16-day strike ended on April 15 in partial victory members in Oxford.
The dispute started with a walk-out, after management failed to discipline a group of agency workers at the Royal Mail centre in Cowley who were intimidating WU members at work and outside. Bullying was being carried out with the complacency of a manager, who had for months allowed the bullies to monopolise overtime at the expense of full time workers. Overtime supplements basic pay of £14-15,000 a year in an area with local costs of living as high as any in Britain.
CWU members were being intimidated with visits to their homes and, on one occasion at the school gates, as a member picked his child up from school.
Despite representations that they should .. tackle the problem of bullying, local management refused to do so, and the sorting office workers walked out in a protest on health and safety grounds.
A Delivery office in Oxford at Headington came out alongside the Royal Mail Centre, followed by the other sorting office in central Oxford, Royal Mail House. Unsorted mail was transported to a hanger on a Ministry of Defence site - in sharp contrast to management efforts in previous disputes to get mail sorted by neighbouring Royal Mail offices.
This development almost certainly reflects management's correct judgement that any attempt to do so would have provoked further walkouts.
Within a matter of days, local management conceded that there was a problem that needed to be investigated, and appointed an outside organisation, acceptable to the CWU, to carry this out. Royal Mail also agreed to move the group of workers carrying out the bullying.
The Oxford Trades Union Council organised a rally in support of the CWU in the Mail Centre car park: members of local trade union branches came along bringing their banners, and their representatives spoke in solidarity with the protesters.
The CWU speaker argued that walking off the job because the employer refused to provide a safe workplace was a basic right.
A speaker for the Trades Council congratulated the CWU for taking on the issue of bullying and safety with the same determination as when some ten years ago they struck in defence of a member who was sexually harassed: then again the management defended the manager guilty of harassment.
That the Post Office subsequently adopted anti-sexual harassment policy was largely down to the Oxford CWU branch.
This record was one reason why the local CWU branch was held in such high esteem destroy them. Highly divisive pay polices, the by trade unionists in Oxford.
However, Royal Mail refused to move the manager under whom the bullying was being carried out. They also insisted that CWU members would not only forfeit pay for the time they were out but would forfeit any overtime for a period of weeks following the return to work.
In addition the Royal Mail said it would issue injunctions to prevent local CWU officials from attending picket lines. The protest went on.
A week later, following talks involving a national CWU officer, Royal Mail moved on the amount of overtime to be forfeited by those on strike, reducing it from weeks to a nominal two days worth. But they refused to called for united action against the attack on Respect MP George Galloway supporting London post workers in an earlier disput move the manager. The strikers voted na rowly to return to work
Royal Mail management is bent on smas ing the CWU, in particular strong centres organisation like Oxford. Management trai ing sessions are known to include warlik chanting of "The CWU are the enemy Increased casualisation and use of agen workers, and the continuing degradation workers by management are part of the pa tern.
This would be unbelievable in a natior public service if it weren't for the Blair go ernment's agenda of splitting up and privat ing publicly owned bodies salami-style, and preserving what are probably the worst an union laws in Europe. lost on a card vote. The SWP called for a ur