Virgin Media union busting

The CWU and BECTU unions are reporting an initiative by Virgin Media to try to deny staff union recognition.

With no warning, the employer has used a company it has engaged, rather than anyone independent, to run a "ballot" of staff in its Access Division over the company's plan to derecognise the unions.  The company has sent staff material explaining its position, not including any material from the unions, and has included in the ballot people who aren't covered by union recognition anyway.

If any union ran an industrial action ballot like this the law would be down on us like a ton of bricks.

This kind of employer action brings back memories for me.  I first joined the union at work when my own employer tried to derecognise it.  Many others joined at the same time.  At the time the union in my workplace wasn't well organised and wasn't very effective for us, but we felt that we, not the company, should choose who represented us.  We understood that getting rid of the union was likely to be a precursor to worsening pay, terms and conditions.  Our campaign was successful in defending union recognition and the union today is a lot more active and effective than it was then.

I hope staff at Virgin Media are successful in defending their union recognition and come out of the campaign with their organisation reinvigorated.

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Information about the postal strikes

The latest strikes are:

• Thursday 29th October: Mail Centres (there's a list here)
  
• Friday 30th October: Manual Data Entry Centres (MDECs) in Plymouth, Stockport and Stoke
  
• Saturday 31st October: Local Delivery Offices
  

The CWU web site is rather labyrinthine, but these areas may be useful:

• Royal Mail Dispute main page
  
• News
• Solidarity and Support Group contacts

I've posted their collection sheet here, as I can't find it on the CWU web site.

The letter from the UNITE Joint General Secretaries to UNITE members in the CMA (Communication Managers Association) is available online.

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Support the postal workers

It is clear that the dispute in Royal Mail is a crucial one for all of us.

We have had some important successes in a number of disputes including Visteon, Linamar, Lindsey/construction and Tower Hamlets College. These have started to raise the confidence of workers to resist efforts to make us pay for the consequences of a recession triggered by the greed and irresponsibility of the rich and powerful.

What's happening at Royal Mail is qualitatively different. It's not just that the scale is so much bigger. The media onslaught against the CWU is full of class hatred, almost reminiscent of the 1980s. Whereas in a number of other disputes management seem to have been caught on the hop, in this case there has been a massive level of preparation by the employer and a systematic management organised scabbing operation on a scale not seen for years.

None of this means the CWU can't win. The postal workers are a powerful group, and well organised. But the movement can ill afford to repeat the mistakes of the 1980s by allowing employers to pick us off one at a time to demoralise the rest. Imagine trying to argue for action in your workplace if the CWU had been smashed and the Tories elected. Or imagine the boost in confidence your workmates could have if we all helped the posties beat off these attacks from their overpaid bosses.

The CWU have produced a collection sheet. Every trade unionist should be taking it round their friends and workmates and visiting picket lines to show solidarity. We should be helping to set up solidarity groups should be springing up in every town and city. Building solidarity won't just help the posties win - it will make us all stronger.

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Winning is important

At the moment, working people have much to be angry about, but our confidence and organisation is only beginning to regrow.

In these circumstances, it is really important that we have some wins and that we celebrate our successes - to raise confidence and expectations and make it easier to win more.

So it's really good to see a series of wins this year. UNITE members at Ineos Grangemouth fended off attacks on their pensions. Shell tanker drivers in UNITE won a stunning victory over pay. Manchester Airport workers in UNITE won an extra 1.5% backdated on their pay after threatening strike action. CWU activist Pat Carmody who was key to unonising Pell & Bales' call centre has been reinstated after a lively campaign. And now we hear that UNITE members at Argos are considering an increased pay offer after striking.

Can you see the pattern? Where we stand up for ourselves, stick together and refuse to get knocked off course by political or media pressure - we often win.

This should be shouted from the rooftops. If we can keep building up this momentum then unions can really grow and really make a difference for working people.

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CWU gives notice of strike at Fujitsu Solihull

CWU members at Fujitsu Telecommunications Limited (FTEL) in Solihull have given notice of their intention to strike on 9th June, in protest against plans to end manufacturing in the UK.

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Fujitsu workers vote for action

The CWU web site reports that their members at Fujitsu Solihull have delivered a hefty majority for strike action in opposition to plans to end manufacturing there.

Let's hope the talks get some results.

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CWU Fujitsu strike ballot

The result of the CWU strike ballot at Fujitsu Telecommunications Limited's Solihull plant, over the threat to move manufacturing to the USA, is expected on 14th May.

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Fujitsu strike ballot

No, it's not us this time - CWU members at the Solihull plant of Fujitsu Telecommunications (FTEL) are balloting over plans to cease manufacturing at the plant and transfer production to Texas.

FTEL is quite a separate company from Fujitsu Services, where I work - the two structures only merge in Japan.

Let's hope our colleagues in the CWU can secure their jobs.

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What future for our sector?

I posted recently about the future structure of UNITE, reporting that I'd heard the rules commission had a draft of the sectors for UNITE and that this would go out for consultation. I've still seen nothing official, even as an Amicus NEC member, but am picking up rumours via the officer force that the proposal involves our sector being broken up.

