THE MAGNIFICENT victory of the postal workers after their unofficial walk out has given renewed confidence to workers across Britain.
The trade union movement has been weakened both by defeats and the constraints of some the most restrictive anti-union laws anywhere in the advanced capitalist world. Now these laws have been seriously undermined by postal workers acting to defend their conditions. How the walkouts began Socialist Resistance talked to Pete Firmin who works at Rathbone Place, a large sorting office in Central London about the recent dispute. Firmin is an Assistant Nights Rep in the West End Amalgamated CWU. SR: When and why did your office come out on strike? PF: We came out on October 24 in the afternoon in solidarity with workers elsewhere. There had been a meeting of reps across London which heard about management's tactics elsewhere in West London.
Several west London offices were already out in solidarity with Southall and Greenford. We stayed out until Monday November 3, with about 10 percent of the workforce scabbing. SR: How did the position of the union leadership affect people? PF: A few people were wary about supporting the action because of the repudiation by the CWU leadership. Certainly
Royal Mail management's confidence was boosted after the national ballot for pay went down last month and they thought they could get away with bullying the workforce. When London workers returned after official strikes over London weighting, for which two-third of union members had voted, management tried to impose their long-coveted goal of single delivery. While their hand had been strengthened by the fact that the Communication Workers' Union (CWU) conference in July had voted for single deliveries in principle, they completely mis. judged the mood of the members who began walk-outs in London which quickly spread to other parts of the country. After the first day's official strike over London weighting they tried to impose single delivery in two offices in South East London, and provoked a walk out. Another spark was their attempt to get drivers in Southall, who normally deliver only to depots, to go door to door to clear the backlog arising from the second day's action. The drivers were suspended, provoking a walk out. Then they tried to get workers in Greenford to cover Southall's work. A CWU rep refused and was suspended The whole office came out in support. The CWU leadership played a canny game. Knowing that otherwise they risked the union's assets being sequestrated, they publicly stated that their members should return to work. At the same time, they made clear ... . . As we go to press, fire fighters in many that they placed the blame for the action firmly in management's court.
Within two weeks of the action starting, and one week after it began to spread seriously, management were forced to cave in completely.
The result is a major victory for all postal workers as well as for the wider movement.
Of course many postal workers feel that while the battle has been won, the war is not over.
Management remains deeply committed to what they call 'modernisation', which on the post, as elsewhere inevitably means job losses, speedups and a worse service for the public. But the chances of knocking back future attacks have been greatly strengthened by the recent action.
The anti-union laws mean that the cards are all stacked in management's favour as Friction Dynamex workers in Caernarfon found to their cost. Not only were they sacked after the eighth week of official industrial action, but they lost any compensation even though they won their tribunal case because their employers wound up one company and quickly set up in another name, leaving their liabilities behind.
Collective action has always been the only effective way for workers to get any redress in a system run for profit not people. With the law stacked so heavily against us in new Labour's Britain, this increasingly means unofficial action.