Category: postal workers

Postal workers to strike! Coventry postie comments on ‘scab’s bonus’ and ballot result

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Postal workers to strike! Coventry postie comments on ‘scab’s bonus’ and ballot result

CWU members at the Coventry North office on strike earlier this year

CWU members at the Coventry North office on strike earlier this year

We have received the following comments from a CWU member who will be taking strike action in a few weeks time.

“Postal workers in Royal Mail have voted by 4 to 1 for strike action to defend our jobs, pensions and the services we deliver to the public, who up until last week, used to own Royal Mail. Before the ConDem government sold the profitable state asset on the cheap.

Shares in Royal Mail have rocketed in value by up to 50% since the government sold a majority of the company off, with many small ‘investors’ making £350 on the minimum buy-in of £750. Nice ‘work’ if you can get it!

Its like buying a tenner for a fiver!

This scandalous fire-sale of yet another public utility (think gas, electricity, water, rail, BT) was brought forward in an attempt to dissuade workers from voting ‘Yes’ in the ballot.

And the Chief Executive of Royal Mail, Moya Greene, even pledged to pay workers who cross the picket line a £300 bonus in December!

This ‘scab’s bonus’ would be payable if you crossed the picket line, mounted by your colleagues to defend your job.

But workers realise that we stand to lose a hell of a lot more after the 3 year protection of terms/conditions offered by Royal Mail expires.

Our jobs for a start!

Not to mention the erosion of our pension entitlements. Yes. Entitlements. Because Royal Mail took a pension payment ‘holiday’ for 13 years while we carried on paying in. And now our pensions are under attack again. Even after the government ‘guaranteed’ OUR pensions. In exchange for the £25 BILLION of assets in the fund of course.

Royal Mail may now be a PLC. But the workers still treat your mail with TLC. We care about the service we provide. We always have. And we always will.

And we’re willing to fight to show it.

Initial strike date is 4th November. It will be an all out 24 hour strike, with 24 hour strikes of different functions to follow. i.e deliveries, collections, processing, distribution.

So Royal Mail has 2 weeks to meet our demands. Which include maintaining the service to you the public at the level it is today.

CWU should begin talking to the Fire Brigade Union, the teaching unions and any other union who is in dispute , to co-ordinate future strike action and show the ruling classes who really runs the country.

For a one day General Strike of ALL workers!”

By a Coventry postie

No to Royal Mail privatisation – Rob McArdle speaks out

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No to Royal Mail privatisation – Rob McArdle speaks out

Rob McArdle with Dave Nellist

Rob McArdle with Dave Nellist

The following letter was published in the Coventry Telegraph – it was written by Socialist campaigner Rob McArdle

Selling off Royal Mail might bring short term gains for shareholders and the government, but it is customers who will lose out in the long term.

We have seen the same happen with energy and rail price hikes following privatisation.

More and more people now
think that the rail and energy companies should be brought back into public ownership, with the bosses being held to account.

In the coming years Royal Mail will tell us how it can no longer afford the daily delivery to 29 million homes and businesses. Jobs will be cut and services withdrawn, while shareholders and institutions enjoy siphoning off the profits in the form of dividends.

I have always been proud to work for the public Royal Mail, because we provide a valuable service. How long before our postal service becomes foreign owned? How many years before you have to collect your mail from a box far your home? No wonder the government rushed through the sell-off, they know 70 per cent of the public opposed Royal Mail privatisation.

Robert McArdle,

(Postal worker),

Binley Road, Coventry.

Royal Mail industrial action – report from the picket line

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Royal Mail industrial action – report from the picket line

P1020076

by Socialist Party members

“Workers at Royal Mail’s Coventry North delivery office took strike action on Tuesday 27th August, over the local management team’s treatment of the workforce.

This is just the latest example of postal workers taking action as a result of local managers’ actions.

For several months now, up and down the country, Royal Mail managers have been using intimidation and threats towards workers in a drive to save money.

National agreements have been ignored, mail traffic figures have been ‘massaged’ and a climate of fear instilled, all to ensure that staff ‘absorb’ more and more work.

Such is the scale of the problem of bullying and harassment that the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) has appointed an independent body to go in to workplaces and interview staff about their experiences.

As one worker on the picket line said: “I’m part-time and I’m on a rolling contract. Some of us were taken to one side the other day and told by a manager, ‘If you go on strike, don’t worry, it won’t affect your chances of having your contracts renewed!’ They were nice about it but there was a veiled threat there.”

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Postal workers in Coventry set to strike

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The following article is written by a postal worker in Coventry. The Socialist Party calls for full support for this industrial action


Banners from a previous picket line at the old Bishop Street office. From the BBC website
Banners from a previous picket line at the old Bishop Street office. From the BBC website


Postal workers at Royal Mail’s Coventry North Delivery Office will be taking 24 hours of strike action onTuesday 27th August.


by a Coventry postal worker


Over 80% of the 200+ workers (members of the Communication Workers’ Union, CWU), voted in favour of a oneday strike to warn the local management that enough is enough, regarding the way the office is being run and the way workers are being treated.


Over several months now, the local management have refused to follow national agreements; there is       bullying/harassment of certain workers; and they make executive decisions daily to increase our workloads,regardless of the amount of mail coming into the office each day. Usually based on some opaque figures  relating to mail traffic volumes.


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