its rivals. Many competitors have a low-cost business method with low fixed costs and cheap labour. In Sweden, over 29,000 jobs have been lost due to the reorganisation of the Swedish postal network. Posten AB closed all post offices by 2002 and replaced them with so-called business centres and postal contact points located in grocery stores, filling stations, kiosks etc.
Like many postal workers around the world, postal workers in Sweden were fearful of the new changes, according to the Uni Global report: "Working conditions have also suffered. A SECO study team visited 800 Swedish Post and CityMail workplaces. These visits confirmed problems of stress and heavy workloads. According to the study, "the most distressing observation was the anxiety about the future expressed by most employees. This situation has increased in long-term absence, the increased incidence of occupational illness and high employee turnover".
In New Zealand, in 1998, the Postal Services Act ended the statutory monopoly of New Zealand Post (NZ Post) to carry letters, opening the postal market to full competition. NZ Post, to reduce cost {Royal Mail in the UK is seeking to do the same} is using self-employed workers for certain tasks. Many other duties are now being outsourced to companies with low wages and poor working conditions. This has led to over 5000 job losses since 2013. Australia Post The Australian government is conducting a restructuring of Australia Post that threatens 2,000 jobs. Many workers have been punished for speaking out on COVID-19 conditions
In Canada, Casual labour is rife at Canada Post, with 32 per cent of staff part-time, and the lack of full-time jobs has led to an escalation of casual work. An article on wsws.org reports, "Postal workers endure demanding and dangerous working conditions, including forced overtime and an accident rate that is more than five times the norm in federally regulated industries. Canada Post is using technological change to increase postal workers' workloads further while slashing jobs. Backed by the Conservative government's 2011 back-to-work law, it slashed pension benefits and expanded multi-tier employment."[4]
In the United States, President Joe Biden recently signed the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022, which will see the health care benefits of US postal workers slashed. The APWU and the other postal unions have regularly aided and abetted management attacks of wages and conditions and have fully supported the cuts in health care costs.
Brazil is in the final stages of privatising the state-owned postal office Correios, after a nationwide 35-day strike was sabotaged by the postal unions in September. In a previous strike in In 2014, Postal Union workers came out of strike over the transfer of the post's healthcare system to a new management agency. In Brazil, postal workers' wages and salaries are among the lowest in Brazilian state-owned companies.
In the United Kingdom, With the average wage of a Royal Mail Letters Operational Grade postal worker set at a measly £22,589, nearly £5000 below the national wage, postal workers have for the last decade or so been in a constant and fierce battle to defend and improve their pay and workers conditions. As was outlined at the beginning of this article, they face an employer who is hell-bent on destroying their hard-fought pay and benefits. The result of two decades of Royal Mail restructuring and then privatisation in 2013 has reduced jobs by 44,000. With the direct collaboration of the CWU, the company has seen the wholesale looting of the pension and the establishment of a new two-tier pension that will see new starters on a worse pension than their fellow workers. It has replaced its defined benefit pension scheme with a sub-standard arrangement. Postal workers have launched serious strikes to defend their pay and working conditions. The Communication Workers Union {CWU} has utilised the strikes as a bargaining counter to force Royal Mail to the negotiating table.
Like their counterparts around the globe, the CWU, far from defending postal workers from Royal Mail's rapacious attacks, have aided and abetted this process. As Eric London writes, "The trade unions, controlled by massive bureaucracies that are entirely integrated into the structures of the state and finance capital, serve as instruments of imperialism, and are working in every country with the corporations and capitalist parties to suppress this growing movement and to isolate the most militant struggles. The task that directly confronts the working class is to smash the bureaucratic dictatorship and transfer power to the rank and file.[5]
The International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), founded by the International Committee of the Fourth International in May 2021, calls on all postal workers to break from their union leader and set up their organisations independent of the union bureaucracy in order to coordinate and draw together all the disparate struggles of the international working class into one unified world movement. Above all, what is needed is the building of a socialist leadership to direct the emerging struggles in the direction of a challenge to the capitalist system and imperialist war.
Sources
1. Correspondence on the privatisation of Britain's postal service-24 August 2002- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2002/08/corr-a24.pdf
2. The Economic And Social Consequences of Postal Services Liberalisation - Uni Global study
3. Canada Post workers need a socialist strategy to defy and defeat Liberals' back-to-work law- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/11/24/cupw-n24.html
Notes
1. Masters of the Post: The Authorised History of the Royal Mail Hardcover – 3 Nov. 2011by Duncan Campbell-Smith
2. LONDON POSTAL WORKERS A TRADE UNION HISTORY 1839–2000 Kindle Edition-by Norman Candy
3. Scratching the Surface: Posties, Privatisation and Strikes in the Royal Mail Paperback – 29 Aug. 2014 -by Phil Chadwick
The Meaning of Militancy?: Postal Workers and Industrial Relations (Routledge Revivals) Hardcover – 27 Oct. 2017-by Gregor
[1] The Economic And Social Consequences of Postal Services Liberalisation - Uni Global study
[2] The Economic And Social Consequences of Postal Services Liberalisation - Uni Global study www.syndex.fr
[3] The Economic And Social Consequences of Postal Services Liberalisation - Uni Global study- www.syndex.fr
[4] Canada Post workers need socialist strategy to defy and defeat Liberals’ back-to-work law- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/11/24/cupw-n24.html
[5] The global strike wave and the crisis of revolutionary leadership- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/10/05/xsob-o05.html
CWU Yet Again Refuses to Call Strike After Historic Vote
Postal workers throughout Britain voted for strike action by 97.6 per cent, with 77per cent turnout over Royal Mail's 2 per cent pay offer. The offer comes with wide-ranging changes that amount to a fundamental re-organisation of the business to the major detriment of its workforce and promises a bonanza for shareholders.
The strike vote was the largest ever and represented not only anger at Royal Mail’s attack on their pay and conditions but shows frustration at the CWU bureaucracy by postal workers. Postal workers still remember the last huge strike vote that the CWU deliberately ignored while they used it as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Royal Mail. Again it would appear that the union has no intention of calling a strike.
Rather than call immediate strike action, the CWU has launched a second ballot over the changes Royal Mail want to activate. Dave Ward, CWU Leader, refused to call the strike saying, “it would be right to allow the company to think again on pay.” The CWU’s suppression of the strike is to stop the struggle of the postal workers from being linked to that of other striking workers. Instead of mobilising postal workers against Royal Mail’s vicious attacks, Ward reached out to shareholders and pleaded, "We're saying to shareholders, you shouldn't be supporting what these people are doing and what they're paying themselves, and you should be getting behind the workforce."
The CWU bureaucracy has admitted being surprised at Royal Mail’s actions. To what degree the bewilderment of the CWU leadership at Royal Mail’s vicious attack on pay and conditions is real is open to conjecture. Ward’s found the company's so-called sudden turn "Very difficult to understand. How did we get to this situation, with the same people in charge?".
In a recent speech, Terry Pullinger echoed Ward’s disbelief "The attack we're under now has no rational explanation. Things were going well, but then suddenly they disengaged, and nobody has explained why they've done that." Maybe it should be clear to Ward and Pullinger that this was always Royal Mail’s intention to reorganise the business fundamentally, and to Amazonisation the business.
The CWU openly bragged that they were able to prevent this plan with the Pathway To Change agreement. They told the new Royal Mail leadership they could implement the changes it wanted without strike action. The CWU wanted to deepen its corporatist relationship with Royal Mail.
Royal Mail saw things differently. While reluctantly agreeing to the Pathway to Change agreement, Royal Mail wanted to suppress strikes and give themselves time to implement their plan. After the union sa econd time refused to strike, CEO Simon Thompson issued detailed plans to decimate postal workers’ pay and conditions and reorganise the business.
One day after the CWU announced that they would give Royal Mail time to reconsider their position Royal Mail published a seven-page document called “The change we need”. The first thing Royal Mail wants to bring in is a system of yearly Flexi hours. This means postal workers would be at Royal Mail’s beck and call instead of working a fixed week. Annualised hours will be the norm, and cuts to supplementary payments. Many workers will have a huge cut in sick pay and compulsory Sunday work for all new starters. The creation of a two-tier workforce, with "the next generation of postal workers coming in on 10 per cent less."
