CWU

Communication Workers' Union

Royal Mail: a stand against bullying

A CWU rep from south-east England spoke to Solidarity . The vast majority of us were very unhappy that the 9 September strike was called off with less than 12 hours’ notice because of the Queen’s death. A lot of us had to scramble to arrange childcare at the last minute. Many hadn’t got the message at all and showed up at the gate to picket. The moment the strike was called off, the manager thought it was my job as the rep to contact everybody and tell people to go to work. It wasn’t. In any case, the moment the Queen’s death was announced, my phone was ringing non-stop with reps and workers...

Get the strikes going again!

The decisions by the CWU, RMT, Aslef, and TSSA unions to call off strikes following the death of the Queen are a setback for those specific disputes, and for class struggle in general. Not one from which it will be impossible, or even necessarily difficult, to recover, but a setback nonetheless. Calling off strikes, especially without naming new dates in their place, saps momentum from disputes. CWU already had further action named on Royal Mail on 30 September and 1 October, which is still due to take place. Even with suspending their strikes (15 September for Aslef, 15/17 September for RMT...

BT: needing a strategy from below

BT workers struck again on 30 and 31 August, in their dispute over pay and conditions. Winston Richards is a BT engineer and an activist in the Communication Workers Union (CWU) Greater London Combined branch. He spoke to us on a picket line at the Southwark Telephone Exchange

Royal Mail: now is the time to strike to win

A CWU rep from south east England spoke to us. On 26 August, my picket line was visited by members of Workers’ Liberty. We still talk about it now. Going on strike and being on the picket line can be lonely, and we felt buoyed by this show of support by people who were serious about the strike and wanting to know how we can fight to win. We are striking again on 8 and 9 September which is good, but hard on the workers who struggle to put food on the table. Fellow posties try and give each other a bit of financial support if they need it, and even members of the public do, but strike funds and...

BT workers strike 30-31 August

Telecom workers in the Communication Workers Union (CWU) struck in BT and Openreach for the second time on 30 and 31 August, continuing their fight for an improved pay deal. BT has already imposed a £1,500 flat-rate increase which, the union calculates, amounts to between 3.8% and 8%, i.e. a real-terms pay cut. The strike is the first national action at BT for 35 years. The gap is partly explained by the historical strength of the union — high union density and comprehensive representation in collective bargaining structures — in the once state-owned telecoms company. Union strength has...

Postal workers upbeat after first strike

Postal workers in the Communication Workers Union (CWU) struck on 26 August, in the first national strike in Royal Mail since 2009. A postal worker and CWU rep from south west England spoke to Solidarity .

Postal workers set to strike: "The shop floor is buzzing"

Communication Workers Union (CWU) members working at Royal Mail (RM) will strike on 26 and 31 August and 8 and 9 September, in a dispute over pay. An industrial action ballot for a parallel dispute, over changes to terms and conditions, concludes on 17 August. A postal worker and CWU rep from south west England spoke to Solidarity . The shop floor was buzzing this morning after the announcement of the strike dates. It's the same as the excitement at Christmas, when you finally get through the pressure period and all the heavy deliveries and you know you've got a few days off. That's how people...

BT workers to strike 29 July and 1 August

BT workers in the Communication Workers Union (CWU) will strike on 29 July and 1 August, as they fight for an improved pay deal. The strike will be the first national action at BT for 35 years, and comes after workers in all sections of the company voted for strikes. Anti-union laws have prevented one section, workers at BT-owned mobile provider EE, from participating in the strike, after their ballot fell less than one percentage point short of the Tories’ arbitrary turnout threshold. The strike includes around 28,000 engineers for Openreach, a majority of its 35,000-strong workforce, who...

Royal Mail workers vote to strike on pay

In their ballot closing 19 July, Royal Mail workers voted to strike over pay — 97.6% yes, on a 77% turnout. It was an impressive achievement by postal workers and the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU), following a lively real-world as well as online campaign. This battle could be a big one, with around 115,000 workers potentially on strike. Royal Mail management is offering 2%, with 3.5% subject to further talks — i.e. concessions from the workers. The kind of “modernisation” the company wants is shown by a sweeping attack it has just announced on its workforce’s terms and conditions —...

Royal Mail ballot closes 19 July

The Communication Workers’ Union ballot for strikes over pay in Royal Mail closes on 19 July. CWU general secretary Dave Ward has written to every Labour MP calling on them to support the union’s upcoming strikes in mail as well as in telecom. It’s very likely the summer will see hundreds of thousands of workers in unions affiliated to the Labour Party on strike (the CWU is Labour’s fourth biggest affiliate, with about 200,000 members). The left should do everything it can to win Labour support for these battles, and use them to disrupt the party’s current right-wing direction of travel. On 11...

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