Swindon TUC condemns Brown’s attack on postal workers

Swindon Trades Union Council: Media Release 11^th October 2007

Gordon Brown’s comments on the postal dispute in Prime Minister’s question time were no great surprise. But it gave the lie to any idea that the government was ‘above the fray’. There is no justification for the continuation of the dispute he said. Brown nailed his colours to the mast demanding that postal workers go back on the terms of Royal Mail management.

CWU members will be justifiably angry with Brown’s comments. The crisis in the Postal Service is the result of two things:

·         ‘liberalisation’ of postal services by the European union.

·         the Blair/Brown government’s enthusiasm for that liberalisation. They introduced full competition earlier than the EU timescale.

Whilst the government pledged that they would not privatise Royal Mail, they were in fact privatising the work by opening up the public service to competition. As with the NHS they rigged the so-called competition by forcing RM to deliver the mail of their competitors to the door. The private companies do not have to bear the cost of the infrastructure necessary for a national mail service.

What users of the service should understand is that the government’s undermining of the public service will lead to increases in prices and potentially the end of the universal service obligation by which mail is charged standard prices however far it has to travel. What is at stake in the strike action, therefore, is not just the wages and working conditions of postal workers, but the service that they provide. Were the CWU to lose the dispute then RM would continue to make cuts which would worsen the service. Because the government demands they act like a business their prime interest is not the service they provide but the profit they make.

The aims of the management are to drive down wages to the level of their competitors (25% lower) and to introduce an industrial dictatorship of ‘complete flexibility’ whereby a cowed workforce does whatever the management instructs them to do. This might be alteration of start times, alteration of the length of the day, and workers doing whatever job they are told to do. To achieve this management are seeking to break the strength of the union in defending its members terms and conditions of service.

Brown, of course, is a great believer in ‘flexibility’ which has meant in British industry the growth of low paid jobs and an atmosphere of fear in the workplace amongst workers. Brown’s picture opportunity with Thatcher was not just to embarrass Cameron. The Blair/Brown government maintained much of her anti-union legislation. They have supported the stacking of the legal cards against the trades unions.The CWU members deserve the support of trades unionists and service users alike because they are defending the post office as a public service as well as standing up against the sort of industrial bullying that became so common in the Thatcher years, and has continued under ‘free market’ New Labour.

Martin Wicks

Secretary Swindon TUC

For further comment ring 07786 394593

Four day postal strike is looming

From the Evening Advertiser

Postal workers picketing at Dorcan in July

POSTAL workers are threatening a four-day strike from next Friday.

The action, from October 5 to October 9, is a protest against proposed changes to hours, pay and pensions.

Royal Mail has condemned the strike and claimed the postal workers have proposed no “serious” solutions.

The crux of the dispute between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) is the decision to change staff’s hours from fixed to flexible.

Chris Rye, CWU branch secretary for Swindon, said: “Depending on the amount of post, they can tell us to do more or less and they might not give it us the next week.

“People want to know what time they’re starting work and what time they finish.”

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He said the changes would cause staff problems with planning family life.

“Also if someone goes sick or on a holiday, we would usually cover it on overtime,” he said.

“But now four people would have to split it up and do it as extra work, but not get paid the overtime. That would mean a potential £5,000 to £6,000 loss for workers.”

All postal workers will also take a £1,000 to £1,500 pay cut from plans to stop the door-to-door delivery of direct mail.

The other main dispute is the scrapping of a 30-year-old scheme next April concerning allowances and redundancies.

Mr Rye said that the redundancy package for a postal worker after 23 years’ service would fall from £30,000 to £8,000.

“They are also behind in our pension payments and want to change the way our pensions are worked out, which will cost us thousands. Some of our 1,500 members could lose £20,000 to £30,000 a year,” he said.

“If they’re going to just bring these changes in, and you’re going to lose all that money, the only alternative is to strike.

“We don’t think the business is being run to the customers’ approval. People don’t like to get their morning mail late and small villages like Avebury are losing their post offices.

“We’re hoping to negotiate and reach an agreement that benefits both sides. But they don’t want to reach an agreement.”