Royal Mail chairman Keith Williams stated the company was making a loss of £1 million a day and needed these changes to fix the business. If this is the case, workers should demand to open up the books. He threatened to break up the company if workers didn’t accept these changes. While not contained in the company’s recent statement, they intend to run down the letters business to concentrate on the more lucrative parcels business. This would be based around the international parcel delivery operation called GLS. GLS’s appalling wages and conditions make Amazon look like an enlightened employer. Also, it is only a matter of time before Royal Mail bosses start to cut to the Universal Service Obligation, which means they must deliver letters to every address, no matter how remote or inaccessible, six days a week.
Since Royal Mail was privatised in 2013, it has been an unmitigated disaster for postal workers who have seen their pay and conditions eroded. Now Royal Mail wants to quicken up the process. From day one, postal workers and the public were fed the lies that privatisation would benefit society. The reality is a looted pension fund with two tiers, much to the detriment of new starters. A large-scale closure of offices and a land sale that echoed the American wild west.
Every attack that Royal Mail has launched on the pay and conditions of postal workers has happened with the intimate collaboration of the CWU. The CWU has openly boasted that it had delivered unprecedented increases in productivity and revisions through the Pathway to Change. It also boasted of its close relationship with Royal Mail. So much so now that it invites Royal Mail Group to observe its union meetings.
At a recent National Briefing meeting In Liverpool, current CWU deputy general secretary Terry Pullinger explained that there were RMG observers in the discussion, saying, "We must remember that we cannot allow them to set the agenda. The deal we want is a pay-only no-strings deal, and this is what you and the members need to remember when management speaks to you in the workplace. Even today, the 2% deal with no strings is a derisive offer and nowhere near enough to what we want, and you deserve. It may be a step from the 3.5% with all the strings, but the deal is still unacceptable. The Pathway to Change Agreement is there to deal with the strings they want to discuss in the pay deal, and that is where they will stay".
There you have it. The Pathway To Change has led to unprecedented change, increased productivity, cut in hours and duties, led to redundancies and forced workers to work through a pandemic that has cost many lives, left some postmen with long-term sickness due to long Covid and has led to massive disruptions in delivery offices up and down the country.
The latest episode is no different, with the union saying it has bent over backwards to facilitate the changes Royal Mail wants, saying, “We’ve delivered more change than ever in a short period and embraced more automation.”…and so, therefore, this union needs no lectures from the Royal Mail senior leadership on the nature of this current period, the changing needs of customers, what is necessary and what must be done.”
The CWU’s treachery and cowardice is mirrored by several pseudo-left groups organised within the union. They play a crucial role in isolating and hindering the number of postal workers prepared for a fight. Many of these pseudo-left maintain high positions within the union.
To take their struggle forward, postal workers must take the struggle against Royal Mail out of the hands of both the CWU bureaucracy and the pseudo lefts and form rank and file committees based on a socialist programme for the renationalisation of Royal Mail under workers' control.
Postal Workers Need A New Leadership.
In the next few days, Postal workers should be receiving their ballots for strike action over a pay dispute with Royal Mail Group from the Communication Workers Union(CWU).
Postal workers are arguably the most militant section of the British workforce and have on numerous occasions delivered substantial votes for strike action. Given the huge anger at the way they have been treated by Royal Mail over the issue of Pay,(the privatised postal company has acted unilaterally in foisting what amounts to a massive pay cut on its workforce with inflation currently standing at 11.7 per cent) it is a shoo-in that there will be a huge yes vote for strike action.
However much anger and militancy postal workers have, it will not be enough to defeat the plans of Royal Mail or eliminate a union leadership that spends more time hob nobbing with Royal Mail than it does defending worker's jobs and conditions. Time and time again, postal workers have stood up and been counted, only to be betrayed by their leadership. It is clear that even to the most casual observer, the CWU does not act in the interest of postal workers but has become an arm of corporate management.
It is perhaps an unfortunate choice of words, but the current CWU deputy general secretary Terry Pullinger said, "Our members are lions, and if you prod the lion, it will attack". Then it begs the question, who are the donkeys ?.
Even before the ballot papers hit the floor, the CWU leadership prepared to dissipate and defeat any strike action. The earliest strike action will take place in August and gives the CWU plenty of time to sell out the strike before it has even begun, which is exactly what they did with the last massive strike vote.
Before the ballot papers were issued, the CWU had sent out numerous leaflets outlining its position. The union has openly bragged that it forced postal workers to work during the pandemic and that its collaboration with management had led to a "billion-pound turnaround, record profits and restored the reputation of Royal Mail".[1] It has already confirmed that Royal Mail's "charter for sweatshop labour" can be negotiated as long as a decent pay rise is guaranteed
The CWU has openly boasted that it had delivered unprecedented increases in productivity and revisions through the Pathway to Change. It also boasted of its close relationship with Royal Mail. So much so now that it invites Royal Mail Group to observe its union meetings.
At a recent National Briefing meeting In Liverpool, current CWU deputy general secretary Terry Pullinger explained that there were RMG observers in the meeting, saying, "We must remember that we cannot allow them to set the agenda. The deal we want is a pay-only no-strings deal. This is what you and the members need to remember when management speaks to you in the workplace. Even today, the 2% deal with no strings is a derisive offer and nowhere near enough to what we want and you deserve. It may be a step from the 3.5% with all the strings, but the deal is still unacceptable. The Pathway to Change Agreement is there to deal with the strings they want to discuss in the pay deal, and that is where they will stay".
There you have it. The Pathway To Change has led to unprecedented change, increased productivity, cut in hours and duties, led to redundancies and forced workers to work through a pandemic that has cost many lives, left some postmen with long-term sickness due to long Covid and has led to massive disruptions in delivery offices up and down the country.
As one worker relates, "Since I've been at my current depot, the company has been pushing more and more work onto us. They've reduced the number of individual walks, which means those walks get reallocated into other people's workload. We even see some people coming in early, before their official start time, to prep their walks — or, at the other end, people sprinting round to get their walks done as there's simply so much to cover. Now management is talking about restructuring our hours so we wouldn't be in work on Monday and Tuesday, when the workload tends to be lighter, and having us work Wednesday to Sunday instead. That would obviously wreck work/life balance for many people".
The union has done nothing to protect the health of its membership and deliberately put workers in harm's way to increase the productivity and profits of Royal Mail. As CWU rep David Robertson stated, "we attended work during the height of the pandemic. We delivered as best we could under the strain of tremendous volume and high sick absences. We put the customer before our health concerns and that of our families".
The pièce de resistance has been the union's agreement, and implementation of the "Above & Beyond bonus scheme", a one-off payment in case any worker wants to work themselves to death for a one-off payment. Any worker who wants to find out the inspiration for this piece of stupidity should delve into the history books. Joseph Stalin introduced the Stakhanovite movement, which became synonymous with workers being worked to death for a pittance.[2]
The CWU openly boasts that it has delivered a massive profit of £758 and a huge divedend to shareholders through the sweat of postal workers. It has carried out over 1200 Delivery Office revisions. These revisions have not only seen cuts in hours but heavier workloads and loss of overtime. In many delivery offices, this has caused utter chaos, with some deliveries not being made for days if not weeks.
Also it should be made clear that the CWU is not opposed to Sunday working but must be implemented under its control. The union has said, "We are willing to discuss innovative duties and duty patterns". This must be done, it says, with the collaboration of Royal Mail boasting that in 2021 it had agreed to 48 Joint Statements and in 2022 had issued a further 37.
Even if the CWU act upon what will be a huge vote for strike action, postal workers will still be saddled with a leadership that is hell-bent on collaborating further with its corporate partner. In order to defend jobs and pay, postal workers need a new perspective and leadership. The first step on this road is to take the struggle out of the hands of the CWU and form rank and file committees. As the great Rosa Luxemburg said, "The modern proletarian class doesn't carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers' struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight".[3]
[1] Royal Mail Group Pay Dispute 2022 Leaflet
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement.
