Royal Mail
Content about workers' struggles, strikes, privatisation and events related to the Royal Mail.
Privatising the post: too much, too late
Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt details the turbulent history of government attempts to sell off the postal service and how consultants conspired to present public sector looting as sheer imperative.
While the government may have shelved plans to privatise the Royal Mail, the self-affirming logic of neoliberalism that informed the plans persists. Published in mid-July 2009, this article provides useful background to the 2009 postal strikes.
In the Sorting Office - on the 2009 post strikes
A postman explains Royal mail's "modernisation" programme and how it affects workers and service delivery.
Like Roy Mayall writing in your issue of 24 September, I am a postman and concerned at the absence in the media of any account of how mail delivery is organised and what Royal Mail’s modernisation programme entails. The programme was introduced because the popularity of email and texting has caused a drop in mail volume.
Post strikes suspended: this deal is no deal! Resume action!
Joe Thorne from the Commune examines the CWU's decision to call off postal workers industrial action in order for "negotiations" to occur, and calls for postal workers to take the struggle into their own hands.
At the top of the CWU-Royal Mail agreement is a header. “Final Draft – 5 November 2009 —- 1.10AM” (available as PDF attachment below). This innocuous line is emblematic of the CWU negotiating team’s strategy: it indicates that the text was agreed more than 7 hours after the strikes were called off.
Initial impressions: Royal Mail Strike
Reports coming in from picket lines suggest a solid response from postal workers, with near 100% turnout in Bromley By Bow and Nine Elms, London, few in at Bristol and similarly tiny numbers crossing lines at Middlesborough.
Photographers have been down at Mount Pleasant and Bromley by Bow sorting offices, where they report good spirits from the strikers despite the early start and very few people crossing the picket lines.
A letter from a postman on the 2009 strikes
A Royal Mail worker describes the background to the 2009 national strike vote, including details of how managers have been manipulating the figures to justify cuts.
Old people still write letters the old-fashioned way: by hand, with a biro, folding up the letter into an envelope, writing the address on the front before adding the stamp. Mostly they don’t have email, and while they often have a mobile phone – bought by the family ‘just in case’ – they usually have no idea how to send a text.
In detail: national Royal Mail strike
As postal workers vote overwhelmingly for nationwide industrial action, two workers explain the causes of the dispute.
Regional disputes over working practices and conditions have escalated over the past 15 weeks, and now 76% of Communication Workers Union (CWU) members have voted in favour of national walkouts.
The Commune spoke to two union representatives about the root causes of the dispute, which have been misrepresented by the mainstream media:
[b] THERE’S A WAR GOING ON…
Postal strike: update on Scotland
Postal workers have ended unofficial strike action in Dundee as staff elsewhere in Scotland stage the latest in a series of official stoppages.
About 125 workers at the Dundee East office walked out for 24 hours in protest at the sacking of a colleague. Delivery offices in Stirling, Anstruther, Irvine and Lochgelly are affected by the latest official action.
More strikes at Royal Mail over job cuts
Workers at Royal Mail have started strikes following a disagreement over cuts to jobs and services. The strikes will run on selected days between 17 and 24 August and have already begun in Coventry, London, Leamington Spa, Nottingham and Stoke-on-Trent and will continue across the UK.
The union says Royal Mail is failing to invest in modernisation and is cutting jobs without agreement. Royal Mail says the union opposes necessary changes.
This phase of strikes comes before the the Communication Workers Union (CWU) aims to issue a national ballot in September on industrial action. It has argued that the reduction in jobs would compromise the quality of services provided.
Royal Mail staff strike
More than 12,000 postal workers are on strike as of Friday in a row over jobs, pay and services.
The 24-hour strike will affect cities ranging from Edinburgh to Plymouth. The union has accused Royal Mail of cutting the pay of employees and reducing services.
Dave Ward, the union's deputy general secretary, said: "There are serious and growing problems in the postal sector which urgently need resolving.
Postal workers stage unofficial walkouts in Dalkeith, Scotland
"Unofficial and unlawful" strike action was taken by postal workers at Dalkeith Delivery Office last week, according to Royal Mail.
Both postmen and office staff took unofficial strike action mid morning on Monday, June 22. They returned to work the next day and took unofficial action again last Wednesday. The strikers returned to normal working duties on Friday morning.
A spokesman for Royal Mail said: "The industrial action in Dalkeith was unofficial and unlawful.