What I've heard is that the intention is to join the Electrical Engineering and Electronics parts of the sector (the majority) with something else (haven't heard what) and create a new "IT and Communications" sector.

When the EEE&IT sector was first set up, many people in the manufacturing part of it were unhappy that they had been grouped with a "service" industry that seemed quite different. I think this feeling was accentuated by the fact that both NEC members and the National Officer all had more of an IT background than manufacturing. I think this feeling has started to break down over the last few years, as people realise just how much we have in common. Nonetheless, many members in Electrical Engineering and Electronics feel no particular affinity with the IT industry. I think their reaction to any reorganisation would depend on what they were grouped with instead.

The position for people in the IT industry is of more concern. "IT and Communications" sounds innocuous - indeed in many contexts people refer to IT as ICT - "Information & Communication Technology". But from what I hear, the "Communication" bit isn't about telecomms or networking, but about lumping us together with the "Communication Managers Association" (CMA).

The CMA has over 10,000 members who are mostly managers in Royal Mail.

The CMA had a long legal battle with Amicus (it is not my preference that trade unionists allow judges to resolve their differences).

While I think it is great that managers in any company are organised in a trade union, they will never be the bedrock of effective union organisation. In Royal Mail, where the CWU has been fighting job cuts, privatisation and bullying, many managers are on the wrong side of the argument.

I attended a demonstration in Burslem on Saturday in support of 12 suspended CWU members. Royal Mail is bringing in managers from elsewhere in an attempt to cover the work and break the strike. Only this week a member showed me a copy of a letter (given to them by someone they knew in the CWU) from CWU General Secretary Billy Hayes to Derek Simpson, asking him to investigate the scabbing at Burslem - allegedly by CMA members.

There is no industrial logic to grouping IT workers with Royal Mail managers, and I believe doing so would impair our ability to organise in a vital and growing sector of the economy.

Members in EEE&IT should await the proposals for the new sector structure of UNITE with great attention and make sure their views are heard if necessary.

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Support the CWU in Burslem

In the aftermath of the national post strike, CWU activists in a number of areas have faced victimisation. At the Burslem delivery office, on the outskirts of Stoke on Trent, 100 members have been on all-out strike in defence of 12 colleagues who between them have two hundred years of service with royal mail.

CWU have called a national demonstration for this Saturday - I hope to see you there.

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Pay revolt

The pay issue just won't go away, with RPI inflation figures revised upwards to 4.2%. The government's attempts to baffle us all with talk of CPI inflation at 2.1% (fine as long as you don't need housing or fuel!) won't wash as most working people are experiencing falling real wages for the first time in 30 years.

Locally in Manchester, UNITE members at Stagecoach have voted (by 94%!) to strike for better pay, and strike dates have now been announced. Let's hope they can make a breakthrough.

It's been a great disappointment that the unions in the UK have allowed the opportunity of a breakthrough on public sector pay to slip through our fingers. At the moment, it is the government that is leading the way on pay "restraint", not by restraining their own salaries, but by restraining those of public sector employees. Not surprisingly, private sector employers are only too happy to follow this lead.

With the UK public sector having a far higher union density than the private sector, there was a real opportunity for united action (building on fights by posties, civil servants and even prison officers) defeating the pay cap and getting much-needed headlines about unions WINNING, which would help us build the union everywhere. Sadly, most of the union leaders seemed more interested in saving Gordon Brown embarassment than in standing up effectively for members, so the opportunity has receded - at least for now.

What a contrast to the headlines coming from France!

But with Brown saying he wants to restrict public sector pay rises to 2% for three years, the chances of the lid staying on seem slim to me.

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Pay - fat cats and the rest of us

Today's paper reports findings by Incomes Data Services (IDS) that the earnings of the chief executives of FTSE100 companies are still going up - fast.

Last financial year, the average salary was £737,000. Don't worry though, they didn't really have to scrape by on that, once you include incentive schemes and share options their average earnings rose to £3,174,000!

Meanwhile we've seen average earnings for the rest of us falling behind prices for the first time in 20 years. Sadly, Gordon Brown is leading the way on the employers' side, trying to hold public sector pay down below 2% - a significant pay cut in real terms. Naturally every other employer wants to copy this.

It reminds me of a slogan I saw years ago "To make the rich work harder, we pay them more. To make the poor work harder, we pay them less".

Productivity keeps rising, but the share of what we produce that working people get keeps shrinking.

The outcomes of disputes involving the CWU in Royal Mail, PCS in the civil service and UNISON in local government will have a big impact on whether employers in public & private sector alike continue to get away with it.

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Postal strikes

Royal Mail management have sparked a wave of unofficial strikes by imposing savage changes to working conditions today.

It seems that Royal Mail are setting out to smash the CWU - it's not in the interests of any trade unionist to let that happen.

At Prime Minister's Questions, Gordon Brown said that the dispute "should be brought to an end on the terms that have been offered". The TUC's response seems mild, to say the least!

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