[3] "The Politics of Mass Strikes and Unions"; Collected Works 2
Royal Mail Profits Surge But Offer A Pay Rise With More Strings Than An Orchestra
Royal Mail is expected to reveal record full-year profits of around £720million, up from £664million the previous year. Given Royal Mail's previous promise to shareholders to cut staff and escalate further attacks on postal workers, it is no surprise that it has offered a paltry pay rise of 2% with massive changes in working conditions.
Royal Mail wants compulsory Sunday working; an additional 1.5% pay rise will be directly linked to increased productivity. Royal Mail wants a reduction in sick pay, scrapping several allowances, later start times, annualised hours and significantly different pay for all new members, creating a two-tier workforce.
The only people surprised by Royal Mail's actions are the Communication Workers Union(CWU), who have bent over backwards to present the new Royal Mail management as a friend of postal workers and someone they can work with.
Over the last two years, the union has collaborated with Royal Mail in imposing draconian new changes in working conditions. When postal workers sought to oppose these attacks, the union called off a strike ballot and began phoney negotiations. These negotiations resulted in many dead and sick postal workers who were forced to work during a lethal pandemic, with the union calling postal workers the "fifth emergency service".
The new national agreement (Pathway to Change) agreed between Royal Mail and the CWU has led to a massive increase in productivity with huge amounts of packets delivered, which meant a massive increase in profits, and at the end of last year, £400 million was given to shareholders.
The CWU has reportedly overseen record-breaking revisions, leading to hours cut, longer walks, and utter chaos in numerous offices. According to one worker," Our office has just started its new duties after a revision where deliveries are too big, the way walks have been laid out is absurd, mail not being delivered for days and overall morale varying from discontent to hilarity at the fiasco developing. Customer service is non-existent, and turning this around seems impossible. Posties are so fed up that mail is taken for a ride and then returned to be rethrown off for the next day when the pantomime is repeated. Bigger walks, less time to do them, photographing packets daily van checks before you go out, HCTs that are not fit for purpose and a union that seems oblivious".[1] Several Royal Mail delivery offices took unofficial industrial action in opposition to the 'Pathway to Change' national agreement. One such strike at the Invergordon delivery office was taken to defend a temporary member whose contract was ended.
Amesbury and Frinton delivery offices took strike action over the massive increase in parcel delivery with cuts in staff leading to unrealistic delivery times. Workloads have now reached breaking point at a large number of offices. At Wakefield Delivery Office, West Yorkshire, the agreement rollout of a structural revision resulted in 94% of the workforce voting it down after producing unachievable workloads. Unofficial actions by postal workers have been left isolated by the CWU leadership. Regarding the current pay dispute, the union has, instead of calling an immediate strike ballot, will continue four-week negotiations behind the backs of postal workers.
As part of the CWU's supposed battle on pay, its London organisation has released a leaflet entitled London Calling-Royal Mail's Pay Betrayal To The Workforce. The leaflet insults the intelligence of postal workers, as no postal worker believes Royal Mail has betrayed them. If anything, large sections of postal workers conclude that it is their union that has betrayed them and collaborates so much with Royal Mail that it is becoming difficult to tell them apart.
This treachery is not just confined to British unions. Trade unions all over the world are carrying out similar policies? Embracing labour-management collaboration and handing back to the employer's gains won by previous generations of the working class.
To defend their pay and conditions, Postal workers must break from the CWU and establish a network of rank-and-file committees.
UK Post Office workers to stage national strike on May 3 against government pay restraint
(This article by Tony Robson first appeared on the website wsws.org)
Post Office workers are to take national strike action May 3, in opposition to pay restraint imposed in line with the public sector policy dictated by the Johnson government.
The one-day stoppage will close 114 Crown Post Offices (those run directly by the Post Office) around the country and there will be no cash deliveries or collections from 11,500 sub-post offices. The action involves over 1,000 workers including counter staff as well as clerical, administration and call centre workers.
Royal Mail van, outside the Axminster post office (Image Credit: Wikipedia/Felix O)
Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) voted in March by a 97.3 percent majority for strike action in a ballot turnout of 70 percent. They have rejected a miserly 2.5 percent pay rise, offered as inflation climbs to a 30-year high of 6 percent CPI and 9 percent RPI.
The proposed two-year deal includes the pay freeze for last year and a lump sum of £250 in addition to the 2.5 percent from April this year.The determination of postal workers to fight back is in sharp contrast to the CWU. While the union is making token noises about the insulting pay offer, its efforts have been directed towards preventing a struggle from taking place.
Andy Furey, CWU Assistant General Secretary, told the Independent, “Despite this union’s best attempts to avoid strike action, the Post Office has displayed no interest whatsoever in meaningful negotiations.”
The union has confined itself to evasive references to a decent and fair agreement rather than specify a demand in line with inflation and which compensates for last year’s pay freeze.Now that a national strike is taking place the CWU is seeking to head off a confrontation with the government and drive a wedge between postal workers and millions of public sector workers suffering widespread austerity.
In a press release Furey states in reference to the Post Office, “They have told us that they’re freezing pay in keeping with official government and public-sector pay policy… But that’s an outrageous and dishonest excuse as the government’s austerity measures do not apply to the Post Office and it should be borne in mind that our members worked throughout the pandemic to provide essential services to the Great British public.”
He added that “the further irony here is that our members are always being told by senior management that they are a commercial operation and required to make a profit – yet the Post Office is a profitable concern – profits made by the hard work and dedication and skill of our members.”
Health workers, teachers, refuse workers and millions of other public sector workers have served on the frontline of the pandemic in which their safety was disregarded only to be rewarded with below inflation deals. The divisive approach of the CWU must be rejected in favour of a unified fightback.
Furey argues for accepting the entire framework of cost cutting and restructuring in the name of profitability on the false pretence that workers will get their “fair share” rather than suffer stepped-up exploitation.
The state-owned Post Office was separated off from Royal Mail when the latter was privatised back in 2012, splitting the cashier and retail operations from the letter and parcel delivery service. Since then, the number of Crown Post Offices has been reduced from 373 by more than two-thirds, to 114. Fully 99 percent of Post Offices are run by an independent postmaster, or what is described as a larger franchise partner, i.e., major retail chains.
The government subsidy has been reduced from £210 million in 2012-13 to £50 million annually, according to a Financial Times article last August, “in the drive to make the Post Office commercially viable.” Post Office CEO Nick Read explained that while the plan to remove all government subsidy, except for rural branches, by 2022 has been postponed, it was still intended to be achieved by 2025-6.
Read outlined plans to introduce self-service kiosks in 2,000 to 3,000 branches following the example of Post Canada. He admitted this would be at the expense of jobs. Read also referred to a move into the pick-up and drop-off market and for the Post Office to act as an outreach for banks that have deserted the high streets in favour of online services. The Post Office has entered into agreements with Amazon and DPD in relation to parcel deliveries, rather than their exclusive handling by Royal Mail.
The sole focus of the Post Office is to maximise profits as the government subsidy is stripped out. This can only further undermine the social obligations it is formally committed to in providing an accessible service to the elderly and most vulnerable, and will be done at the expense of workers’ jobs, pay and terms and conditions.
The Post Office has been at the centre of a massive frame-up of postal workers through the Horizon scandal. Hundreds of sub-postmasters and postmistresses were wrongfully convicted to cover up the defective Horizon IT auditing system designed and installed by Japanese company Fujitsu. This was introduced across the Post Office network in 1999 at the cost of £1 billion. The defects in the IT system showed false shortfalls in branch accounts and led to 736 unsafe convictions for offences ranging from false accounting, theft and fraud between 2000 and 2014, resulting in some prison sentences.
This was only brought to light due to the legal campaign by those wrongfully convicted and their supporters, spanning a 20-year period against bitter resistance from the Post Office. At the end of 2019 the Post Office finally agreed to pay damages to 555 claimants in civil cases. Last April the Court of Appeal quashed in a single ruling the convictions against 39 postmasters, part of a total of 72 such rulings to date, with many more expected to go to court. The bill of compensation for the victims of injustice meted out by the Post Office is estimated to be £1 billion.
