An all too familiar story for us in UNISON. But we must back the CWU to the hilt. Their ‘demands’ as such are simply that management sit down and negotiate reasonable change and collectively agreed modernization.
The union - which won a strike ballot by 76% - is clearly prepared to postpone strike action and go to ACAS. They have tabled a number of
proposals - which management are already dismissing as ‘a demand for more money.’ The management response to a call for more talks and the involvement of ACAS is to start hiring temporary staff to cover the strike.
Over 80 MPs have already signed a motion calling for urgent talks at ACAS -a sensible and reasonable alternative to a national strike which will be very difficult to resolve and settle once it starts. Peter Mandelson says he is in ‘close contact’ with both unions and management, so we urge him to engage both in direct talks to settle the dispute.
The last strike in 2007 cost the economy over 300 hundred million pounds, so why isn’t the same commitment to support and assistt he banks being offered to Postal workers in the Royal Mail? They are not asking for a handout but for progress and changes to be agreed in a reasonable manner - which the public will support as a democraticway forward.
UNISON members want the decent and reliable public service that Royal Mail has until recently delivered for over 300 years. That can only be achieved with the consent and agreement of the workforce and the union- not by imposition. Any notion of taking on a union (for dubious electoral purposes?) should be dismissed. But if they have to strike we support them, because we recognize their position as defenders of a public service and people who are striking for all of us who wish to keep it. http://www.cwu.org/