Postal workers Colin Tucker, Kay Gibbs and Paula Franklin have been sacked by the Post Office for alleged incidents during the postal dispute last year.

The Communication Workers Union is campaigning for their reinstatement. Dave Ward, CWU Deputy General Secretary, said: “There’s no justification for these dismissals. The truth is they were instigated by a manager who felt personally aggrieved by the level of support for the dispute in his area and has taken a personal, vengeful approach to make scapegoats of the three.”

Colin and Kay were dismissed for alleged incidents on the picket line at Bristol South East district office. The claims by Royal Mail of evidence caught on CCTV fall apart as the film actually clears the two. Paula was sacked from the Avonmouth office for saying the wrong thing on the Royal Mail Chat website.

A march and rally to demand their reinstatement will be held on

MONDAY 4TH AUGUST 2008

BRISTOL

Assemble at the bandstand at Castle Park at 2.30pm

March commences 3pm

The Rally will then be held at the

Central Promenade Bristol City Centre

Speakers will include a sacked postal worker from Burslem

Dave Ward DGS(P)

David Wilshire Branch Secretary

Glen Burrows Branch Secretary, Bristol RMT

Chaired by Dave Chapple

www.cwu.org 020 8971 7200

New strike figures show increase

Author: Martin Thomas

According to the latest official figures, just released, in the 12 months up to and including April 2008 there were 189 strikes, involving 959,000 workers, and totalling 1,121,000 striker-days.

The figures are still low compared to the late 1980s or 1996, let alone the 1970s, but better than those for the corresponding periods in recent years.

In the 12 months up to and including April 2007, there were 198 strikes, involving 253,000 workers, and a total of 324,000 striker-days. To April 2006: 184 strikes, 716,000 workers, 715,000 striker-days. To April 2005: 156 strikes, 217,000 strikers, 341,000 striker-days. To April 2004: 215 strikes, 354,000 strikers, 955,000 striker-days.

The new figure for the total number of workers involved in strikes is the highest for a comparable 12-month period since the stretch from May 2002 to April 2003, which included the firefighters' dispute.

Ansonsten werden am 16. und 17. Juli einige hunderttausend Beschäftigte im öffentlichen Dienst streiken.

The real reason has more to do with his activism than unaddressed post (that nobody wants anyway).

This as well as the attacks on SP and SWP union activists in Unison is a worrying development, it not just high profile union members who can be victims of a witch hunt, but anyone who stands up for themselves.

Below is the original e-mail informing me of Simon’s sacking, I can’t make the campaign meeting tonight, but if you’re in the area tonight I would encourage you to support simon.

Hello everyone,

 

Simon (Eisa) recieved a letter on Saturday morning telling him that he has been sacked. This is a blatant attack on Simon as a union rep, as Kyle has had no charges against him as yet.

 

There was a protest staged outside of Simon's workplace on Monday morning and CWU members in there walked off the floor in protest.

 

There will be a campaign meeting tomorrow night at 6:30pm (Wednesday 2nd

July) at the Cross Corners Community Centre, Thurcaston Rd, LE4 (Just off Loughborough Rd, near Belgrave Hall).

There will be a national campaign launched and we are encouraging other unions to get involved in this campaign.

We will be organising another protest for next week, so please come along and bring your union banners!

 

If you need more info, please contact me on 07852898779.

 

Sadia Jabeen

Below is the text of a model letter sent out by the Communication Workers' Union to encourage members to contact their MP to support an Early Day Motion calling for recognition for trade union environment representatives.

Dear Member of Parliament,

We are writing to urge you to sign Early Day Motion 1438 which calls for recognition for trade union environment representatives.

The challenge of climate change and need to move to a low carbon economy is urgent, as recognised by all political parties and enshrined in the Climate Change Bill currently passing through parliament.

There is currently an implementation gap between stated policies and the delivery of environmental change.

