CWU

Draconian cutbacks threaten 30,000 jobs

13 October 2001
THE POST Office has launched a policy of slash and burn through the workforce combined with a relentless drive for privatisation. It is the greatest challenge the postal workers' CWU union has ever faced. The board of directors had gathered on the day of the World Trade Centre suicide attacks to finalise their latest strategy.

BT workers

01 October 2001
UNION reps from London CWU branches in BT were due to meet this week to discuss backing a call for action against the company. BT has terminated the contracts of 79 engineers who were on two-year contracts early. There are fears there could be more job cuts.

Union activist under attack

01 October 2001
ROYAL MAIL management have begun formal disciplinary procedures against CWU union rep Mark Dolan from north London. A worker made a complaint against Mark after he had overheard a discussion about the World Trade Centre suicide attacks. When Mark tried to settle the matter amicably, the same worker then made a further complaint, this time of harassment.

A taste of the Brighton demo

22 September 2001
"NO TO privatisation" chanted 200 trade unionists and campaigners as they demonstrated through the streets of Milton Keynes last Saturday. The march was called by local trade unionists in the post workers' CWU union and the GMB union and was joined by children, parents and teachers from the local Save Our Schools campaign.

Post Office

22 September 2001
CWU UNION leaders have made a deal with Royal Mail bosses to drop threatened strike ballots. In return managers have agreed not to impose changes to workers' terms and conditions at a local level without agreement with the union.

CWU election

03 March 2001
Around 70 people came to a hustings meeting in central London for the candidates for general secretary of the postal workers' CWU union last week. John Keggie, the present union deputy general secretary, is standing against Billy Hayes, a union national officer.

Prepare for all out postal war

03 March 2001
"Next time there's an unofficial strike in the post we will sack those who have led it and encouraged it." That is what Post Office bosses warned leaders of the CWU union at the end of last week.

Letters

17 February 2001
We fund them, they whack us I am fed up with our union giving the Labour Party hundreds of thousands of pounds while in government that party attacks us. I am a postal worker in the Communication Workers Union (CWU). New Labour is pushing "joint ventures" and privatisation which are a huge threat to our jobs and conditions.

Post

27 January 2001
Royal Mail workers should vote no to the 3.2 percent pay deal recommended by the majority of the CWU union's postal executive. After months of negotiations Post Office bosses conceded a further 0.1 percent at the last moment. This was enough for the union's leaders to halt plans for a strike ballot.

Serious battles coming

06 January 2001
POSTAL workers will face serious challenges this year as reports in the press are saying that Post Office bosses and the government are preparing to attack them and their CWU union. Fortunately there are plenty of signs that postal workers are prepared to resist any attacks.

Reports round-up

05 February 2000
BT CONCERN IS growing among BT workers over the company's massive new restructuring programme, labelled NewGRID. Some of the biggest union meetings for years have been taking place around the country over the plan, and now three key London engineering branches of the workers' CWU union have called a mass meeting. NewGRID will affect all BT workers, and the company wants to end all current demarcation and grading structures.

BT forced to listen

18 December 1999
ACTION GETS results. That's the conclusion after the first national strike action in BT for 13 years looks to have forced the company to retreat. Britain's most profitable company had been ignoring complaints from workers in its call centres over their conditions. So 4,000 call centre workers staged a one day strike last month. A second strike was called off by the CWU union after a deal was struck.

BT

11 December 1999
SOME 4,000 BT call centre workers at 37 workplaces were due to stage the second of a series of one day strikes on Friday of this week. The fight is over bullying managers, understaffing and work targets. There were picket lines on most of the affected offices on the last strike day. Talks between the workers' CWU union and BT were still taking place as Socialist Worker went to press.

Solidarity & betrayal

30 October 1999
HUNDREDS OF Parcelforce workers struck unofficially for two days at the Canning Town site in east London last week. They won brilliant solidarity from other depots. But national union officials condemned their action. Then they narrowly persuaded a mass meeting to agree a return to work with very little gained from management. A CWU union member at Canning Town Parcelforce told Socialist Worker, "We have been shunted back to work when with a bit more support from the top we could have won."