From the Canary - extract sums it up well25 May 2023 14:13
Save the company and fight later or lose the company and your jobs - turkey and Christmas.
-----------------------------------
Currently, Royal Mail and the CWU have agreed on a deal over the ongoing dispute. It includes a 10% pay increase over three years for workers. However, as the Canary previously reported, this isn’t exactly a win:
The problem is, the CWU is framing this as ‘well, Royal Mail wanted to do something terrible – but we’ve stopped it doing that’. In reality, all the union has achieved is to make something a little less worse: hardly a resounding victory.
Moreover, many workers are fuming over the deal. Now, and after Royal Mail’s massive losses announcement, parent company IDS is already eyeing up changes. It said that to offset the losses, it would be:
continuing to drive efficiency and change, improve quality of service and competitiveness, and reduce cost and environmental impact. Cumulative pay increases for next two years funded by operational change efficiencies.
‘Efficiencies’ usually means cuts to workers’ pay, worse working conditions, or even redundancies. While Royal Mail and the CWU’s deal is fairly clear-cut in terms of what the company will do, this doesn’t mean that it won’t introduce further changes to working conditions down the line – ones that it hasn’t agreed with the CWU.
What next for the CWU?
So, with Royal Mail on the rocks and its deal with the CWU already facing the wrath of workers, where next for the union? It said in a statement:
There is no doubt that Royal Mail faces a very serious financial situation. It is one of its own making due to gross mismanagement, but it is serious nonetheless. We now need to see actions rather than words.
The toxic environment created by a senior management team that has gone to war with its own workforce needs to end immediately. In recent weeks, there has been no let up on the culture of imposition, disregard for quality of service and the destruction of the service to the public.
Royal Mail is at a crossroads. It cannot and will not survive without taking the workforce with it through this period.
With regards to the deal between the CWU and Royal Mail, if members reject it, on the one hand the union’s now got a pretty good advantage in terms of bargaining with bosses. The state of Royal Mail’s finances means the company needs its workers on side.
However, this is capitalism we’re talking about. Bosses had already threatened to declare Royal Mail insolvent. If push comes to shove, corporate capitalists will always save their own skin (and bank balances) at the expense of workers. The point being, the company and its workers’ futures are now even more uncertain.
The bigger question for the CWU and its members is: do they now fight back harder against bosses – or accept the lukewarm offer they have in return for saving the company? Only the workers can, and should, answer tha
Sign In
Follow the stocks