Trade unions have the knowledge, capability and enthusiasm to implement the changes needed in workplaces across the country. Secretary of State for the Environment, Hilary Benn, endorsed to importance of the role of trade unions on Monday 16^th June at the TUC’s ‘Just Transition’ conference.

However, many reps are finding it difficult to get the time to dedicate to tackling these important and complex issues. Giving environment reps recognition along the lines of health and safety or learning reps would expand and speed up the positive change that workplace reps can make for environmental improvement.

If you are serious about tackling climate change, please sign EDM 1438, put down by Martin Salter MP.

Yours faithfully,

Communication Workers Union

Full text of EDM available at:

http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=35699&SESSION=891

< The postal group halted its final salary pension for all employees in April, and replaced it with one based on career average earnings. It has warned that it needs to make radical changes to the pension plan which has a £3.4 billion deficit.

However, the CWU warned that it would push for industrial action unless Royal Mail backs down from its overhaul of the pension plan. The union is also demanding involvement in the reorganisation of mail centres and the introduction of greater automation, which it believes could cost 40,000 jobs.>

For the rest of the Times Online article, click here.

I’d be interested in knowing exactly what Simon is being accused of (it would help to build the campaign), but since the campaign isn’t forthcoming with that information, then I guess I won’t know (unless anyone else is willing to explain).

Update:

   It appears that if the reasion for Simon suspension is made public then he will face instunt dismissal, and the public meeting will happen on the 10th of June.

On the opening day of CWU annual conference, over 50 delegates flocked to a dynamic fringe meeting focussing on the role of trade unions in climate change issues. Speakers raised issues ranging from the capitalist appropriation of natural resources, to the inadequacy of market mechanisms and big business to deal with climate change and the potential for trade unions to organise, bargain and recruit around these issues.

Chaired by CWU president Jane Loftus, the speakers were senior deputy general secretary Tony Kearns, Roy Wilkes, secretary of the Campaign against Climate Change Trade Union Group and Jamie Jenkins from the CWU youth advisory committee (YAC).

Jamie explained the importance of climate change issues to young members in the CWU. In outlining the work of YAC he emphasised the potential for recruitment and organising around climate change issues through empowering people to take on the challenges posed by climate change through union work.

The reality of the effect of what is known as “peak oil” on jobs and the economy was presented by Tony Kearns, who warned the meeting about capitalism’s response to climate change. “What’s going to happen on a humanitarian level is quite clear,” argued Tony, who continued: “Capitalist powers are going to begin a battle over resources.

“The trade union movement needs to make up its mind whether we allow climate change to be a stick to beat us with or whether we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the world’s poor to fight capitalist expansion and capitalist appropriation of resources.”

“Big business and governments are unable and inadequate to deal with climate change,” was the strong message from Roy Wilkes, who went on to outline the immediate and growing dangers posed by climate change and point out that effects are always felt hardest by the world’s poor – most recently in New Orleans, Bangladesh and Burma.

In terms of emissions trading schemes, Roy argued that “expecting the market and big business to sort this out is naïve. They are answerable to shareholders who want a return, not the planet or wider population.

“Not only is climate change a trade union issue, but trade unions hold the key to our survival,” he argued.

Lively debate followed the speakers’ contributions, with specific matters of concern including the need to challenge consumerism and big business’s approach, thereby showing the difference between individual and collective responses to climate change.

The crucial need to keep the trade union response a rank-and-file one and encourage alternative plans of production to address the jobs issue, particularly at sites such as Heathrow Airport – the biggest employer in the country – were also stressed by contributors from the floor.

The consensus of the meeting was a strong recognition that climate and environment issues are undeniably matters of trade union concern. The meeting decided that the CWU needs to do more to champion environment reps and get branches along to demonstrations like the December climate change rally.

To read more on this click here

Walking up on the stage of the recital hall of Central Washington University was quite an experience. I'm used to playing at recitals in local churches, not architectural masterpieces. The judging process was very succinct: enter, play, leave. Nonetheless, having the lights come on as you stride up on stage gives me a sense of...importance. Heh.

