CWU

Communication Workers' Union

Fight for telecom jobs, for broadband for all!

On 17 May BT announced plans to cut 55,000 jobs by 2030, reducing its workforce by 40%. It also reported a 12% decline in pre-tax profits, down to £1.7bn. Maria Exall, a long-standing activist in the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) and currently president of the TUC, told Solidarity : “We need direct-labour jobs in the digital industries of the future and the public needs access to broadband services”. She pointed to reports that over the last year one million people, cash-squeezed, have cancelled their broadband contracts, and to the importance for the whole working class as well as for...

Royal Mail: reject the deal!

Royal Mail postal workers in the Communication Workers Union (CWU) will vote in a referendum, 17 May to 4 June, on the agreement ( cwu.org/deal ) endorsed by their union’s executive on their long-running dispute over pay and conditions. The newly-formed “Postal Workers Say Vote No” group ( @ PostiesSayNo ), which launched with an online meeting on 4 May addressed by a speaker from NHS Workers Say No, is mobilising for a no vote. At least one CWU branch, South East Wales Amalgamated, has already announced its vote not to recommend acceptance of the deal. The group’s leaflet says: “While CWU...

Push forward after May Day weekend strikes

The return to strikes by nurses’ union RCN, from 8pm on 30 April until 2 May, is an important opportunity to revive and accelerate the pay fight in the NHS. Unite members in various NHS trusts, including several ambulance trusts, will also strike on 1 and 2 May. If GMB members in the NHS also reject the pay offer in their ballot closing 28 April (possible, despite the GMB leadership recommending acceptance), their members in ambulance trusts and elsewhere in the NHS could also strike, officially from mid-May, but sooner if GMB members refuse to cross other unions’ pickets. Although junior...

Postal workers: reject Royal Mail deal!

The “negotiators’ agreement” reached by Communication Workers Union (CWU) leaders and Royal Mail has now been accepted by CWU’s Postal Executive, and will go to a referendum of its members in Royal Mail. The agreement has been circulated to CWU members with the heading: “We Are Still Here: A National Agreement Delivered by Your Support.” Its formal title of the agreement is “Business Recovery, Transformation, and Growth Agreement.” It purports to “set out how Royal Mail and CWU will jointly rebuild and transform the business.” On pay, it gives postal workers a 6% increase for 2023/4, plus a...

Royal Mail: what "agreement"?

On 15 April 2023, the Communication Workers Union reported that it had reached a “negotiators' agreement” with Royal Mail. The union said its Postal Executive would “now meet and consider the agreement on Monday and Tuesday [17-18 April] and we are putting in place plans to brief representatives across the union structures. On the basis that the negotiators' agreement is endorsed by the Postal Executive, we will put in place a full communications plan to engage members.” Rank-and-file postal workers may feel somewhat frozen out of a negotiation process that has taken place substantially over...

Escalate strikes to break postal deadlock!

Royal Mail has offered postal workers a three-year pay deal, averaging just over 3% for each year of the deal. The company is still ploughing ahead with its plans to radically overhaul workers’ conditions, including extending hours and tightening sickness and attendance procedures. It has guaranteed no compulsory redundancies, but only for the life of the deal. Despite the offer clearly coming nowhere near union demands for an above-inflation pay increase and an abandonment of planned cuts, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has called no further strikes. Union leaders continue to stress...

Postal workers’ union gears up for more strikes

Communication Workers Union (CWU) general secretary Dave Ward announced, in a video message to members on Friday 24 March, that the union’s postal executive had agreed to serve notice for further strikes in Royal Mail “early” in the week from 27 March. The CWU secured a huge mandate for further industrial action in its most recent ballot but has held back from calling further strikes to pursue talks with Royal Mail. A joint statement between Royal Mail and the CWU, setting out the parameters for those talks, indicated workplace CWU reps would be expected to engage in local consultation over...

Royal Mail dispute: use the mandate!

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) issued an update to its members in Royal Mail on 17 March , informing them that negotiations with the company are ongoing. Whilst they have, the statement says, “been extremely difficult”, there is “enough in talks to warrant continuing them.” The statement says the union is “currently analysing the key differences between the two parties [itself and Royal Mail]”, and is “putting forward a clear view to the company on how we resolve them.” How a dispute is resolved should not only be a matter for union negotiators and officials to develop through the...

“We’ve come this far, we have to see it through”

A Royal Mail worker and CWU rep spoke to Solidarity about their ongoing dispute. Royal Mail and the CWU have issued a joint statement, with a longer appendix. Royal Mail has paused its “executive action”, the unilateral imposition of its planned cuts and restructure, and the joint statement effectively devolves negotiation over these issues down to local level. It sets a 10 March deadline for local resolution, but this seems ridiculous to me – I can't see how this will happen. Given what Royal Mail has already imposed so far, in many larger workplaces you have well over 100 people displaced...

Post workers: tired, frustrated, angry

On 16 February, Royal Mail workers renewed their industrial action mandate. Negotiations between the company and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) continue, with former TUC general secretary Brendan Barber now, according to a CWU statement, “assisting in facilitating contact”. A postal worker and CWU rep spoke to Solidarity about the ongoing dispute. The ballot result, which reps worked incredibly hard to mobilise, shows that there is still a will to fight, but at the same time, many people feel they can’t afford further action. The picture varies from workplace to workplace; where I work...

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