In another development the rather unscrupulous company TNT has decided to step in and offer it's services to Royal Mail in an attempt to break the strike. They are offering their staff and distribution network to do the rounds. It is unacceptable that fellow workers are not supporting their fellow comrades.
I plead with fellow indymedia users do not accept these temporary positions and jeopardize the livelihoods of your fellow workers! If you see a picket in your area don't cross the line, support it!
For too long the managers in this country have suppressed the unions and their workers, now with the prospect of strikes not seen since Thatchers time the traitors in the Labour party are doing everything they can to cement their hold on power by attempting to break the strike. It's time to show the management and the government that we are not pawns to be pushed around, we will not stand around and let them privatise our jobs to the highest bidder!
Comments
Hide the following 16 comments
Too late for that
19.10.2009 12:39
Temps should be made aware that just now they have the legal right to self-certify themselves as sick for a week (maybe two) with swine flu, and that every doctor finds back-pain hard to diagnose.
Sorting offices tend to be fortified buildings, which means there are only a couple of easily blockable exits. Legally, all the CWU can do is stand there and ask people not to break the strike, anything more would get the workers sacked and the union fined. Legal concerns never stop the rest of Indymedia readers taking direct action though.
Danny
Ahem
19.10.2009 13:11
Most Indymedia readers wouldn't take a job if you paid them so by definition can not be fellow workers (a joke - you do remember humour?)
Now stop messing about and shift some bloody mail. You're pissing off people who haven't done anything to you. I several thousands of pounds worth of invoices not reaching their destination. No invoice paid - workers laid off - there's no money to pay them.
Do your job, fight your fight and we'll support you.
Don't do your job, start a fight and we'll desert you and TNT will be called in.
Your choice.
Postie
TNT offer jobs for life
19.10.2009 13:19
Danny
spys on the dole
19.10.2009 13:36
all the same im with ya post man and women
artfulldodger
Workers / Not workers
19.10.2009 13:37
Marxist Pedant
@ postie and @ danny
19.10.2009 13:38
Yes strikes might inconvenience people but they are the only weapon that workers have against union busting bosses, who grow fat on bonuses at the expense of customers.
Danny, I personally wasn't aware that the job centres were forcing the unemployed to apply for these jobs. Frankly I find it disgusting as it amounts to blackmail, cross the pickets or loose your money. I'll certainly be raising this with fellow workers and it definitely needs to be discussed more. Will definitely urge any workers who have been forced into these contracts by the job centres to contact the unions immediately, the more information we have on this the better.
Revolution through solidarity!
Remember
19.10.2009 13:48
KEEP THE SCABS BUSY.
Wob
Forced to accept, not forced to apply
19.10.2009 15:47
Younger men get the same kind of postcard sized applications for the army thrust upon them too, 'to get a trade and travel'.
To be fair to the dole advisors, even they wouldn't have known at the time these were scab jobs.
Anyone who has already applied is fucked, if you don't accept a job or mess up the interview blatantly or get sacked for misconduct early all your benefits are cut for six months. The dole advisers always make a 'sad-face' when they do that to you. If I had already applied for one of these jobs then I'd been down to the doctor to get diagnosed as clinically depressed for Incapacity Benefit until January.
I don't know if being sacked for refusing to cross a picket line will result in your benefits being stopped but I assume that is the case, no ones said otherwise.
Danny
TNT broke the printers strike, Wapping and all that hoo haa
19.10.2009 19:04
they were involved in breaking the printers strike and may have also been involved in the conspiracy against Arthur Scargill and the miners. They have recently taken over from several European postal services, the post office was once a cheap way of sending stuff, not any more. It costs a fortune and takes twice as long and you risk that what you send may never arrive. But it's very profitable for corporate parasites.
Murdog
Gaffer tape
19.10.2009 19:19
C
Defusing TNT
19.10.2009 23:10
It might not be worthwhile hitting them yet, they are simply PR posturing by 'trialling' their own postmen. On their website 'Response to Royal Mail strike action [22-23 October 2009]' they say "There are regulatory barriers in the postal market which prevent TNT Post from providing a full end to end delivery of mail. The strikes show it is high time that these barriers are lifted in order for a real alternative service to Royal Mail's to be introduced."
As an outsider it appears at this point that actions may be better aimed at closing any Royal Mail sorting centres that remain open during the strike.
Danny
The Royal Mail Concede an argument by scabbing on this scale
20.10.2009 00:56
On its website (
The options available to the Royal Mail Managment are slim: admit that the 12,500 additional "seasonal workers" are scabs bought in in contravention to the law; admit that 12,500 new jobs are required to modernise the service - thus conceding the CWU contentions to that effect; or, admit that management cannot calculate staffing level requirements. In each case, there is an admission that the management is not competent or fit for purpose. The best option being to fire the management in order to protect the owners - that is the public.
The Royal Mail management have also made a statement on the Royal Mail Website that claims
"Royal Mail today attacked the CWU’s strike ballot as totally unjustified, damaging to customers and a clear attempt to undermine the modernisation which is essential if Royal Mail is to face up to the reality of a rapidly changing marketplace."
Failing to point out that any Strike Ballot is not "unjustified" but is a legal requirement that clarifies action a Trade Union is permitted to take on behalf of its members. It might be suggested that the Royal Mail Management start managing the Royal Mail before attempting to also manage a trade union. Clearly, there is some way to go for the managers to understand this business.,
Pedantic Fart
TNT Scabs?
20.10.2009 09:14
Victory to the Posties
encouraging cwu tnt drivers not to break strike would be good& if most
20.10.2009 13:52
Has anyone tried targetted strikes+blockades against bad management& scabs+government departments?. Its easy for corporate government to get enough public opinion on its side, when its indiscriminate.
The post office should be a nationalised workers cooperative, maybe with whats called co determination in germanic countries, workers on the union board to make sure fairtrade& sustainable safe work practice happens.
Workers should get shares in their business for free or less than half the price of outside businesses, trade union officials shouldnt be afraid of loosing workers not needing them if this happens.
My experience in various worker cooperatives is that union reps are still definteley needed, its just not so cut throat & usually much more cooperative, in "voluntary" organisations should be made to pay small union fees for each longterm worker, as workers in this sector of UK can often be the most used or abused without safety training etc, many dont even realise is necessary.
Green syndicalist
Scab Jobs at your local Joke Centre?
21.10.2009 12:22
Come on, don't be afraid to expose these places - they clearly don't deserve anonimity if they're trying coerce claimants into doing strike breaking jobs.
Meanwhile, anyone who gets offered one of these jobs, should be asking why are these jobs being offered during a strike period, and if the person across the desk can't give them a convincing explanation, ask to see their senior manager to get some answers from them and threaten to report what they're doing to the local press if they don't come up with a convincing explanation.
In other words, take it to the top and watch them squirm - shoe on the other foot and all that.
Furthermore, JobCentres that are hustling scab jobs should themselves be exposed and picketed until they stop offering these dodgy jobs.
Post Haste
JobCentre minus
21.10.2009 16:01
I've arranged a meeting with the local manager at the end of the month to discuss various dodgy practices at their particular centre which I am hoping they will allow me to video.
It is probably more important that someone from the CWU has a quiet word with someone from the PCS union about their policy on facilitating scab labour under false pretences.
Danny