“I think Royal Mail are pushing to be privatised and that’s why they’re putting proposals to us that they know we’re not going to agree with.”

But Royal Mail branded the union “unrealistic and unreasonable”.

“As a result of the Communication Workers’ Union decision to return to strike action, we will now begin to make the changes,” a spokesman said.

“The call for further strikes does not change the urgent need for Royal Mail to modernise and become more flexible and efficient if it is to survive.”

Royal Mail said flexible hours would simply mean staff working the hours they are paid to work, and claimed its rivals were 40 per cent more efficient after modernisation and the union’s plans would cost £2.4bn over four years.

The union refused Royal Mail’s offer of a 2.5 per cent pay rise to be topped up to three per cent over several years.

Royal Mail also claimed the union had misled its members by stating the company had decided pension changes without consulting staff. It said all changes would be made in line with existing agreements with the union and staff would get the proper notice period. Further one-day strikes in logistics, deliveries and processing are planned from October 15.

“Postal pay is heated issue”

This is a response from Roger Seaborn, CWU Divisional Rep, to a letter in the Swindon Advertiser.

You would think from Terry Reynolds’ letter that he knew nothing about the current postal dispute.

In fact Terry is a postman and has been since 1986. He already knows the answer to all of the questions that he has posed.

Well he would know the answer if he chose to read both sides of the argument and not just management’s. But that is his choice, as is his choice not to be a member of the Union.

Terry quotes a pay demand of 22 per cent. He must know this is not true. All that has been asked for is parity with the average in the country over the next five years. Terry asks how many firms are paying out rises of 22 per cent.Well Terry, how much did you get earlier this year?

You see Terry is an HGV driver in Royal Mail. Earlier this year HGV drivers in Royal Mail received a rise of about 18 per cent.He has a go at the Union through his letter, and yet it was the Union who negotiated that rise for all of the HGV drivers, not just the Union members. I don’t recall him saying he did not want it.

The penultimate paragraph in Terry’s letter is the most telling part.He asks, if we get a pay rise, will we take action to get even more money for the HGV drivers so that they get their parity back? It is ok for Terry to have large pay rises and want to keep the differential, but the rest of the postal workers can carry on struggling on low wages.The rest of his fellow workers at his depot came out in support of their fellow workers.

R.Seaborn, CWU Divisional Representative. 

Truth behind the postal strife

The following letter is from the Swindon Advertiser. It is a response from the CWU to a previous letter attacking postal workers.

In reply to Eric Sadler’s ‘They should be sorry for striking’ letter (SA, August 10), our members would like to relay some true facts to the public about the deteriorating service they are getting from Royal Mail and also the continuing attempts to cut the postmen and postwomen’s weekly take home pay. 

We too have taken out a full page advertisement in the national press, also the Advertiser, Wiltshire Gazette and Herald, and the Star which is delivered to almost every address across the borough to put our points across. 

Remember Oxford Rd Post Office, Clifton St, Theatre Square, Fleming Way – they are all now closed. In the new year, the Sandford St Post Office is to be moved into WH Smith in Regent St. The counter staff from Sandford St would then be employed by WH Smith, a saving of wages and property to Royal Mail. Who has the money from the sale of these post offices? Not the CWU members. 

Remember Mr Sadler when you had two deliveries a day, now you are lucky to get one by 2 p.m. 

The next step by Royal Mail was to inform its postmen/women that they would have to work to 62 instead of 60, to make up for Royal Mail’s failure to pay pension contributions for 10 years after they took a pension holiday. 

Royal mail say the CWU is frightened about modernisation. That is simply not true. What Royal Mail mean by modernisation is cuts in service, cuts in pay and cuts in jobs. 

Remember Mr Sadler when your local post box was emptied three times daily. Now the majority are only opened once. 

Very shortly there will be another cut in the service – no Sunday collections. 

In April Royal Mail offered postmen/women a 2.5 per cent pay offer worth £8 a week, with 22 strings attached (rate of inflation in April stood at 4.8 per cent). One of the strings was to change postmen/women’s start time from 5 a.m. to 6.15 a.m. This would have a knock on effect to all companies large and small and the general public. It would mean a further delay in receiving your post. This one hour fifteen minute period is worth £12 shift allowance which is pensionable. No negotiation. Royal Mail just removed the £12, great pay deal, £4 down and still 21 strings to be addressed. 

