NOTHING demonstrates the complete bankruptcy and downright treachery of the reformist trade union leadership more clearly than the gyrations being performed by the leadership of the postal workers union (CWU) over the fight against the privatisation of Royal Mail.
CWU general secretary (Billy Hayes) spoke boldly on Monday saying: ‘We aren’t going to let Royal Mail be sold. We are going to fight every step of the way. A strike is certain.’
When asked to clarify if this meant the union balloting the membership for strike action against the government’s plans, a CWU spokeswoman poured cold water over Hayes’ militant-sounding rhetoric saying that Hayes had been talking in general terms and that he had not specified what the strike action would be over, adding that a strike against the privatisation of Royal Mail would be illegal, open the union up to having its funds sequestered and that this would therefore not happen.
All this fighting talk in public from Hayes and his deputy, Dave Ward, is an attempt to cover up for the indisputable fact that they have absolutely no intention of leading any fight against the government and its privatisation plans.
This has been spelt out in a letter released yesterday by the CWU from Hayes and Ward to Michael Fallon the Tory Minister of State for Business and Enterprise.
This letter sets out the ‘business case’ that Hayes and Ward fondly believe will change the mind of a government that is hell-bent on privatising every public service in the land.
From the outset, they proclaim that the CWU ‘would support an alternative business model’, this model being that of a ‘not-for-dividend company’ that ‘would operate for public good, balancing its social obligations with commercial opportunities’.
Such a company, they argue, would be able to ‘access capital by borrowing on the commercial markets without this contributing to government debt’.
With this model they assure Fallon that, ‘A fully modernised Royal Mail with proper employee alignment will also be able to self-finance some of its own investment,’ emphasising that this would meet government ‘objectives’.
So they are agreeing to ‘proper employee alignment’, management speak for massive job cuts, in order to achieve the objectives of this Tory-led coalition government.
This government has only one ‘objective’ and that is to smash up every vestige of public ownership and transfer the lot into the hands of the speculators and bankers who will sack thousands of postal workers, ditch the principle of universal delivery and only deliver mail at a price that will guarantee massive profits.
Hayes and Ward really give the game away in the last section of their letter when they write, ‘If, despite our views, the government just press on regardless, then we would make the following points about an Employee Share Scheme: The employee stake should be maximised. As a minimum it should at least hit the threshold of 25%.’
So that is the real position of the CWU leadership – put on a show of opposition using ‘reasonable’ arguments, but in the final analysis accept privatisation and end up merely haggling over how many shares postal workers get in return for seeing the industry destroyed by the privateers.
Postal workers will not be fooled by this treacherous duplicity and see it for what it really is – Hayes and Ward prostrate before the government, terrified of using the strength of the membership to fight this government for fear of breaking Thatcher’s anti-union laws.
CWU branches must immediately demand an emergency conference of the union to call Hayes and Ward to account for this sell-out. They must be instructed to call national strike action to stop privatisation of Royal Mail and demand that the TUC call a general strike to halt the destruction of all public services by bringing down the government and replacing it with a workers government.
