After months of residents complaining about letters going undelivered for days or even weeks, and workers leaking photos of frames full of undelivered mail, the regulator Ofcom has declared a review of the Universal Service Obligation. The USO is a legal obligation, held by Royal Mail, dictating quality of service requirements. For instance, 93% of […]

Day of action on 26 Feb.

£17m paid to shareholders.

The Tories are using the pandemic to oursource to the private sector

Protests in Colombia met with police violence

Postal workers being lined up for a defeat

Privatisation, unemployment and industrial unrest.

The answer to a Royal Mail in the red is renationalisation not cuts

The UK government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed not only the ineptitude of the current government but the sorry state of our National Health Service, which has been pushed to breaking point by successive administrations

THE COLLAPSE of Carillion and the recent National Auditing Office report have put Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) under the microscope once again. The popularity of such schemes has dwindled in recent years but since the contracts tend to last 25-30 years they still cost the tax-payer £10bn a year with roughly £200bn still to pay. […]

By A CWU Postal Rep ON 5 SEPTEMBER, the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) leadership announced a strike ballot, after months of talks with Royal Mail bosses that had gone nowhere. Negotiations were supposed to address an increasing number of attacks: The closing of the final salary pension scheme in favour of a scheme that would […]

  DOWNLOAD THE LEAFLET By a CWU Rep CWU members are being balloted on the new “Agenda for Growth” agreement (21 Jan to 4 Feb), with the union’s postal executive recommending we accept it. But postal workers should vote no, the new deal leaves us worse off and weakens the union. Workers deserve a pay […]

By a CWU Rep 1. PAY (Section 5) The 9.06 per cent pay rise over three years, backdated to April, is only half a per cent more than was offered by Royal Mail as far back as July. Like the original offer it can still be reopened if inflation changes, so it’s not set in […]

By a CWU DO rep It’s been widely known, since the 4 November national briefing of local officials and full-time reps, that outdoor delivery was the big sticking point in negotiations. Not surprisingly since this is the most difficult to automate, and competition is hotting up with rival TNT rolling out its city centre delivery […]

 By a CWU postal rep, December 12 2013   The CWU postal executive has recommended that members accept the agreement reached after weeks of talks by union negotiators led by Dave Ward, Deputy General Secretary Postal. Yet despite the headline-grabbing pay and conditions offer, at its heart is a blueprint for company-unionism and class collaboration. […]

  By a CWU postal rep The privatisation of Royal Mail last month was not the victory for “popular capitalism” the Coalition government has crowed about. On the contrary, it was a defeat for the users and deliverers of a popular public service. But even by their own terms, it only succeeded because the government […]

Postal workers urgently need to take control of their dispute and strike to win, says a CWU rep Postal workers in the CWU union are stuck in limbo awaiting the outcome of negotiations with Royal Mail bosses. Ten days ago CWU leaders cancelled the first day of strike action scheduled for 4 November in favour […]

By a CWU rep Just as postal workers around the country were gearing up for their first day of strike action this coming Monday, 4 November, leaders in the CWU postal union cancelled the action, supposedly to continue talks. A 30 October joint statement with Royal Mail bosses stated that they had made progress and […]

16 October 2013 – by a CWU postal rep It was announced this afternoon that postal workers have voted four to one for a strike to defend their wages, conditions and jobs in a newly privatised Royal Mail. The postal Communication Workers Union (CWU) has announced the first strike date for the 4 November. The […]

By a CWU postal rep If all the local areas currently on strike and all militants across the union were to walk out, coordinate their actions and appeal for everyone to come out, postal workers could still wreck privatisation and defend jobs and the union. CWU leaders Dave Ward and Billy Hayes would object that […]

By a CWU postal rep The Coalition have put two fingers up to Royal Mail workers and the great majority of the population who oppose privatisation. They have gone straight for a sell-off, and of all the days they could have picked to announce it, they chose the day the result of the CWU postal […]

Postal workers should vote yes to fight not just cuts but privatisation too By a CWU rep  In late August rumours from government sources surfaced in the press that the Coalition could announce the float of Royal Mail on the stock market in September, aiming to start selling shares to investors in October. In response, […]

Click to read as PDF Strike threat rattles Coalition, makes investors wary: Bring on a strike ballot & let’s all vote yes!   CWU postal members will be balloted for industrial action from 20 September to 3 October – and not a moment too soon.  With privatisation coming on top of a crap pay offer, […]

By Dara O’Coghaidin, Mental Health worker / 02 September 2013 Established in 1948 to be a free and universal system of healthcare, the NHS reached the pensionable age of 65 in July and is sadly unwell. Patient satisfaction has plummeted from an all-time high of 70 per cent to just 58 per cent in a […]

By a CWU rep Earlier this month, 500 full-time Communication Workers Union reps and officials, gathered in London for an emergency “policy forum”. They voted unanimously for a national strike ballot. Pending further negotiations, the leadership is committed to doing so no later than September 2013. The CWU is on course for its first national […]

  …only a national strike by postal workers can derail it Lib Dem Business Secretary Vince Cable has confirmed that the Tory-led Coalition will aim to float Royal Mail on the London Stock Exchange this Autumn, saying the public sector postal service was on an “irreversible course” of privatisation. His announcement in parliament on 10 […]

Two decades of government policy made Royal Mail fail  The Tories aim to succeed in privatising Royal Mail where Labour failed.  To do that they have had to reverse New Labour’s policy of using regulation to batter Royal Mail, in order to restore it to profitability.  The crisis in Royal Mail has always been to […]

The lessons for our national strike: rank and file initiative and control

By Andy Yorke GMB and UNITE officials called off the third Remploy strike scheduled for Monday 6 August, breaking the momentum of the struggle. The action was pulled at the last minute after a national meeting of the Remploy national consortium, involving GMB and Unite officials, in favour of a “new strategy which will have […]