Postal workers vote to strike as sell-off rebellion looms

8 Jun 09
A Labour backbench rebellion over the government’s plans to part-privatise the Royal Mail could take place against a background of strikes by London postal workers

By Tash Shifrin

05 June 2009

A Labour backbench rebellion over the government’s plans to part-privatise the Royal Mail could take place against a background of strikes by London postal workers.

Members of the Communications Workers Union in the capital voted nine to one to strike in a dispute over job cuts, threatening massive disruption as the second reading debate on the controversial Postal Services Bill loomed.

News of the vote came after Business Secretary Peter Mandelson told the BBC’s Politics Show on May 31 that he would be pressing on with the legislation. Echoing the phrase famously used by former Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Mandelson said he was ‘not for turning’ on the plan.

The London dispute is not linked to the Royal Mail sell-off, but a strike would demonstrate postal workers’ anger when the government is already under fire from its own MPs. More than 40% of Labour MPs have signed an early day motion opposing privatisation.

Media speculation also mounted this week that potential private sector bidders TNT and private equity firm CVC Capital Partners had put in bids for a 30% stake in Royal Mail, although a TNT spokesman said the process was ‘not at the bid stage yet’.

The political temperature might be further stoked at the CWU’s annual conference, which begins on June 7. It will discuss withdrawing funding for Labour. Last year, the union pumped £434,000 into the party’s coffers.

One resolution urges that ‘any Labour MP who does not support the early day motion on the part privatisation of the Post Office will not receive either financial or physical help from the CWU and or CWU branches in the forthcoming general election’.

Another calls for the union to ‘disaffiliate from and end all funding to the Labour Party at the earliest opportunity’.

CWU spokesman Martin Walsh said London postal workers were facing ‘arbitrary’ cuts. ‘We’re fighting against unacceptable attacks on jobs and services in Royal Mail at a time when the company is performing well,’ he said.

But a Royal Mail spokesman said strikes would ‘disrupt the service to which customers are entitled, lead to an even greater loss of business and leave Royal Mail far less able to protect full-time jobs’.

 

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