One of the “Post Office 39” who had their convictions overturned is Seema Misra, a mother who was eight weeks pregnant with her second child when she was sentenced in 2010 for theft and false accounting, spending four months in prison, and ordered to pay £40,000 in compensation to the Post Office. Misra stated, “The Post Office was like a mafia. They have blood on their hands. We live in a developed country, how can we let these criminals roam around freely?”
There is widespread anger among postal workers over the fact that nobody in authority at the Post Office or Fujitsu has faced criminal prosecution for what has been described as the most “widespread miscarriage of justice” in recent UK history. Both parties have been shown to have withheld evidence regarding the faulty IT system. Paula Vennells, who oversaw the cover-up and persecution of sub-postmasters, is estimated to have raked in £5 million in pay and bonuses during her time as managing director and later chief executive of the Post Office before stepping down in 2019.
Post Office workers should reject the CWU’s argument that their fight should be conducted separately from those in the public sector facing austerity. The claim that a pay rise can be achieved by accepting the pro-business framework for the Post Office of further restructuring to hike up profits is bogus.
We encourage Post Office workers to read the Socialist Equality Party statement, “The working class must mobilise to bring down the Johnson government.” This outlines a strategy to mobilise the working class independently of the Labour Party and trade unions, which act as accomplices of the government and the employers as they demand increased exploitation and social looting in the interests of the corporate and financial elite.
The Great Post Office Scandal: The fight to expose a multimillion-pound IT disaster which put innocent people in jail by Nick Wallis, Bath Publishing, £25 544 pages
Harjinder Butoy,[1]
'All who were convicted following a trial had grim punishments imposed upon them, including in some cases immediate sentences of imprisonment. Lives were ruined, families were torn apart, families were made homeless and destitute.'Reputations were destroyed, not least because the crimes of which the men and women were convicted – theft, fraud, and false accounting – all involved acting dishonestly. People who were an important, respected and integral part of the local community that they served were in some cases shunned.
Jason Beer QC
Behind every great fortune, there is a crime.
—Balzac
The Great Post Office Scandal, a door stopper of a book weighing in at 544 pages, catalogues at great length the numerous campaigns and legal cases that finally made the Post Office admit there was the elephant in the room. Post Office executives spared no cost in defending their position of prosecuting innocent people for crimes they did not commit.
Nick Wallis's book highlights the shocking and criminal actions of the Post Office, who deliberately prosecuted Postmasters and Postmistresses despite knowing full well that their Horizon computer system was faulty. The Post Office bosses jailed, ruined the lives of and caused the suicides of many people in a manner that would not look out of place in a Nazi courtroom.
As Rory Cellan-Jones said in his review, "hundreds of sub-postmasters have had their reputations besmirched, their livelihood and liberty taken away and been sent into a spiral of depression that has in one instance ended in suicide, all because of a misplaced faith in the wisdom of computers".[2]
In 1999 The Post Office introduced a computer system called Horizon designed by Japans Fujitsu. It sought to revolutionise how Post Offices worked, but in reality, it produced a nightmare that made Dante's Inferno look like a tea party.
During the four years after its introduction, the system miraculously began to find incredible levels of fraud. Instead of investigating whether the system was malfunctioning, the Post Office went to extraordinary lengths not only to cover up the fault but by 2014 had 736 people prosecuted. Both the Post Office and Fujitsu lied through their teeth to protect a malfunctioning computer system, even denying that Fujitsu employees had any power to intervene with branch transactions. The Post Office deliberately withheld evidence that prevented workers from having a fair trial.
The book is meticulously researched and well written. Wallis's tenacity in pursuing the Post Office is a sight to behold. The book is an engrossing account of how the Post Office was forced to admit that it deliberately ignored and covered up Horizon's malfunction. The Post Office's hands are dripping with the blood of many workers.
Wallis did not break the story, but he was one of the few brave souls to break the wall of silence surrounding the scandal. Initially contacted by Davinder Misra, the husband of Seema, who was pregnant and in prison. She was accused of a shortfall in her account of £74,000, and was jailed for 15 months for theft.
Trade Union and Labour Bureaucracy
The reason the Post Office could jail people like Seema and many more is down to the fact that the Labour and Trade union bureaucracy never lifted a finger to stop it. At no stage did the unions involved either the Subpostmasters trade union or the CWU(CommunicationWorkers Union) call for strike action to prevent people from being jailed for crimes they did not commit. At no stage did the CWU expose the rotten Labour governments that presided over this miscarriage of justice on a grand scale.
This crime against the working class began under the Blair-Brown Labour governments. Gordon Brown became PM of the Labour government on 27th June 2007.
The union bureaucrats of the CWU fully shared the essential thrust of Blair and Brown's right-wing policies. They shared Labour's pro-business agenda, which included allowing innocent workers to be jailed and ruined by a Government-owned company without lifting a finger to help.
Conclusion
The Great Post Office Scandal is not an easy read, not just because it is too heavy. I hope it gets a wide readership. Wallis will donate money from the sales to fund the court cases still to be undertaken. Aside from that, it is an important book. It is conversational and contains many interesting vignettes, sometimes making it read like a crime novel.
The book works on many levels. It is attractive for the general reader, and academics will find much that interests them. From a legal standpoint, many lawyers will find this a goldmine.
While this scandal could be compared with other crimes against the working class like Enron, Theranos, Wirecard that has devastated so many lives in the pursuit of profit, it would be a mistake to believe that the Post Office is just a bad apple in an otherwise healthy basket. The decisive question that is not raised in the book, let alone answered, is what driving forces within the capitalist economy could have led to the situation where The Post Office could pursue and jail innocent people and act with impunity.
What was the role of the Labour and Trade Union bureaucracy in allowing the Post Office to act with such impunity? The answer to these questions will not be found in the book or in the current enquiry, which will be another will be a whitewash.
Why has no Post Office executive has been held personally accountable, let alone jailed? The Post Office Chair and CEO are still in their jobs, and the previous CEO, Paula Vennells, was given a CBE and a cushy job as Chair of Imperial College NHS Trust. CEO Paula Vennells was given a £5 million golden handshake and a CBE for "services to the Post Office and charity". Workers must reject this phoney enquiry and must demand a worker's inquiry.
[1] Harjinder Butoy was given the longest prison sentence at three years and four months was wrongly convicted and jailed for stealing £208,000.
[2] https://www.ft.com/content/77a3b8cd-26f1-4328-b226-84200fc14
Royal Mail Profits Soar to £726m While Postal Workers Get Sick
Royal Mail's annual pre-tax profits for 2021 have quadrupled compared with the previous year. Profits stem largely from the pandemic-fuelled online shopping boom. Pre-tax profit jumped to £726m in the year to 28 March, compared with £180m a year earlier.
The massive rise in profits has led to speculation that Royal Mail will return to the FTSE 100 in next month's quarterly market value-based reshuffle. The company will reward its shareholders with a bumper payout of £400million.
While the pandemic has been good for business, it has been an unmitigated disaster for thousands of postal workers who have got sick with a growing number of fatalities. Many worry that they have a significant chance of catching a deadly virus every time they turn for work and pass it on to loved ones.
Dire sickness levels have seen some customers not receiving mail all week. Large areas of the country are not receiving mail due to skyrocketing sickness levels amongst postal workers. In one week alone in the run-up to Christmas, 32 offices I know about were hit by covid related sickness. Sickness levels are double 2018 levels.
While Covid has caused havoc in many offices around the country, an even greater cause of disruption has been the massive restructuring programme undertaken by Royal Mail with the intimate collaboration of the CWU (Communication Worker Union), hours and job cuts have been made to increase productivity and profits.
The current CEO Simon Thompson bragged, "Last year stood out as one of remarkable change at Royal Mail. It has been challenging at times, but we have learnt that we can deliver results and change at lightning pace when we are united by a common purpose."
In the latest issue of the Courier, Thompson makes the extraordinary claim that 1700 revisions have taken place in the last six months beating the previous figure of 132 in twelve months.
Many of the revisions have been a disaster. It seems not a day goes by without pictures and videos being leaked to the press showing full grey sacks of mail piled high on top of each other. One office in London some walks not been taken out for weeks.
