THE Royal Mail bid to get the three-day London CWU postal strikes declared illegal failed yesterday late afternoon.
The London reps meeting taking place in the afternoon had been thrown into crisis when it was told of the Royal Mail action.
The meeting was opened with the Deputy General Secretary (Postal) Dave Ward telling the meeting that management went to court at 2pm.
Ward said: ‘We are contesting this and we are awaiting the outcome.’
Ward said about the situation that London members faced: ‘The attacks are not acceptable. What they mean by modernisation is cuts in the services and cuts in jobs.
‘We have to be prepared for Royal Mail to go further. We are up for that fight.’
He added: ‘The government walking away from pensions is unacceptable. We have to intensify our political campaign.’
He added: ‘I cannot see any successful future with the current people running this industry.
‘We cannot accept their view of the future.’
He conceded: ‘We will lose jobs of course, with new machines there will be job losses. There’s never been a union that can stop that.
‘But modernisation must be about a better service and terms and conditions. No way are we accepting a pay freeze.’
He said more regions are coming on board for action.
During the question and answer session, one rep said: ‘It’s time for us to stand up.
‘They can say what they like in the High Court, we will not be in our office tomorrow, we will be out on the street and we call on all of you to join us, because that’s where we’ll be.’
Another rep said: ‘We cannot let people in wigs dictate what we’re going to do. Last week we nearly walked out unofficially because they were going to suspend one of our members.
‘We are not prepared under any circumstances to let management dictate.’
Billy Colvill, CWU Rep for Peckham, SE15, told the meeting: ‘We can’t let the courts dictate to us. We’ve got to stand up to the courts and take action tomorrow.
‘I propose that we all take a vote on this here. It’s vital the strike goes ahead tomorrow, it’s vital we stand up.’
The call for a vote was ignored as one of the officials took a call on his mobile phone from the court.
He said that the case was still going on and that the meeting was to close but that a rep from each branch should stay behind so they could let their branches know the outcome when it was announced.
After the meeting Billy Colvill, told News Line: ‘The fact of the matter is, if this court injunction goes through and we’re banned from taking strike action, it is my personal opinion that all London should defy it, and that the national union leadership must not repudiate our action, but stand against the anti-trade union laws with all our members.
‘This isn’t just an attack on the London CWU, it’s an attack on the right for us to hold democratic ballots, because if the courts and the government get away with this, there will never be another ballot.
‘This is the case for the whole trade union movement.
‘Our right to strike and defend our jobs and conditions is the fundamental basis for trade unionism.’
Postal workers in London will be on strike for three days starting from today after Royal Mail refused the CWU’s offer of a three month no-strike deal.
There is to be a rolling 24 hour set of strikes on Wednesday 8th, Thursday 9th and Friday 10th July.
Delivery workers will be striking on Wednesday, distribution and logistics staff will be out on Thursday, and mail centres will be striking on Friday.
This will impact on London’s mail network for the duration of the three days.
Picket lines will be in place over the three days.
