The Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) is lobbying the Unite head office in Holborn, central London, at 11.30 this morning to demand it stops its Royal Mail manager members’ strikebreaking activities against postmen.
The lobby will be followed by a national rally at Friends House, Euston at 1.30pm.
Earlier this week, Mark Palfrey, CWU London Divisional Rep told News Line, ‘We are going to the Unite Head Office to protest against what has been going on with the ex-CMA managers who have been undermining our strike by crossing picket lines.
‘We are fed up with the Unite leaders, Woodley and Simpson. We want them to get off the fence and do something about this.’
Meanwhile, the postal workers ballot for national action to defend jobs, working conditions and pensions at Royal Mail is to be put back for a week, it was announced on Tuesday night.
The news came at a meeting of CWU reps in Crawley in West Sussex.
It was confirmed by CWU London Regional Secretary Martin Walsh, yesterday.
‘We’re disappointed,’ he told News Line, ‘but we have to get this right.’
He added: ‘London will be taking strike action again next week and, hopefully, we will be announcing a national ballot.’
Nearly 100 reps and CWU members from the Redhill postcode section – a sub-division of the SE5 branch, the largest in the country – comprised of 14 delivery offices and the Gatwick Mail Centre, were told the shock news on Tuesday night by Martin Collins, the CWU National Officer for Mail Centres.
He told News Line that the decision to postpone the ballot for a week was taken to ensure that there were no legal loopholes that would allow Royal Mail management to impose injunctions and stop depots taking part in a national strike.
He said the union didn’t want a repeat of Royal Mail’s recent threats of legal action that stopped Nine Elms, Mount Pleasant and Rathbone Place sorting offices coming out on strike on June 19.
But after the meeting, Ronnie Brackston, unit rep at Haywards Heath delivery office, said that delaying national action only ‘buys time’ for Royal Mail.
‘This is a dispute we cannot afford to lose. We have to proceed with a ballot for national action,’ he told News Line.
‘Furthermore, we should be contacting the other trade unions to come out with us. Everybody is under attack from this government.
‘The teachers always support us when we take action in Haywards Heath. We now have to call all the other unions out with us and take Royal Mail and the government on.
‘I absolutely agree with a general strike to win our dispute. A general strike is long overdue. I am for it – 100 per cent!’
Postal workers were yesterday continuing their regional actions against savage attacks on their jobs, working conditions, pay and pensions already under way.
Those striking included Burslem Delivery Office, Thames Valley and Glasgow Mail Centres, as well as Network logistics and van drivers around the country.
More than 800 CWU members at the Thames Valley Mail Centre, Swindon, walked out on a 24-hour strike at 6am yesterday.
The mail centre began covering Oxfordshire, as well since June, after Royal Mail closed the sorting office in Cowley.
Two more strikes are also planned for Monday and Tuesday next week.