According to one source, many revisions have been so rushed 'the revisions are delaying the post. It is a 'computer says no' scenario. The technology says the routes can be done, but it does not take into account roadworks, traffic jams and blocks of flats with 30 addresses the posties have to get to.'
Communication Workers Union
The massive increase in productivity achieved by Royal Mail courtesy of the new agreement could have only taken place because of the role played by the CWU. In many offices around the UK, the union policed implementing the new revisions, while the others were a collaboration between the union and Royal Mail management. So much so that it has been hard to tell where the union ends and Royal Mail management begins. As George Orwell said, "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.[1]
The CWU's 'Pathway to Change Agreement' between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) was hailed as a new way of working, and it would improve the working conditions of postal workers, and nothing of the sort has happened.
At Wakefield Delivery Office, West Yorkshire, the CWU suffered a rebuff when the structural revision agreed by managers was voted down by 94% of the workforce.
One aspect of the new agreement trumpeted by the CWU would be an end to bullying by managers, and this has patently not taken place. Revisions are now being imposed regardless of the workforce's agreement, hours are cut, and absorption levels are going through the roof.[2] In many cases, postal workers are now doing more work than before the agreement.
Also, if the Covid crisis has proved one thing, it is the inability of the CWU(Communication Workers Union) to protect its workforce. The role of the CWU has been crucial during the latest pandemic. There is no way that Royal Mail would be operating, let alone making money, if it were not for the role of the CWU bureaucracy. The CWU offered postal workers up as the fifth emergency service, and postal workers are now increasingly needing to use the real emergency services.
While it is clear to many that the CWU has become an arm of corporate management, numerous pseudo-left[3] groups such as the SWP(Socialist Workers Party) contend that the CWU is still an organisation that will defend workers interests. The SWP held up the latest agreement between the union and Royal Mail as proof of this.
While there is growing opposition to Royal Mail and the CWU agreement from postal workers, the role of the SWP is to provide left and militant credentials to the union bureaucracy and disarm postal workers seeking to fight. The SWP hailed the new agreement pathway to Change Agreement' saying it had stopped major attacks on workers' jobs and conditions. This is a lie, and nothing of the sort has taken place. If anything, the attacks and the workload of postal workers have increased after the agreement.
[1] Animal Farm-George Orwell
[2] Absorption. An agreement between Royal Mail and the CWU that when a postal worker goes sick his delivery is done by other postal workers on top of their own delivery.
[3] The term “pseudo-left” denotes political tendencies that utilize democratic and populist phraseology to advance the interests of privileged sections of the upper middle class and defend capitalism against socialist revolution. There are many representatives of this politically reactionary tendency internationally, including the Democratic Socialists of America in the US, the Left Party in Germany, the Socialist Workers Party in Britain, Socialist Alternative in Australia, the New Anti-Capitalist Party in France, Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece, and the NSSP in Sri Lanka. https://www.wsws.org/en/special/pages/pseudoleft.html
Postal Workers Face the Fight of Their Lives
Both Royal Mail and the Communications Workers Union(CWU) have offered up postal workers as the fifth emergency service without putting in place adequate safety measures to prevent the spread of the virus. Postal workers do not just deliver letters, but in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, they have joined with all logistics workers and are playing an ever more “essential” role, as they deliver food, water, medications, money, communications, and much more to millions of homes. This massively increased workload has led to a large number of postal workers catching Covid 19.
The last month has seen significant outbreaks of Covid 19 in offices all over the country:
Three postal workers contracted the virus at a delivery office in Blackpool.
Eight staff members have tested positive for coronavirus at the delivery office in Abbey Road, Malvern.
·Two Royal Mail workers at the Cheltenham delivery office have tested positive for Covid-19.
·15 staff at Royal Mail’s distribution centre in Swindon tested positive for COVID-19.
·The sorting office in Derry, based on Great James Street, is currently without 60 of its 120 workforce due to the virus. It is understood that 24 staff are currently off due to Covid-19 and 36 are self-isolating.
A Royal Mail delivery office has undergone an ‘intensive clean’ after three employees tested positive for coronavirus. The affected workers are now self-isolating at home following the outbreak at the Stone sorting office.
·The Communication Workers Union (CWU) said there had been 16 confirmed cases in the Bathgate delivery office and warned sharing postal vans could contribute to the virus spreading at other sites.
Seven workers at a busy Royal Mail depot in East Renfrewshire have tested positive for Covid-19.
Seven people have recently tested positive for coronavirus at the Newton Mearns Delivery Office.
In Fife, there has been one confirmed case in the Dunfermline delivery office.
This list of offices with Covid 19 cases is growing and by no means complete. Royal Mail alongside the CWU are downplaying the dangers, and in some cases, outbreaks are deliberately being kept secret. It is well known that cases of Covid 19 have happened at major London offices, but nothing has appeared about them in the press.
Whistleblowers & Strike Action
This wall of silence is forcing some workers to take matters into their own hands. Opposition from postal workers to these attacks on their health and working condition although inchoate is the start of much more significant opposition to the attacks from Royal Mail management.
One action taken by postal workers is to upload footage of offices that are a danger to health onto social media. Postal workers are also contacting newspapers anomalously in order to speak about the fact that staff are not being protected properly in breach of health and safety rules.
Some employees posted a 45-second video clip taken on October 2 this year. The video shows some staff members with no social distancing measures in place.
One whistleblower told the Worcester News: “No temperature checks are being carried out, no hand sanitiser is available, and staff are not wearing masks, and there is no social distancing at all. “I am concerned about the residents of Malvern as well as staff.”
Royal Mail responded to the videos with the usual platitudes saying: “Throughout this crisis, every decision we make puts the health of our people and customers first. We have a range of preventive measures in place to protect both our customers and our colleagues. As well as encouraging good hand hygiene, standard ways of working have been revised to ensure that colleagues maintain appropriate social distancing at all times.”
Derry
By far the most serious outbreak of Covid 19 as regards postal workers in the UK has happened in Derry, Northern Ireland. Postal workers were so enraged by the lack of protection they took strike action because they felt that they were being led like lambs to the slaughter due to the unsafe working conditions. They demanded a deep clean of the premises before they returned to work.
Charlie Kelly, from the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU), spoke to Belfast Live saying “I believe that management is hoping to have more staff back within the next week but until at least Friday the sorting office is only focusing on delivering packages rather than letters. That has been happening over the last week because the situation has escalated within the last week. We now have around 60 staff off due to coronavirus and four other staff off due to other issues, and you can only imagine the pressure that puts the workforce. We have been like this now since March – due to the restrictions people are naturally shopping more online, and that is putting further pressure on staff to deliver everything on time. And the staff are still feeling incredibly uneasy about the entire situation. We are about to go into what is usually the busiest time of the year for us. Half the staff are currently off, and the virus does not appear to be going away anytime soon.
The walkout in Derry became the precursor for other postal workers to walk out on strike. In Strabane, both Royal Mail and CWU officials managed partially, for now, to keep a lid on the growing anger amongst postal workers. Although workers in Strabane briefly walked out and returned only because a deep clean of the office was carried out. Royal Mail’s attitude towards the Covid 19 pandemic should not be seen as just a case of bad management but is the product of their subordination of the human needs to the drive for profits and in some cases the accumulation of personal wealth.
A pandemic is a historic event that has exposed the economic, political, social and moral bankruptcy of Royal Mail. It is laying bare the unbridgeable chasm that exists between the businessmen that run Royal Mail and the needs and interests of postal workers.
Royal Mail Management has seen the pandemic as a “trigger event” in which to carry out an agenda that has been on the table ever since Royal Mail was privatised back in 2013.
The talks that are currently being held behind closed doors between Royal Mail and the CWU will be seen as a historic moment. The outcome of these talks will govern what will happen to the 500-year-old institution in the decades to come.
Nothing good will come out of these talks. Postal workers will face an unprecedented attack on their jobs and conditions to say nothing about the dangers to their health.
Royal Mails position is clear. They would like to do anything they want without the slightest impediment to their plans. They see the union as “only representing the membership on personnel issues” with a reduction of CWU reps and officials by 25%.
