Workers' Liberty

A postal worker solidarity meeting held by Battersea and Wandsworth Trades Council on 9 November was quite instructive, encouraging in some ways and discouraging in others.

The meeting was called before the strike was suspended; nonetheless, about 25 non-postal workers turned up, mostly local union reps (Unison, RMT, NUT, UCU, GMB, Unite, POA). These included members of Workers' Liberty, Workers Power and the SWP, though the SWPers did not contribute to the discussion.

The six CWU members who attended included SW London branch secretary Greg Charles and Alan Tate, the London region's political officer. These were the only two that spoke - very much in favour of the interim agreement (and of the deal which ended the 2007 strike and which management are now reneging on).

Greg Charles' argument was essentially that the interim agreement represented the possibility of pushing management for concessions in negotiations, and that if they didn't play ball the strike would be back on. This is an analysis not shared by Workers' Liberty (see here) and we put forward our alternative view.

Greg's response was partly that those in the meeting criticising the deal did not know the situation on the ground. And yet of course, not all postal workers agree - in 2007 36 percent voted against the deal and it seems that this time many posties are angry about the suspension of the strike. It may well be true that some CWU members, tired of losing money after what in London has been a long strike campaign, were exerting pressure 'from below' for a suspension; but it is equally true that there has been heavy pressure 'from above', with Dave Ward, Billy Hayes and others eager to call off the strike.

Almost much everyone else who spoke, while expressing 100 percent support and solidarity with the CWU, was critical of their decision. The only exception was Steve Pryle of the GMB and BWTUC, who argued that the important thing was to "keep the union together" by making concessions. He claimed that the print workers' unions had been destroyed because they took too much of a "hard line", while rail workers had preserved the RMT by making concessions were necessary. So should the printers not have fought so hard? (And the miners?) Clearly there are times when concessions are a necessary evil, but this seems like a recipe for constant retreat.

In any case, it's clear that the Royal Management has no illusions that at present it can destroy, derecognise etc the CWU. What it wants is more concessions to push the union back as much as it possibly can.

A number of reps reported on donations from and solidarity actions organised by their branches, and the meeting agreed that the Trades Council should give £500. It is clear that if the dispute does continue, postal workers in SW London will have substantial solidarity. After the dispute, whenever that is, we should use the networks built to organise an ongoing defend our services/public sector workers' alliance.