Postal strike - who is benefitting?

So, the strike by Royal Mail employees in London, now in it's 14th week is continue to spread like a rash. Today postal workers in Ayrshire have joined in, the strike has already affected other parts of Scotland - Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling, Bathgate, Dunfermline and Cumbernauld.

This action taken by workers in the Communication Workers Union (CWU) comes ahead of the ballot for a nationwide strike due next week.

Who actually benefits with these unofficial and official strikes though?

According to the CWU website they acknowledge that Royal Mail needs to modernise but that they need to do it with CWU Members, Dave Ward, CWU deputy general secretary, said: "Without agreement there can be no successful change in Royal Mail. This is a simple message which Royal Mail management needs to take on board. Postal workers are striking to defend future services as well as for jobs and modern conditions.

"Modernisation is crucial to the future success of Royal Mail, but the implementation of change must be agreed and it must bring with it modern pay and conditions.

"Postal workers deserve to be rewarded for change. We want to see a new job security agreement which will help people through this time of change for the company."

In my eyes what the CWU are saying is yes, we agree the company needs to modernise but pay us more for working within that framework - to be honest I don't quite get that side of an argument because then that costs more on top of the modernisation costs which equals more debt and therefore counteracts the overall modernisation argument.

Royal Mail Managing Director Mark Higson said: "The ballot further underlines the CWU’s determination to renege on the existing 2007 agreement on Pay and Modernisation which the union’s leadership signed in the presence of the TUC. It beggars belief that CWU chief Dave Ward says today that the disruption caused by the CWU strike is hurting customers yet at the same time calls a national strike ballot to step up the damage they are already inflicting on customers big and small.

"The CWU leadership is well aware that it has already agreed all the changes Royal Mail is making and we urge them to recognise the tough economic conditions faced by all our customers and Royal Mail itself and to live up to their claims to support modernisation and to focus - as the company is doing- on delivering the postal service on which so many customers depend."

You can read fully what Royal Mail and the CWU say.

I represent the good folk of Britain and I will be honest, I have sent mail via other means now and it was easy and sometimes cheaper, certainly if I need to get something to London I will look in detail at other ways of doing this.

More and more companies are moving to other companies such as DHL and TNT, what will CWU Members do when even more companies do and when the public start searching out these other alternatives? Royal Mail accept a 10% drop in mail over the last year, surely these strikes don't help to change that?

Surely what the CWU don't get is that there are more mail companies popping up all the time and while they currently rely on Royal Mail for the final point of delivery, how much longer will that last while the majority of workers continue to strike?

Finally we see the CWU doing a national ballot but what is there view on the wildcat strikes? I couldn't find anything obvious on their website.

There are also over 2.4million people unemployed looking for a paid job, one that pays more than the state benefits of around £60.50 per week, how does that compare to a postal worker?

If working for Royal Mail is that bad stand aside and let someone else have a go and you can then go and do something you enjoy.

Brendan Barber scaremongering with "riots on the streets"

Bizarre as it may seem I used to be in a Union, not only that I was the Health & Safety representative for NALGO when I worked for Nottinghamshire County Council.

I was appalled then at the "jobs for the boys" approach that the Union worked to and still am today. I saw blatant discrimination by other Union reps which ended up in me resigning not only as the Health & Safety Rep but also from the Union itself.

I crossed a picket line too, again because the strike was only benefiting the full time shop stewards and main union reps who were still getting paid their full salary while the actual workers who were striking about an actual grievance got nothing.

I wasn't prepared to be part of such hypocrisy.

As the TUC conference begins this week in Liverpool I see Brendan Barber is criticising the Labour government (good) but only in saying that public sector job cuts could raise unemployment to four million and lead to "riots on the streets".

Hardly constructive nor particularly helpful really.

Hmmm, a little Union scaremongering there I feel Brendan.

But then Brendan Barber is no John Monks!

Let's see how the TUC conference unfolds this week and if Brendan grows up a little.