CWU

The Communication Workers' Union's postal executive has called a rolling series of strikes based on different sections of the workforce: Delivery offices : all shifts at or after 3am Thursday 2 August until 3am Friday 3 August . Workers' Liberty's bulletin for the strikes can be downloaded here . For old bulletins and other materials, including a downloadable petition, click read more. For our 10 July bulletin, click here . For our 28 June bulletin, click here . For a "Support the postal workers" petition, click here .

On 24 July the Mirror revealed that Royal Mail is planning drastic cuts to postal workers' pension rights. In the same week, London Transport workers voted 15-1 to strike against plans to cut back pensions for those retiring due to ill-health. Royal Mail plans to close its final salary scheme, cap future rises in pensionable pay at inflation, cut lump sum payments for length of service and raise the normal retirement age - from 60 to 62 next year and 65 from 2010. Some postal workers could see their pension halved. Young workers will be hit hardest. A 30 year old with ten years' service can...

By Mike Rowley Several hundred posties at Oxford sorting office got back to work on Monday to find that Steve Gill, a Post Office driver and one of their union reps, had been suspended from work without charge by the management. Management threw their agreement with the CWU out of the window, refusing to tell Steve or the union why he'd been suspended (on the ludicrous ground that it was "too serious"!) or to allow him to be represented in "interviews" about his suspension by anyone from the Union. They also tried the same thing with a union rep at Abingdon, a few miles away. In both places...

By Robin Sivapalan Dutch company TNT are shamelessly capitalising on the strike action to step up their plans to expand operations into the ‘last-mile’ section of the postal service. The outcome of TNT’s mercenary manoeuvring, whose success would signal another significant break-up of Royal Mail, will depend on the action or inaction on the part of Brown’s new government and the union movement. Currently, rivals to the Royal Mail compete in the collection, sorting and distribution sections of the mail network but Royal Mail workers are used by all companies, to deliver 99% of letters on the...

By Pete Keenlyside (CWU Executive, personal capacity) As a member of the executive of the Communication Workers Union I want to appeal to the broad labour and trade union movement to rally to the postal workers in our dispute with Royal Mail. People should be under no illusions. This is a very serious dispute indeed. Unattributed quotes have appeared in the newspapers, apparently originating from Royal Mail management, making parallels between postal workers and the miners and car workers. We all know what has happened to the British car industry and the British mining industry. What postal...

The Communication Workers' Union (CWU) has announced another day of strike action by postal workers in their fight for a pay rise to match inflation and secure negotiations on Royal Mail's plans for drastic job cuts and speed-up. The CWU's statement reads: The Communication Workers Union today announced a further day of strike action commencing the evening of Thursday 12th July and continuing through Friday 13th July. Royal Mail group workers will begin 24 hours of strike action with shifts commencing after 1900 hours. In announcing the strike, the union is again providing a further...

by a CWU conference delegate Delegates to this year’s Communication Workers’ Union conference have voted heavily to censure the union’s National Executive Committee for nominating former general secretary Alan Johnson for Labour Party deputy leader, and to overturn the nomination. About 70% of delegates voted for an emergency motion condemning the Executive for ignoring conference policy, which states that the CWU will only back candidates for the Labour leadership who support the Trade Union Freedom Bill and 100% public ownership of the Post Office. Johnson’s record of support for “employee...