The position of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) is clear it will not only roll over and play dead but will alongside Royal Mail implement any changes at the same time seeking to prevent the undoubted opposition to these attacks from postal workers. The CWU role as an industrial policeman is matched by its continued political suppression of postal workers through its alliance with the Labour Party. The CWU claims that Labour in power will renationalise the postal service after it deregulated Royal Mail during its last period in office.
As was said in a previous article on the World Socialist Website “It was Labour which introduced the skewed form of competition in which private operators gained entry points to the most profitable parts of Royal Mail, while riding on the back of its mail delivery network. While the private sector effectively received state-subsidised profits, further pressure was applied on Royal Mail to realign itself on a commercial basis. Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Ummuna has dismissed any pledge to renationalise as “completely irresponsible” and “like writing a blank cheque.”
If any postal worker thinks their union will fight these attacks in any meaningful way, they should examine the CWU’s actions since 2013. In that time, the Communication Workers Union (CWU), has been integrated into management structures. Only recently the CWU sat on a massive live ballot for strike action given to them by postal workers seeking a fight against Royal Mail and did nothing with it except use it as a bargaining tool to get their feet under the negotiating table. In return for seats at the top table and the privileges that go with them, the CWU is seeking to impose Royal Mail’s agenda for change now that the strike ballot has now run out.
“Royal Mail has been privatised for seven years now,” the union’s deputy General Secretary Terry Pullinger tells the UnionDues podcast. “But we have done well in keeping the company together and protecting terms and conditions.” This not true the last seven years have been an unmitigated disaster for postal workers. With the CWU’s help, the dismantling this public asset has created an expendable workforce and allow private equity companies to feast off the profits made from the increased exploitation of the work
Conclusion
Postal workers must take the initiative to build their own independent rank-and-file workplace committees to coordinate opposition. These committees must call for their own set of demands, such as safe conditions to protect them from COVID-19, wage increases, the transfer of part-time workers to full-time positions and the nationalisation of Royal Mail without compensation.
Workers must continue to take to social media and other media outlets to share information about what is taking place in their area and can coordinate independent action. Rank-and-file action committees would serve as the means through which postal workers can mobilise their strength, appealing to the broader working class to take part in the fight to defend all social and democratic rights, including the preparation of strike action with other workers throughout the UK and globally.
Postal workers are urged to contact the Socialist Equality
Party -sep@sep.org.uk
Time to Act Over More COVID 19 outbreaks
In the last few weeks, over thirty postal workers at six different delivery offices have tested positive for Covid 19. Recently Royal Mail confirmed that ten postal workers at the Bathgate Delivery Office in Scotland are now self-isolating at home after testing positive for Coronavirus. These cases come off the back of a case in a Fife sorting office in September, and three workers at the Dunfermline office were sent home to isolate
It has been confirmed that two workers have tested positive at its Leeds depots. Four postal workers at Scarborough’s Royal Mail delivery office have tested positive for Covid-19.
Another office at Hastings has had to undergo a deep clean after a further outbreak of COVID 19 amongst staff. Hastings had a previous case in July after a member of staff tested positive. Four postal workers at a Liverpool delivery office have tested positive for Coronavirus. It is not known how many workers are quarantined awaiting test results.
Royal Mail Platitudes
In what has become almost like groundhog day when an outbreak is reported. Royal Mail issue a perfunctory statement regarding safety and health. Once this announcement is made, it is business as usual. Nothing is heard about how sick postal workers who are off work are and how they caught the virus only that they are ‘recuperating.’
“Royal Mail takes the health and safety of its colleagues, its customers and the local communities in which we operate very seriously. “They are now recuperating at home, and we wish them a speedy recovery. We have carried out an intensive clean of the building. “We are currently processing mail as normal at our Bathgate office. The office is open as normal.”
Well, this is hardly a “normal” situation, and the longer it goes on, it is only a matter of time before postal workers start adding to the four dead postal workers already.
The situation facing postal workers is reaching a critical mass. Royal Mail is making large profits from parcel deliveries while postal workers are falling sick. The last few weeks alone have seen the share price go through the roof again as postal workers become sicker.
If this crisis has proved one thing, it is the inability of the CWU(Communication Workers Union) to protect its workforce. The negotiations currently underway have the air of fiddling while Rome burns or even arranging deckchairs on the Titanic. The role of the CWU has been crucial during this pandemic. There is no way that Royal Mail would be operating, let alone making money if it were not for the role of the CWU bureaucracy. The CWU offered postal workers up as the fifth emergency service, and postal workers are now increasingly needing to use the real emergency services.
It is clear that the very limited safety measures in place are not working and are putting postal workers lives in danger. Again it will not be long before more postal workers are added to the four deaths already. I call on workers who are not happy with the COVID-19 dangers they have been subjected to by unions and management at Royal Mail and want to fight the restructure and the dangerous conditions to contact the Socialist Equality Party at sep@sep.org.uk
Yet More Postal Workers Test Positive for COVID 19
Four postal workers at a Liverpool delivery office have tested positive for Coronavirus. An unknown number of workers are quarantined awaiting test results.
This is the second report of a Coronavirus outbreak in a week as an outbreak at a Bury sorting office in Greater Manchester Royal Mail has left several postal workers recovering at home. Bury And Liverpool have seen a significant escalation of COVID 19 cases recently.
Royal Mail has been deliberately vague as to the numbers of postal workers infected because it does not like anything to impinge on its profit drive.
Time and time again when an outbreak occurs it trots out the usual mantra that “Royal Mail takes the health and safety of its colleagues, its customers and the local communities in which we operate very seriously”. “During this time, we have carried out a full, enhanced clean of the building as a precautionary measure. The Bury Delivery Office remains open as normal.”
Once this announcement is made, it is business as usual. Nothing is heard how sick postal workers who are off work are and how they caught the virus only that they are ‘recuperating.’
Significantly Royal Mail has made sure that its measures have been ratified by the CWU saying “All staff have been briefed about the social distancing measures jointly agreed by local management and the CWU. This has been supplemented with visible reminders such as posters and one-way floor markings.”
The role of the CWU has been crucial during this pandemic.
There is no way that Royal Mail would be operating, let alone making money if
it were not for the role of the CWU bureaucracy. It is also no accident that
the sicker postal workers get, the higher the share price goes.
The CWU is currently in negotiations with Royal Mail after boasting that it has brought Royal Mail to the table and is demanding adherence to the 2017 Four Pillars Agreement. The CWU claims this heralded a new way of working that enshrined postal workers’ pay and conditions in law.
As the WSWS has explained, the Four Pillars deal was a sellout and included an inferior pension scheme, reduction in working hours in return for productivity boosts through alterations to delivery routes, new duty patterns, new working practices, and greater use of technology to monitor performance. Behind the backs of workers, the CWU is agreeing on fundamental changes in working practices that will be to the detriment of most postal workers.
To clear the path for these changes, the union has cleared 600 disagreements off the table so that Royal Mail will be given free rein to impose revisions or job cuts without the threat of strike action”.
It is clear that the very limited safety measures in place are not working and are putting postal workers lives in danger. It will not be long before more postal workers are added to the four deaths already. I call on workers who are not happy with the COVID-19 dangers they have been subjected to by unions and management at Royal Mail and want to fight the restructure and the dangerous conditions to contact the Socialist Equality Party at sep@sep.org.uk
Talks between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union
will end in job losses
31 July 2020
The following comment article was submitted to the WSWS by a British postal worker.
Talks between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) mark a new stage in their joint offensive against pay, working conditions and health. The track record of the CWU is proof of this.
In 2014, the union signed off on the “Agenda for Growth” agreement. The current general secretary of the CWU, Dave Ward, was part of the negotiating team that accepted what was tantamount to a no-strike deal, agreeing to the clause:
“The employer shall be entitled to notify the CWU at any time that any of the Protections will no longer continue, if…there is national-scale industrial action (in the form of a strike or action short of a strike) which has been authorised at the national level by the CWU [which] will have, or is reasonably likely to have, a…disruptive effect.”
Ward, portrayed as a “left” by groups such as the Socialist Party and Socialist Workers Party, is a champion of a “partnership approach.” The pseudo-left groups made much of Ward’s campaign for general secretary, especially his “no blind loyalty to Labour” stance. But blind or not, Ward is certainly loyal to the Labour Party bureaucracy.
