CWU members are saying no to "partnership"

Submitted by AWL on 1 June, 2003 - 7:41

By "Postal Worker"

Postal workers have sent a clear message on "partnership" by booting the current Deputy General Secretary of the CWU out of office. Former London Divisional Rep Dave Ward beat Blairite John Keggie by 2,600 votes.
The Keggie result is the latest warning to bureaucrats everywhere of the price of associating oneself with New Labour. Keggie's one-time militant image has been discredited by years of sell-out deals with Royal Mail management. But, whilst he is a better sort of bureaucrat than Keggie, Ward is still capable of negotiating agreements that do not meet the aspirations and potential strength of the membership. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the new deliveries agreement (TDS) to be debated at CWU annual conference.

The whole agreement is geared around producing savings for Royal Mail of up to 20% in delivery offices. This, we are told, will result in job losses equivalent to 12,000 full-timers. But we are assured that this decimation is in fact a victory, since Royal Mail originally wanted to cut 21,000 jobs.

And what do we get in return for the job cuts and selling the second delivery? £15 a week… if we're lucky.

In essence no different from previous lousy bonus schemes, the supplements are only payable once the targets are achieved, so 60% of target savings gives you £5, with the £15 payable only if 100% of savings is achieved.

The reason why TDS won't work is the same reason its predecessors didn't work: the starting point for delivery changes is a given level of hourage for an office, and the duties are built around that.

It's all about cutting jobs and tightening the screw on postal workers, and not about providing a public service. Branches will be putting in plenty of amendments to the document at Conference-against pre-agreed cuts in hours, against the productivity scheme, on health and safety (including use of cars on delivery and limiting weight on the shoulder).

It's not too late to smash TDS, but Ward apparently has been telling reps that if the members don't agree to it, management will start implementing it regardless.

Dave's job is secure for the next five years-we can't afford to be so offhand about our future.
We need to prepare for a fight over TDS, ensuring that no branch or office is left isolated and at the rapacious will of management.

We've kicked out Keggie, now fight to reclaim the union!

Rank and file postal workers have passed judgement on John Keggie. Now, if he has any dignity, he will iron his Royal Mail uniform and return to the office he sprang from.
Of course, this is unlikely. He will probably get on the blower to whoever it is that redundant trade union leaders get on the blower to, and beg for some pointless but well paid post within the labour movement bureaucracy. Worse still, he might be offered a role by the government or Royal Mail as an industrial relations advisor!

The point is that, having got used to the executive lifestyle, trappings of power and lavish salary of a trade union leader, he will not be prepared to taste his own medicine by working a 40-hour week for £220, like his erstwhile members have to.

But just as there are no plants without seeds and rain, there are no egomaniac trade union leaders without a bureaucratic system of elitism within the trade union movement.

Rank and file members currently have the power to get rid of and replace our representatives from time to time, but real democracy and control is stifled by a culture of secrecy and lack of accountability for decision making.

The fact that we will have an open debate about TDS at conference is a step forward from, for example, the farcical "Policy Forums" that pass for decision making bodies within the Labour Party-the like of which Keggie was keen to introduce within the CWU (see the pay strategy of two years ago).

Keggie was able to sell the idea of policy forums because of the very real limitations of conference as a method of ensuring full debate and democracy within the union. And, of course, conference is only effective if conference delegates have had a mandate from their members, and if our leaders pay attention to conference decisions.

Real democracy is not about representatives "being seen" to be holding a consultation with the membership. It is about the membership making the decisions themselves and having full control over the representatives.
This is true at every level of the union-from the workplace to head office.

Unions were created out of working class struggle and self organisation. Yes, the quality of our leaders and elected representatives are absolutely crucial to the success of our union-but does anyone actually believe we gain a better quality of leader by affording them a salary beyond the wildest dreams of any member, and allowing them the freedom to make up policy as they go along?

Postal Worker campaigned for a vote for Dave Ward in the DGSP election and for those candidates for the PEC that we believed were prepared to stand up for the collective interests of postal workers everywhere. However, there are still serious doubts over Dave Ward. The methods he has used in order to sell TDS are reminiscent of Keggie at his worst.

In any case, the fight to transform the union does not end at having a few "good people" at the helm. Ask any group of workers who have been engaged in strike action over the last few years, and they will tell you the same story of union leaders patching up dodgy deals with no democratic mandate and attempting to sell it to the membership as a significant victory. This is not because union leaders are all corrupt or weak-it is a simple matter of lack of rank and file control over the actions of our leaders.

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