Royal Mail and its secret plan to undermine its workforce
Nov 3 2009 19:17
#62
Latest news from the firefighters' picket lines: so far they've been doing 8-hour strikes, so they work till 4 then walk out, and the next shift refuse to go in till 12. Apparently (if I understood right, cos it seems pretty implausible) the bosses are now saying that workers who do that will not be paid for any work they do before 4 or after 12, because they've reclassified anyone who doesn't do their full shift as "doing voluntary work"(?!) So, essentially it'll be a lock-out, challenging them to go to an all-out strike. Also the bus strikes seem to have spread to Essex and Greater Manchester.
Nov 3 2009 22:56
#63
In any intervention towards workers, and I’m speaking overall, I don’t think that the question of the revolutionary perspective can be avoided. That’s not to say that this or that strike can only be won by revolution but that it would be dishonest not to raise the possibility and necessity of radical change. It’s no longer a question that things can carry on as before, of “same old, same old”. The questions of mass unemployment, youth unemployment, factory closures that seemingly offer no perspective of struggle directly poses the question that society cannot continue as before.
Farce is not imagining things when he says that firefighters involved in 17 strikes from November 6 to the 16th in South Yorkshire who work some shifts will not be paid for these as they will be treated as “voluntary” work. The union’s tactics of “selective” strikes carves up the workers and, just like RM, facilitates, almost invites, this sort of management provocation.
260 workers at Superdrugs’ Pontefract depot in West Yorkshire are due to walk out at 0530 tomorrow over wage cuts.
Nov 4 2009 00:04
#64
Amazon commit to using scab labour.
amazon.co.uk wrote:
Many customers will be aware that the Communications Workers Union has announced further strikes for Royal Mail personnel on Friday 6th November and Monday 9th November 2009.Amazon.co.uk is working hard to minimise the impact on customers during this period, adding staff at our fulfilment centres to process customer orders quickly and working with a number of carriers to secure alternative delivery arrangements.
Nov 4 2009 16:05
#65
Bin workers dispute may spread to Sheffield. Get the fuck in!
Also, looks like the fire strike's entering into negotiation. Pretty typical how they phrase it as "FBU officials have agreed to meet fire chiefs", as if the union hadn't been wanting to negotiate all along.
Nov 4 2009 18:55
#66
Caiman del Barrio wrote:
Amazon commit to using scab labour.amazon.co.uk wrote:
Many customers will be aware that the Communications Workers Union has announced further strikes for Royal Mail personnel on Friday 6th November and Monday 9th November 2009.Amazon.co.uk is working hard to minimise the impact on customers during this period, adding staff at our fulfilment centres to process customer orders quickly and working with a number of carriers to secure alternative delivery arrangements.
Ebay's also been providing recommendations to sellers to 'beat the strike' 
Nov 4 2009 19:42
#67
The fire strike in South Yorkshire is now off. Wish I'd realised before I walked 45 minutes through the sodding rain to bring them crisps and chocolate.
Nov 5 2009 12:24
#68
The FBU appeared to be desperate to kill the strike.
South Yorkshire bus strikes are still on for Saturday and Monday.
On the role of the SWP in strikes: whatever the sincerity and good intentions of many of the members and sympathisers of the SWP, the latters' programme will be nationalist and statist. A constant theme of the SWP is to pose the state as the "protector" state and its policies are directed to that end. For revolutionaries, the state is not the protector state but the enemy of the whole working class.
Nov 5 2009 14:37
#69
I thought it was Saturday and Sunday (and then again on Sunday 15th)? Hmm, have just checked and they've called the Sunday strike off, with no mention of a Monday one - apparently the whole nauseating spectacle of official hypocrisy we always get on Remembrance Sunday isn't disrespectful to the victims of imperialist war, but having a bus strike is.
Also on a slightly pedantic note, it's now just a Sheffield strike not a South Yorkshire one, since Doncaster and Rotherham drivers have accepted a pay deal (I could be wrong, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that Doncaster and Rotherham drivers have been subjected to the same bullying and intimidation from management that caused so much bitterness at the Sheffield depot). Of course, since buses from Doncaster and Rotherham go to Sheffield, this means you get the confusing sight of First buses driving around Sheffield on strike days that are technically not driven by scabs.
As for the SWP, while I'd largely agree, the bit about "the sincerity and good intentions of many of the members and sympathisers of the SWP" does make things a lot more complicated. If they were all just evil Bolsheviks who were conscious of and happy about their organisation's counter-revolutionary role, it'd be a lot simpler, but when you encounter them on the picket lines they are just genuinely supportive of the strike and hoping it'll win (sure, they're also hoping that all the strikers will buy a copy of their paper and sign up to this week's favoured united front, but that doesn't make their support for the strikers insincere), which means you can't really just tell them to piss off in the same way.