Allan Leighton, chairman of Royal Mail works one day a week, Adam Crozier has a basic £790,000 a year salary. A postman’s basic salary is £15,600 a year. We would like to apologise to the general public but we are attempting to protect your services as well as our postmen/women’s pay and conditions from continual attack.

D.Lawrence

The strange case of Leyton Orient and the postal workers dispute

Why would 66 Leyton Orient supporters visit a Swindon TUC website to read an article (http://swindontuc.wordpress.xom/2007/08/07/postal-workers-stage-walk-out/ ) reproduced from the local paper, on an unofficial walk out by Swindon Postal workers? No, it’s not a trick question. It is a weird example of the unexpected connections which happen on the internet.

Since ‘wordpress’ records the origins of visits to you web site, you can trace them. It appears that somebody (with the unlikely moniker of ‘Euripides Trousers’) posted a link to the Swindon TUC web site on the Leyton Orient supporters chat site. There must have been some discussion on the postal workers’ strike action, possibly prompted by ‘SwindonO’, a Leyton Orient fan exiled to the far reaches of Wiltshire, and working for the Royal Mail.

‘SwindonO’ gives an inside account of the walk-out:

“I was one of the posties that walked out at dorcan in support of the two union members that were moved from hawksworth. The unofficial strike only lasted an hour at our office but it made the big guys see that we will not be walked over and this dispute is far from over.

This morning our boss told us that the planned strike in our office for thursday night/friday morning was off and we will have to work, the union rep comes along say’s it is all lies and the strike is on. Seems to be a cat and mouse game at the moment.”

Postal workers stage walk-out

Postal workers stage walkout

By Emily Walker

From the Swindon Advertiser 

MORE than 500 Swindon postal workers staged an impromptu walkout after two of their colleagues were moved to different parts of the company.

About 150 staff arriving for work at the Hawksworth sorting office refused to work for two hours this morning.

Two workers, who had been involved in previous strikes, said they were told to move to other offices because there had been complaints against them.

Workers at the Dorcan sorting and delivery offices also downed tools in sympathy with their colleagues.

Communication Workers’ Union representative for the Hawksworth office Chris Rye said: “They said there had been complaints against a few people so they were moving them to other offices.

“They were personally pointing out people who had been on strike.

“When we have been on strike we have always been pleasant and played by the rules, but they are using this to make personal attacks. This wasn’t a union-led walkout though. It was led by the workers. There wasn’t even a union rep there at the time. The workers felt so aggrieved by what was going on that they walked out.

“The union managed to get them back to work.”

Mr Rye managed to broker a deal with bosses at the Hawksworth delivery office, and get staff back to work after less than two hours.

Bosses agreed that other workers involved in the complaint would also move to other offices along with the two who actively participated in last month’s strikes.

He said the tensions running high at the mail centres yesterday were typical of their daily working environment at the moment.

“Royal Mail have tried to put this latest walkout down to us, but they started it,” said Mr Rye. “There are 200 bags of mail that haven’t gone out today.

“On Saturday there were 225 special deliveries that didn’t go out. We were willing to take them but they wouldn’t pay the overtime for us to do it.

“They have changed the times of our starts and finishes.

“We don’t think the public and businesses want to have their post delivered later and it will take longer to get through the rush hour traffic.

“People already call us snail mail, if it doesn’t go out until one or two hours later we think it will be even worse for the business.”

CWU members at the Dorcan mail centre are due to hold further strikes on Thursday evening and Friday and Swindon’s delivery office staff will go on strike on Saturday.

No one from Royal Mail would comment on today’s walkout.

Speaking about the strikes later this week a Royal Mail spokesman said: “Royal Mail deplores the move by the union, in spite of talks, to attempt to cause further disruption to customers’ mail. As the CWU is responsible for calling the strikes, they are clearly free to stop this damaging action at any time. Royal Mail urges them to do so, in the interests of our customers, our people and the future of the business.”