My performance went well. Two of the three judges gave me a score of "excellent" and the last gave me "superior." To place in this competition, it is essential to have all "superior's." Regardless, I'm quite happy with the positive comments they left for me.

Overall, it was a good experience. Music is a wonderful art.

Thanks to this facebook group.

I am not so sure that Rowan Williams argues that we should take our ethical principles from God - though he personally would.

But he does raise the question of where we do get our ethical values from. Quite often the left takes perfectly sensible political positions, but they don’t necessariy come from a worked out ethical view of the world.

For example the issues relating to late abortions. The slogan “as early as possible, as late as necesary” probably gives correct political expression that the balance of choice should lie with the mother, but I have never seen a convincing ethical (as opposed to pragmatic and political) argument for that. There certainly comes a point where the mother is carrying a viable child, and there is therefore an ethical issue over the point at which society takes responsibility for the safety of that child.

If those of us who are pro-choice don’t have an answer based in ethics, then it is harder for us to respond to people who wish to restrict abortion right based upon their own ethical standards, and shouting “bigots! at them hardly does it for me. I think there are severe ethical problems with an argument only based upon womens’ rights, that does also not recognise the fact that a soon to be born child is effectively the same as an already born child.

I raise this as only one example of an area where there seems to be no agreed ethical position among the left, and indeed no real discussion about where our ethics come from.

The argument that society only has a responsibility at the point of birth is not quite so clear cut as you make out, there comes a point where the abortion is actually an induced and assisted birth, and the foetus may be viable. In such circumstances the development of the foetus has an ethical dimension.

Any comments about ethics from the pro-war left, or islamophobic left have to be taken with a pinch of salt.

But i think the question that the left groups (and the SWP is not unique in this) treat their members and supporters like shit has at its heart a deeply unethical view to politics and society.

One example is that after I left the SWP over a perfectly political reason, all sorts of lies were told about me, to minimise any influence I might have. The smear against Linda Smith was not unique, I was told a disgusting personal (and totaly untrue) smear from John Rees’s own lips about a leading Socialist Allaince comrade from Walsall. And look at the way people like Anna Chen are airbrushed out of history and anathamatised.

There is no possibility of moving towards a more humane society based upon an ethical view of the world that is inhumane and dishonest.

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to amend The Work at Height Regulations 2005 to make it law for explanatory labels to be permanently fixed to all fall arrest lanyards and safety harnesses, so rescuers understand the implications of "Suspension Trauma".”

They explain that:

“It is possible that an otherwise fit person, saved from falling by a lanyard fall arrest system, can suffer from suspension trauma within 10 - 30 minutes while awaiting rescue. Blood can pool in the legs causing the person to slip in to unconsciousness. Most would be rescuers are not trained in suspension trauma and their normal treatment for someone who has fainted could lead to the patient's rapid death. Labels should be permanently affixed to all safety harnesses and lanyards explaining that the patient should be treated for a "Crush injury" to prevent re-flow. They must be kept in a sitting position for at least half an hour to avoid a heart attack or severe kidney damage. This simple label could save lives, please sign this petition.”

BT engineers, of course, have to climb polls to work on lines, often working on their own.

Les Glover who originated the petition explains why.

"Suspension trauma really crept into my life in a slow unassuming way. Quite a few years ago we were trained on the use of a new harness at work to replace our old faithful safety belt that we had grown used to when climbing telephone poles.

The new harness was a pain, buckle at the chest, buckle at the waist and buckles on each thigh, then this damn lanyard connected to a 'D' ring on the chest. The lanyard was always getting in the way but we had to use it. The training had a very quick 2 minutes on what we had to do if we fell from the pole. The lanyard would break then completely arrest the fall to leave us suspended.