Nov 5 2009 15:34
#70
rumours the strikes will be called off today 'for talks', sounds fucking familiar.
meanwhile, the petty bourgeoisie get class conscious. twats.
Nov 5 2009 18:25
#71
shit, strikes been called off. London postal workers pissed of, apparently they've been called off until Christmas, which is fucked. Things must be done. suggest speak to any posties you know.
Nov 5 2009 18:39
#72
Great, before Christmas, which is of course when the postal workers will have massively more leverage than at any other time of the year. This is terrible, but unfortunately not unsurprising. The CWU have called off industrial action at Christmas previously for fruitless "talks", which then don't get anywhere for the workers, because the workers no longer have any leverage over the employer.
Nov 6 2009 13:30
#73
Spoke to several post workers this morning and they were all disgusted. One said that the strikes were a waste of time and another that "now we are going to get shafted".
The FBU was so anxious to call off the firefighters's strike that they laid on transport to get the bosses to the meeting and promised them dinner when they got there.
The BA cabin crew union (unite?) has apparantly agreed to the company's demand for reductions in stopovers (R&R) after long-haul flights, even while they are continuing with the strike ballot.
Unions against the working class!
Nov 6 2009 16:01
#74
Fair enough post workers are disgusted.
This awfully badly-timed deal has only really been agreed by TUC and CWU management.
I guess its their early X-mas present to Royal Mail. Definitely one that post workers would not have delivered had they been consulted.
But like the institutions they pretend to fight against unions only know how to work top-down.
I think Dave Ward, CWU deputy general secretary said it will take a lot of effort to rebuild trust between CWU and Royal Mail.
He should think about how much effort it will take to rebuild trust between workers and the union.
Nov 7 2009 17:00
#75
You can read the actual CWU/Royal Mail agreement from a link here: http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/11/07/post-strikes-suspended-this-deal-is-no-deal/
Nov 7 2009 17:41
#76
baboon wrote:
Spoke to several post workers this morning and they were all disgusted. One said that the strikes were a waste of time and another that "now we are going to get shafted".
incredible thing to give up what bargaining chips they were holding, mental stuff
Nov 7 2009 18:35
#77
Yes, but unfortunately it's not surprising - this is exactly what happened back in 2007.
Reading the reactions on www.royalmailchat.co.uk to this is interesting.
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This is an important question. It is difficult to strike the right balance of showing solidarity with a struggle but at the same time not disguising the fact your a political militant. Turning up on a picket and just holding up revolutionary publications, does not usually go down well, so it is important to combine this with expressing solidarity. However, we have to face the fact that there is very serious weight of distrust of 'politicos' within the working class. There is no easy answer to this but patiently showing that we are different form the leftists, that we do not want to take over the strike, etc. Though from a couple of experience in the last couple of years when selling on local demonstrations of striking bus workers, and local authority workers there has been less hostility then there has been in the past.
There is also the question of what you are trying to do when you go to a picket. If it is to try and encourage workers to get together around a demonstration or picket, then the central point is to make this suggestion as a fellow worker. If there is a real possibility of such a getting together, as was clearly the case outlined above, it would have been pointless to go to the bus workers, and say we are so and so and we say go to this picket: these workers probably would not know us from Adam.
However, if the aim is to discuss the strike, to try and put forwards what you think as a group is the best way forwards., it is necessary to show the press as well as seeking to have discussions.
An interesting personal experience from a few years ago. During the firemens' strikes, I went to the picket at the local fire station to give out a leaflet we had done. A couple of the pickets said they did want politicos on the picket, but another older workers said it will not do any harm to read and hear what he has to say.
During the CPE struggles in France in 2006 our comrades in France participated in the discussions in the general assemblies. Generally we did not intervene to say we were militants of the ICC (which would have left the students mystified) but as workers, parents, grandparents etc. We did this because the most important thing we could do was to put forwards the need for the general assemblies to control the struggle, and the need to go to the rest of the class. This did not mean out militant did sell the press at the universities etc.
In relation to this postal workers we have been to the picket lines with the press, but this is now combined with the distribution of the leaflet we have produced. A leaflet that we will not only give out on the picket lines, but also generally. Having a leaflet to distribute is a great help on the picket lines it provides a way to open up discussions.
Generally there is no easy answer or formula for how to best intervene on picket lines etc. However, discussions like these are of great importance because they enable an exchange of experiences, understandings of what we are trying to do etc.