For many years now, it was if the only workers that were members of the CWU were posties. Time and time again, most of the time the union was in the news when postal workers struck like lightning to defend jobs, terms and conditions. The most spectacular example was in 2003 when the union’s national ballot on pay was defeated and bullying managers led by neo-Thatcherite Allan Leighton saw this as the green light to go on the offensive and finish off one of Britain’s strongest unions once and for all.
Postal workers hit the picket lines without a ballot, and beat that attack back. But the war of attrition continued unabated. Unmanageable workloads, threats to close mail centres, privatisation, a pension holiday creating a massive deficit. Some won, some lost. And there seems to have been a slight pause in the battle since the strikes were called off at Christmas and the posties accepted the recent deal.
With the ConDems putting Royal Mail privatisation back on the agenda, the detente is not likely to last long.
But interestingly, the sleeping giant that is the potential collective strength of BT’s workers has been awoken.
In the two-and-a-half decades since British Telecom was sold off, as with most privatisations, the drive for profit and the greed of shareholders has been at a high cost to the terms and conditions of their workers.
The assault on BT workers has intensified in the past few years as the recession and competition has seen a massive shedding of jobs, increased workloads, cuts in pay for new entrants and the increase of unsocial working hours.
Why the hell do you want to work at BT, you got an 'OLOGY for chrissakes!
Two tranches of 15,000 job cuts in 2009 and all of the above attacks have not been met with any response by the union.
So why the potential scrap over pay?
I think there are three
major reasons.
Firstly, the leadership of the telecoms side of the CWU have surrendered so much that the huge haemorrhaging of jobs has meant that precious facilities for local union officials is under threat. Also, continued capitulation has raised questions in the minds of BT Operate and BT Openreach workers, in particular, as to the value of their union subscription if the union keeps giving way on their terms and conditions.
Secondly, Labour has lost power. The CWU have always been strong supporters of the Labour Party. On the postal side, Mandelson’s privatisation bid created tensions and Billy Hayes has been critical of the Labour Party. No such criticisms were forthcoming from the Telecoms and Financial Services Executive. Just as with BT, the leadership at national and local level in telecoms has rolled over when confronted by any of the Labour policies that have affected jobs, pensions, etc. The parliamentary aspirations of these officials far outweighed the desperate needs of their members whose living standards were continually under threat. Being employees of a private concern rather than public servants also helped to ease any tensions, although any strikes or disruption tended to taint a Labour Government. Now that we don’t have such a Government, and such dreams of warm, cosy and honourable member seats have diminished for the time being, its safe to take the kid gloves off.
Thirdly, the BT workers themselves have been rendered powerless as wave of attacks has seen their jobs massacred (on one day it was reported that 10,000 redundancy parties took place in the UK for BT employees alone), and their pay and conditions cut to the bone. Being a BT engineer is not the plum job it used to be.
The anger amongst BT workers is tangible. The commentb below from a BT Openreach worker is typical of the mood of many workers.
“As an Openreach engineer for the last three and a half years, I am now sick to death of the way we are treated by BT – we have had a number of negative changes made to our working conditions and we work under the most unfair performance management scheme you could ever envisage. Many of us are fed up now at the lack of respect we receive from the top of the company.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10159149.stm
The top gaffer at BT, Ian Livingstone is on £860,000 a year and gets another £1.2m bonus on top.
Such numbers will rile BT workers that are being asked to work harder and swallow a 2% increase, when inflation is closer to 5%. In effect a pay cut.
The ballot can be won and can start to reinvigorate workplace organisation if the union taps into the anger not just around pay, but also the cuts and the attacks on conditions.
CWU Conference was the perfect place for the union to announce the intention to ballot. There was plenty of media coverage, sunny Bournemouth is not a bad place for a reporter to hang out and interview a union leader. Hundreds of activists are gathered in one place and battleplans can be drawn up.
Added to that is the political atmosphere.
The question for many of the delegates at the conference, both telecoms and postal was – what next for Labour?
Which of the candidates for leader would best serve the interests of CWU members?
Two emergency motions were passed on the Monday of the conference.
One committed the union to encouraging the debate and organising hustings without tying the union to a particular candidate. The second motion resolved that the union would only support a candidate that supported the aims and the policies of the CWU (ie – that they at least oppose the privatisation of Royal Mail).
The last time Billy Hayes and the National Executive recommended a candidate was during the last Deputy Leadership election and he backed former CWU leader and right-winger Alan Johnson. This was too much for the rank-and-file who had the CWU colours ripped from that particular mast at the 2007 conference.
It could be worse.
David Miliband eyes the crown...
He could have chosen to support either of the Blackadder twins.
Balls and Burnham are also tainted, no matter how hard they try to distance themselves, by their support and involvement in the Blair and Brown regimes.
Diane Abbott is the cuddly left choice.
But even then, too much cuddling with Miguel Portillo (the traitor to his family that fought so diligently and bravely against Franco and the right in Spain) and her insistence that her child should have a much better education than those of the working-class people she represents in Hackney, will not endear her to many.
How much is it to get my kid into Eton, Mick?
Then there is John McDonnell, the only candidate that you could guarantee would support not just the anti-privatisation campaigns of the CWU, but has pretty much been an ever-present in the campaign against the war, anti-immigration policies, the fight against the Nazis and the supported workers rights to strike.
His failure to appear on the ballot paper in 2007 ensured that Gordon Brown would enjoy a coronation.
The fact that a socialist could not get on a Labour ballot in a twenty-first century already gripped by war and crisis was a shocking indictment on the party.
Aware that a repeat is likely, McDonnell’s strategy seems to be to ask his opponents to pass on their nominations to him and Diane Abbott once they have received the requisite number of nominations.
McDonnell: Too left-wing to be included on the ballot?
This is hardly likely.
First, the left-wing candidate Jon Cruddas came far too close and won far too many votes in the Deputy Leadership as far as the Labour right were concerned.
With the Labour Party having a resurgence in membership (14,000 have joined since the election defeat), I suspect that the likes of the Milibands would be happy to keep McDonnell and if possible, Abbott out of the race.
Trouble At T' Satanic Mill 