Just get back on to the pole steps we were told, if you cannot, wriggle your toes or keep your legs moving. We treated it as a bit of a joke to be truthful. the seriousness was never put across to us, I would hate to say by design so it must of been by ignorance. After that we just got on and used the new harness and lanyard (well most of us anyway).

A year or so later I heard a news item on the radio during the night when I had trouble sleeping, it concerned some rescue training where someone in a harness was in the process of helping train others to rescue him. He was uninjured and fit but he slipped in to unconsciousness. At the time I thought "Must bring this up at work" but by the time morning came I had slept for a few hours and the memory as gone.

Gone for about 3 years until I was attending a CWU safety reps course at our own union training school, Alvescott. We had just had a guest speaker, a nice guy but not really the best of speakers, he had stepped in at the last moment when the first choice was called away.

After he had left we were having an informal discussion about hazards when the memory of that radio news item came to me so I mentioned it. "Suspension Trauma" someone said and then proceeded to tell us a little more about it and how his branch had been trying to raise the issue with BT for sometime. That prompted me to go to the library after our evening meal and do a bit of googleing, what I learned that night frightened me, the fact that it was so little understood and so deadly when mishandled. Why weren't we told more about it at work? Why were emergency services relatively ignorant of it.

I decided that this was something I could and should do something about. I had spent quite a time reading the Work at height regulation 2005 and thought that an amendment so an information tag to be fitted to harnesses and lanyards would be a good but simple way of alerting rescuers that special treatment would be required. Hence the birth of the petition.Later I made enquiries with the Great Western Ambulance service and eventually got to talk to one of their trainers, responsible for the training of paramedics, as a result they have now taken suspension trauma into their syllabus.

Change is slow but as long as we make changes for the good it will help those who normally take safety regimes as being over the top, after all when it comes to safety short cuts, the first person you are cheating is yourself."

Please spend a little time to sign the petition which can be found at:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Suspensiontrauma/

You can read a more detailed explanation of Suspension Trauma at:

http://www.suspensiontrauma.info/

Ebenfalls im Streik sind 15 CWU-Mitglieder in Alderley Edge/Cheshire, welche gegen die Schliessung des lokalen Posteinrichtungen in dem 4000 EinwohnerInnen zählendem Ort protestieren. Die Durchsetzungsmöglichkeiten für die Forderungen der streikenden KollegInnen scheinen dabei recht gut zu sein, da es Rückhalt aus der lokalen Community gibt und andererseits zur Weihnachtszeit die Royal Mail sich nicht das Geschäft verderben lassen will.

Währenddesen sprachen sich die Mitglieder der Gewerkschaft PCS in einer weiteren Urabstimmung für Kampfmassnahmen im Rahmen der Tarifverhandlungen in der zentralstaatlichen Sozial- und Wohlfahrtsverwaltung (Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), Jobcentres, Pension Service, Child Support Agency (CSA)) aus, da das Angebot des Staates für 40% der Beschäftigten eine Nullrunde bedeuten würde; weitere Infos zur derzeitigen Situation in der PCS und den genannten Bereichen gibt es auf der Webseite der PCS Independent Left, einen kritischen Kommentar zum CWU-Abschluss und dessen Auswirkungen auf den PCS-Tarifkampf hier, einzelne Reaktionen unzufriedener PostarbeiterInnen hier.

Im Tarifkonflikt bei der Royal Mail hat sich inzwischen eine Regionalorganisation der CWU gegen den Tarifabschluss mit der Post ausgesprochen, Basiaktive haben begonnen, ein lesenswertes Flugblatt gegen den Deal und zur Mobilisierung der Gewerkschaftsbasis zu einem "Nein" bei der anstehenden Uranstimmung zu verteilen. Ansonsten erweist sich offenbar auch als Problem, dass es bezüglich der Pensionsregelungen bei einer eventuellen Annahme des Tarifvertrages viele weiterhin bestehende Unklarheiten geben wird.

