The Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee is organising workers against Royal Mail’s attacks, for the defence of terms and conditions, an end to all job cuts and to defeat victimisations. We are opposed to the Communication Workers Union bureaucracy, which acts as Royal Mail’s partner. Information on the committee can be found here. We are affiliated to the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC).
Join our Zoom meeting on Sunday 17 May at 7pm to discuss how to defeat the CWU’s pro-company agreement with Kretinsky and turn a No vote into a rank-and-file fightback.
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A Royal Mail worker told the meeting, “We need a resounding No vote, linked to a vote of no confidence in Ward, Walsh and the Postal Executive who imposed this against us”.
The proposals, made at the May 8 Board of Governors meeting, amounts to the abolition of USPS as a public service, converting it openly into a for-profit model and setting the stage for its privatization.
What terrifies the CWU bureaucracy is that workers increasingly recognise the union apparatus as an arm of management. “He's reading off a script,” one worker said of Tony Bouch’s video. Another answered: “from a Royal Mail director.”
Pointing to the company headquarters where CWU officials are in constant discussion with management, a worker from Mt Pleasant said: “Them lot upstairs are not interested in us, it's how much profit they can make.”
Any discussion of the way forward must involve a review of the essential lessons of the year-long dispute.
The dispute’s outcome has exposed the lie peddled by “activist” groups such as Postal Workers Say Vote No that the CWU leadership could be pressured to reverse their rotten agreement with the company.
Dave Ward’s depiction of the ballot as an exercise in democracy is a travesty. The CWU bureaucracy waged a vicious and targeted campaign against all those advocating a No vote.
“Ward and his overpaid sidekicks are throwing away rights won by previous generations. Their names will live on in ignominy.”
It is an obscenity that the livelihoods of fighters for the working class are threatened. Those who should face the axe are the pro-company bureaucracy responsible for the betrayal of those they were meant to represent.
The WSWS is publishing an appeal to the rank-and-file from a victimised Communication Workers Union rep responding to the rigged outcome of the review of mass victimisations during the year long dispute at Royal Mail.
With all terms of reference agreed behind closed doors by Royal Mail, the CWU and Falconer, the review was only “independent” from union members who were denied any say on the matter.
Since July 2022, more than 400 union reps and postal workers have been sacked or suspended in the largest number of victimisations since the 1984-85 miners’ strike.
Royal Mail workers in the Wirral spoke out in defence of their sacked colleagues. One postie said, “I think people who got sacked were targeted. They’ve not gone after everyone. They are picking out people who are going against the grain.”
“My husband was dismissed in June for totally made-up charges by his bosses. He had over 31 years’ service and an unblemished record.”
The sackings at Prenton are a direct outcome of the national agreement between the Communication Workers’ Union and Royal Mail which includes the use of PDA data for performance management.
On August 27, Lehman hosted an online Q and A, explaining his campaign’s perspective of building a rank-and-file movement and uniting workers internationally.
In this the founding statement of the Committee, which was founded in a meeting held last weekend, rank-and-file UPS workers call for workers to “to organize ourselves—not to 'support' the bargaining committee and to cheerlead for them, but to enforce our democratic will, and position ourselves to countermand the inevitable sellout.”
Dana workers across the US noticed as March 31, the date by which Appendix P of the contract says Dana must pay “profit sharing,” passed without workers receiving much needed income. We, the rank-and-file, are demanding answers as to why we did not get paid.
The second online public meeting of the Postal Action Committee unanimously passed a resolution that begins with the words, “The second ballot was one big scam to push through cuts in real wages.”
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