CWU members escalate strike action at Royal Mail
Socialist Party members in CWU
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has announced a series of 19 days of strike action within the Royal Mail group, escalating the action. This covers the period from October until the first week in December, which is a key period for Royal Mail. It includes key posting dates around ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Cyber Monday’. It will, without doubt, send a warning shot across the bows of the board of directors and key shareholders.
This action will be a mixture of all-out national action and functional action, where no member should be on strike for more than nine days. This will have the impact of maximum disruption to the bosses, while minimising the impact on our members.
This has led to talks, starting Monday 10 October, but both sides admit there is a huge gulf in each other’s positions and are dampening down the hopes of a quick agreement being reached.
The mood among the membership is solid. Members and officials of the CWU both state that they have never seen such a mood on the picket lines and in the workplace.
At the same time, we have also seen the hardening of management’s stance. They served a series of notices on the union, threatening to withdraw from a whole raft of national agreements, with a threat of more to come.
The CWU’s motion was passed at Labour Party conference calling for renationalisation of Royal Mail, but very few CWU activists expect to see this in the Labour Party manifesto. Many members are calling for the CWU to stop funding Starmer’s Labour Party, and some are calling for a new workers’ party. Some members look at the enthusiasm at Enough is Enough rallies and say this shows that there is a mood for an alternative. Our union should approach other unions and open up a discussion about serious steps towards a new party.
Members should take confidence from the most divided Tory party conference in many years. Truss’ leadership could be on the brink of falling at any point. Any attempts at implementing more anti-trade union laws should be met with a 24-hour general strike. The CWU should lead the call for this.
The TUC congress takes place from 18 October, and should be a council of war to tackle the generalised attacks on terms and conditions, inflation, and to increase pay.
More and more unions are going into action. The CWU should publicly launch a strike fund, and the TUC should coordinate a mass appeal for funds, which would really up the ante against the bosses and the Tories and mobilise working-class support for workers taking action.