UNISON, das britische Gegenstück zu Ver.di scheint hingegen zumindest an der Spitze wenig Kampfbereitschaft zu zeigen, die BürokratInnen um Dave Prentis geben sich offenbar bei den Tarifverhandlungen für die Beschäftigten der Kommunalverwaltungen mit lächerlichen 2.475% mehr Lohn zufrieden - was eindeutig unterhalb der realen Inflationsrate liegt. Das sich auch duch eine kämpferische Haltung etwas durchsetzen lässt, zeigten die KollegInnen der JournalistInnengewerkschaft NUJ bei der Regionalzeitung Coventy Telegraph, diese setzten mit einer Streikdrohung die Einstellung von mehr Beschäftigten durch.

Lindsay Hoyle, a Labour member of the Commons trade and industry committee, said: "I would have thought Mr Crozier would have foregone his bonus.

"No member of the public sees it as an achievement to go from two deliveries a day to one and to preside over a massive post office closure programme. It's time we stopped rewarding failure, as people will see this as double standards and hypocrisy."
(Telegraph)

Furthermore

Dave Ward, the deputy general secretary of the Communication Workers' Union, said: "Postal workers have had to take eight days of strike action to get any pay rise at all while the chief executive receives £1million. It's time to review pay at the top."
(Telegraph)

Damn right its time to review pay at the top, though its been that way for a good long while, its hardly like its reached crisis point recently or anything, like Lindsay Hoyle says, you can't even use the age old capitalist argument of 'He's earned it' clearly he has not.
Meanwhile the basic pay of a Postal worker will stand at £16'796 once the pay deal has come into effect.
Decide what you will, you know exactly where I sit on this issue.

Nach Warrens Einschtzung stellt der Tarifabschluss eine Kapitulation vor der Royal Mail dar, so gebe es massive Verschlechterungen im Bereich der Pensionsregelungen und einen Einstieg in weitere Flexibilisierungen. Die ausgehandelte Lohnerhöhung betrage ausserdem nicht wie öffentlich verlautbart, 6,9% (auf 18 Monate) sondern nur 5,4% (auf zwei Jahre) und liege damit unterhalb der Inflationsrate. Eine ähnliche Stossrichtung legen auch die aktuellen Aufrufe der AWL und der SP an den Tag.

Gleichzeitig kam es heute in Carlisle zu einem ambivalent zu bewertenden, erneuten "Wildcat Strike", welcher sich gegen die von Vollzeitbeschäftigten als Strafe empfundenen Übernahme der Bearbeitung von "Streikrückständen" durch kurzfristig eingestellte, temporär Beschäftigte richtete; die fest angestellten "Posties" forderten, diese Arbeit selbst in Überstunden zu übernehmen. Das Bestreben, mehr arbeiten zu müssen in Konkurrenz zu anderen ArbeiterInnen durchzusetzen kann jedenfalls nicht als Zeichen eines hoch entwickelten proletarischen Klassenbewusstseins sondern eher als Ausdruck ständischer Interessenvertretung angesehen werden.

Nachtrag 19:00 Uhr: Weitere kritische Stimmen zur "Einigung" gibt es hier, hier und hier.

In den ("offiziellen") Streik getreten sind dafür heute 700 in der UNISON organisierte Krankenschwestern und -Pfleger im Gesundheitsbereich in Manchester, um die Wiedereinstellung ihrer entlassenen Kollegin, der aktiven Gewerkschafterin Karen Reissmann zu erkämpfen.

Nachtrag 15:55 Uhr (GMT): Anscheinend finden derzeit Nachverhandlungen zwischen CWU und Royal Mail statt; der gestern begonnene wilde Streik in Normanton/West Yorkshire wurde der gleichen Quelle zufolge, nachdem es zu einer Einigung zwischen Royal Mail und CWU (worüber?!) auf lokaler Ebene gekommen war, heute Mittag beendet.