Throughout negotiations, Ward has bragged about bringing Royal Mail to the table and demanding adherence to the 2017 Four Pillars Agreement. The CWU claims this heralded a new way of working, enshrining postal workers’ pay and condition in law. Four Pillars was a sellout and included an inferior pension scheme, reduction in working hours in return for productivity boosts through alterations to delivery routes, new duty patterns, new working practices, and greater use of technology to monitor performance.
The CWU said that Four Pillars would see a reduction of part-time work and increase full-time jobs. The opposite has happened. There has been a growth of 20-hour and 25-hour contracts, both on worse pensions than full-time workers, which have led to the creation of a two-tier workforce. Calling for the retention of the 2017 Four Pillars Agreement, which included a range of cost “efficiencies” to the detriment of workers, has only guaranteed the CWU a seat at the table.
Royal Mail Chairman Keith Williams and UK Operations CEO Stuart Simpson have paid lip service to the Four Pillars Agreement while seeking to impose former CEO Rico Back’s plan for further attacks. The CWU has accepted the accelerated attacks on postal workers’ conditions, saying, “We know things have to change.”
Behind the backs of workers, the CWU is agreeing to fundamental changes in working practices that will be to the detriment of most postal workers. To clear the path for these changes, the union has cleared 600 disagreements off the table so that Royal Mail will be given free rein to impose revisions or job cuts without the threat of strike action.
Dave Ward and his deputy, Terry Pullinger, spoke of the need to accept the revisions because Royal Mail had backed down over its move to separate off Parcelforce from letters. They insisted, “We cannot always be in dispute mode, we have to move things forward. If nothing moves, we end up with no industry and no job.”
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The CWU has echoed Royal Mail’s mantra, saying that post-workers must ask themselves, “How can we make some savings?” The CWU even had the nerve to say that some revisions “can go the members’ way in some places.”
Working with the CWU has necessitated Royal Mail bosses changing tactics but not their long-term plans.
It has been mooted that a new deal will undermine the Universal Service Obligation, and will involve postal workers working Sundays, delivering parcels to offset job losses with a five-day USO possibly excluding Saturday deliveries. The union has admitted that 20,000 jobs will eventually go, saying that at least they will not be mandatory redundancies but voluntary. But what happens if Royal Mail does not get 20,000 voluntary redundancies? The CWU will not fight this, given its long record of reneging on votes for strike action. The CWU’s London Division has warned that “these negotiations are going to be possibly the biggest since the ending of the second delivery and will mean major change[s].”
This means postal workers accepting “minimising letter decline,” “diversifying” deliveries and job losses. Parcel volumes are up 64 per cent according to Royal Mail’s financial results, increasing the already heavy workload faced by postal workers. Royal Mail has given massive amounts of money to shareholders. In the last seven years since privatisation, the hedge funds and other significant shareholders controlling Royal Mail have extracted over £1 billion in dividends and other remunerations.
Royal Mail announced in its financial result that it was losing £1 million a day due to the coronavirus crisis. It threatened that “change” would have to accelerate. Shortly after the release of the financial results, it announced that 2,000 managers would lose their jobs as part of £130 million savings.
While the CWU has boasted about its newfound love affair with Royal Mail, it has been extraordinarily silent on Royal Mail’s plans to increase profits for its shareholders. Despite a temporary reduction of dividends, Royal Mail has said “the opportunity remains to create more value for shareholders.” One such opportunity is to sell off its very profitable parcels company, GLS. This would create an enormous dividend for shareholders.
Royal Mail has continued with the selling of its prime infrastructure. In 2017, the company sold part of its land at Mount Pleasant in London to property developers Taylor Wimpey for £193 million. Just recently, a large logistics warehouse used by Royal Mail has been purchased by an investment company at the cost of £13 million. The selling of what is the largest and busiest Parcelforce depot in the UK, handling around 20,000 parcels per day, is one indicator that far from safeguarding jobs, CWU talks with Royal Mail are a cover for attacks escalating behind the backs of postal workers.
At the start of the coronavirus crisis, the union called off a strike voted for by 94.5 per cent of members on a 63.4 per cent turnout. Without any consultation of its membership, Ward and Pullinger proposed a gentlemen’s agreement with Royal Mail and Boris Johnson’s Conservative government. In a “proposal to the company based on putting the interests of the nation first,” the CWU offered up Royal Mail workers as an “additional emergency service.” The CWU claimed this would end attacks on jobs and conditions and see the necessary safety measures implemented. Already, four postal workers have died of COVID-19, with much sicker at home or in hospital.
The fast pace of change means that it is later than postal workers think. They must reject the CWU’s mantra that they have the best interests of postal workers and are working for a better future. To take forward the struggle in defence of postal workers’ health and to oppose the onslaught on jobs and pay demands the formation of rank-and-file committees.
These committees must begin to coordinate a company-wide counter-offensive, rejecting the CWU’s call for collaboration with management, and taking the international class struggle as their starting point.Against plans to carve up and hive off the company, the demand must be for Royal Mail to be nationalised without compensation and placed under
Three postal workers test positive at UK Royal Mail’s Medway
Mail Centre
14 September 2020
Postal workers at Medway Mail Centre are still concerned after three postal workers tested positive for coronavirus, despite Royal Mail’s claim to have cleaned the delivery office.
Only opened in 2012, the Medway is categorised as being “state-of-the-art.” The contraction of COVID-19 by three postal workers demonstrates that Royal Mail is continuing to sacrifice workers’ health in a scramble for profit.
A Royal Mail spokesperson trotted out the usual palliatives saying, “Royal Mail takes the health and safety of its colleagues, its customers and the local communities in which we operate very seriously.”
The Medway Mail Centre joins a long list of Royal Mail offices that have had outbreaks of coronavirus. Last month, after an outbreak among 12 staff, 900 postal workers at Manchester’s main Oldham Road mail depot were told they might have the deadly virus. Even so, they were informed that it would be four days before they were tested. If workers wanted a test before then, they were told it would involve a drive to an out-of-town location.
The testing programme was outsourced to the private sector. G4S, the firm given the contract, eventually turned up at the depot but would only test workers on the day shift and refused to cover the evening shift—saying its contract only covered carrying out tests until 6 p.m. Manchester City Council was forced to contact the Department of Health and Social Care to complain, with all the workers eventually tested.
Royal Mail’s Clacton delivery office, in Oxford Road, Clacton – On-Sea, had to undergo an urgent deep clean after Royal Mail was informed that an employee had contracted COVID-19. Six cases were found at the Wellingborough delivery office in Northampton and two workers ended up in the hospital.
There have been walkouts over safety fears at Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, and High Wycombe, near London after employees tested positive for the virus. Postal workers at offices in Bury St. Edmunds, Chatham, Southampton, Stoke-on-Trent, Warrington, Didcot, Edinburgh, Alloa and Fife took unofficial action over safety.
The worry of catching the virus is having a significant impact on postal workers’ physical and mental health. Darren Beech, who worked at the Kidsgrove delivery office, committed suicide and was found by his two brothers who visited his Kidsgrove home on May 17. He was reported to be deeply worried about the coronavirus and felt “unprotected.” Beech was already anxious about the state of his home and his financial situation. North Staffordshire assistant coroner Margaret Jones said, “The deceased was anxious over the state of repair of his house, financial matters and health issues. He was not coping well during the COVID-19 lockdown.”
Darren’s brother, Brian, said in a statement, “He was recently worried about finances, although I’m not aware if he had any serious debt. He was also recently worried about the COVID-19 situation as he said Royal Mail did not adequately protect him at work.”
Other deaths have drawn attention to working conditions at Royal Mail. In August, delivery worker Mark Cremer collapsed and died while on his round. The 55-year-old man was found unconscious by a member of the public and died in Worthing Hospital. A review of Royal’s Mail’s safety procedures has been called for.
Cremer, based at Lancing Delivery Office in West Sussex, was working during the hottest part of August as temperatures exceeded 34 degrees C (93 F). It is standard for postal workers to be out on delivery for three to four hours in the searing heat. Cremer was not the only postal worker to die in the hot weather. Phil Bentham from Barrow-in-Furness, aged 59, died at the end of his round during the same week as Cremer. It is reported that Bentham had recently returned to work after 17 weeks of shielding from COVID-19. What is clear to many postal workers is that delivery offices are dangerous to their health.
Postal worker and writer Dan Bradley revealed the horrendous situation facing postal staff—as their workload was ramped up during the pandemic—in a recent Guardian article. “The truth is, since lockdown started in March, my days begin with nausea. The job looks so good on paper, but the reality is barely tenable. Like many postal workers hired since privatisation and an increasing number of people in my office, I am on a part-time contract with little to no chance of full-time hours. My annual take-home income, due to the part-time hours, is so low that I simply cannot pay the bills. Even before lockdown forced everyone indoors, causing a huge surge in online parcel deliveries, the workload was backbreaking. A colleague showed me his pedometer—he had walked 16 miles that day. Despite only being in his early 30s, he has received cortisone injections in his feet and shoulders to work through the pain. His situation is not uncommon; plantar fasciitis is endemic, and I see a lot of illness, injury and burnout.”
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) offered its sympathies to the family of Phil Bentham and Mark Cremer, “who died in sad circumstances and we fully understand the grief and anxiety amongst Phil and Mark’s work colleagues in their respective delivery units where emotions are naturally running high.”
But the brutal working conditions that exist in Royal Mail are down to not only Royal Mail but are the product of the union’s collaboration with the company going back decades.
The CWU is currently in negotiations with Royal Mail after boasting that it has brought Royal Mail to the table and is demanding adherence to the 2017 Four Pillars Agreement. The CWU claims this heralded a new way of working that enshrined postal workers’ pay and conditions in law. As the WSWS has explained, the Four Pillars deal was a sellout and included an inferior pension scheme, reduction in working hours in return for productivity boosts through alterations to delivery routes, new duty patterns, new working practices, and greater use of technology to monitor performance.
Behind the backs of workers, the CWU is agreeing on fundamental changes in working practices that will be to the detriment of most postal workers. To clear the path for these changes, the union has cleared 600 disagreements off the table so that Royal Mail will be given free rein to impose revisions or job cuts without the threat of strike action.
Whatever is agreed, it will mean massive job cuts and a stepping up of productivity. It is being mooted that the Royal Mail will seek the end of the Universal Service Obligation agreement, with Saturday letter deliveries threatened. Another rumoured action is the break-up of Royal Mail, with its parcels company GLS sold off.
Based on the CWU’s record, it will not fight these drastic changes to postal workers’ pay and conditions but will instead collaborate in their imposition. Cremer and Bentham, along with the four postal workers who have died from COVID-19, will not be the last such tragedies as a result of Royal Mail’s profit drive and the CWU’ s treachery.
To oppose the ongoing onslaught of their jobs and
conditions, postal workers must organise themselves independently of the CWU.
The Socialist Equality Party is fighting for the formation of rank-and-file
workplace safety committees in every sector. Last week, the SEP formed an
education worker rank-and-file committee, in opposition to the unsafe
reopening of schools. We urge postal workers to contact the SEP about their
conditions at work and experiences
Postal Workers Need A New Leadership.
In the next few days, Postal workers should be receiving their ballots for strike action over a pay dispute with Royal Mail Group from the Communication Workers Union(CWU).
Postal workers are arguably the most militant section of the British workforce and have on numerous occasions delivered substantial votes for strike action. Given the huge anger at the way they have been treated by Royal Mail over the issue of Pay,(the privatised postal company has acted unilaterally in foisting what amounts to a massive pay cut on its workforce with inflation currently standing at 11.7 per cent) it is a shoo-in that there will be a huge yes vote for strike action.
However much anger and militancy postal workers have, it will not be enough to defeat the plans of Royal Mail or eliminate a union leadership that spends more time hob nobbing with Royal Mail than it does defending worker's jobs and conditions. Time and time again, postal workers have stood up and been counted, only to be betrayed by their leadership. It is clear that even to the most casual observer, the CWU does not act in the interest of postal workers but has become an arm of corporate management.
It is perhaps an unfortunate choice of words, but the current CWU deputy general secretary Terry Pullinger said, "Our members are lions, and if you prod the lion, it will attack". Then it begs the question, who are the donkeys ?.
Even before the ballot papers hit the floor, the CWU leadership prepared to dissipate and defeat any strike action. The earliest strike action will take place in August and gives the CWU plenty of time to sell out the strike before it has even begun, which is exactly what they did with the last massive strike vote.
Before the ballot papers were issued, the CWU had sent out numerous leaflets outlining its position. The union has openly bragged that it forced postal workers to work during the pandemic and that its collaboration with management had led to a "billion-pound turnaround, record profits and restored the reputation of Royal Mail".[1] It has already confirmed that Royal Mail's "charter for sweatshop labour" can be negotiated as long as a decent pay rise is guaranteed
The CWU has openly boasted that it had delivered unprecedented increases in productivity and revisions through the Pathway to Change. It also boasted of its close relationship with Royal Mail. So much so now that it invites Royal Mail Group to observe its union meetings.
At a recent National Briefing meeting In Liverpool, current CWU deputy general secretary Terry Pullinger explained that there were RMG observers in the meeting, saying, "We must remember that we cannot allow them to set the agenda. The deal we want is a pay-only no-strings deal. This is what you and the members need to remember when management speaks to you in the workplace. Even today, the 2% deal with no strings is a derisive offer and nowhere near enough to what we want and you deserve. It may be a step from the 3.5% with all the strings, but the deal is still unacceptable. The Pathway to Change Agreement is there to deal with the strings they want to discuss in the pay deal, and that is where they will stay".
There you have it. The Pathway To Change has led to unprecedented change, increased productivity, cut in hours and duties, led to redundancies and forced workers to work through a pandemic that has cost many lives, left some postmen with long-term sickness due to long Covid and has led to massive disruptions in delivery offices up and down the country.
As one worker relates, "Since I've been at my current depot, the company has been pushing more and more work onto us. They've reduced the number of individual walks, which means those walks get reallocated into other people's workload. We even see some people coming in early, before their official start time, to prep their walks — or, at the other end, people sprinting round to get their walks done as there's simply so much to cover. Now management is talking about restructuring our hours so we wouldn't be in work on Monday and Tuesday, when the workload tends to be lighter, and having us work Wednesday to Sunday instead. That would obviously wreck work/life balance for many people".
The union has done nothing to protect the health of its membership and deliberately put workers in harm's way to increase the productivity and profits of Royal Mail. As CWU rep David Robertson stated, "we attended work during the height of the pandemic. We delivered as best we could under the strain of tremendous volume and high sick absences. We put the customer before our health concerns and that of our families".
The pièce de resistance has been the union's agreement, and implementation of the "Above & Beyond bonus scheme", a one-off payment in case any worker wants to work themselves to death for a one-off payment. Any worker who wants to find out the inspiration for this piece of stupidity should delve into the history books. Joseph Stalin introduced the Stakhanovite movement, which became synonymous with workers being worked to death for a pittance.[2]
The CWU openly boasts that it has delivered a massive profit of £758 and a huge divedend to shareholders through the sweat of postal workers. It has carried out over 1200 Delivery Office revisions. These revisions have not only seen cuts in hours but heavier workloads and loss of overtime. In many delivery offices, this has caused utter chaos, with some deliveries not being made for days if not weeks.
Also it should be made clear that the CWU is not opposed to Sunday working but must be implemented under its control. The union has said, "We are willing to discuss innovative duties and duty patterns". This must be done, it says, with the collaboration of Royal Mail boasting that in 2021 it had agreed to 48 Joint Statements and in 2022 had issued a further 37.
Even if the CWU act upon what will be a huge vote for strike action, postal workers will still be saddled with a leadership that is hell-bent on collaborating further with its corporate partner. In order to defend jobs and pay, postal workers need a new perspective and leadership. The first step on this road is to take the struggle out of the hands of the CWU and form rank and file committees. As the great Rosa Luxemburg said, "The modern proletarian class doesn't carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers' struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight".[3]
