CWU

Communication Workers' Union

BT workers vote for strikes

Telecoms workers in the Communication Workers Union (CWU) have voted for industrial action over pay, opening up the possibility of the first BT-wide strike since 1987. Around 40,000 workers were balloted in three separate ballots, covering centrally-employed BT workers, workers at BT’s broadband arm Openreach, and workers at BT-owned mobile provider EE. The BT ballot returned a 91.5% majority for action on a 58.2% turnout, and the Openreach ballot, the largest of the three with nearly 30,000 workers, returned a 95.8% majority on a 74.8% turnout. The EE ballot returned a 95.5% majority for...

Post workers set to strike in August

A postal worker in north London spoke to Solidarity . The Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) will ballot its members in Royal Mail, 28 June to 19 July, for industrial action over pay. Royal Mail workers previously voted for industrial action in 2019, when action was scuppered by a court injunction, and again in 2020, when union leaders decided not to call action as the pandemic started. The CWU rep at our office has been active in preparing members to ballot. He recently gatecrashed a team talk from management to counter company propaganda and explain why the union planned to ballot. He’s told...

CWU ballots in BT. What about Royal Mail?

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) is balloting its membership in BT Group, including Openreach and EE, for industrial action to win an improved pay deal. The ballot commences on 15 June. Around 40,000 workers will be balloted, in the first national action ballot in BT since 1987. A CWU statement said: “Despite initial indications that pay talks were progressing normally, negotiations came to an abrupt halt on April 7 with the unprecedented imposition of a flat rate increase of £1,500. “With the percentage value ranging from 3.37% to 7.89% across team member grades, and this month’s CPI...

Post workers prepare to ballot

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) is holding “gate meetings” at Royal Mail workplaces as it prepares for a potential ballot of its Royal Mail membership over pay and conditions. The last pay settlement included 2020 and 2021. A resolution at the CWU’s conference in April committed the union to moving towards an industrial action ballot to win a pay increase if no acceptable offer was forthcoming in negotiations for the 2022 settlement. Royal Mail’s offer is for a 2% payrise, backdated to April 2022, with a further 1.5% increase, not back-dated, conditional on accepting a series of changes...

CWU debates Ukraine and BT pay

The biggest political debate at the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) conference (24-29 April) was on Ukraine. It was messy but ended with the union Executive being able to pursue Ukraine solidarity. Some of us had an emergency motion along the lines of Ukraine solidarity. It was ruled out of order, we got it back on the agenda, and then the Standing Orders Committee composited it with a contradictory one along the lines of the Stop The War campaign. We attempted to challenge the compositing, but the chair ruled that we couldn’t. So we had to just oppose the composite. The Executive’s line...

CWU calls for demonstration for New Deal for Workers

At the Communications Workers’ Union (CWU) virtual Special General Conference on 7-9 November, motions passed on the “New Deal For Workers” (published by Labour when Andy McDonald was shadow minister) called for a mobilisation in the Spring of 2022 for a New Deal demonstration with other unions. There was also confirmation from the leadership that the CWU would remain a stand-alone union (rather than merging into a bigger general union). There has been no national discussion of General Conference business (i.e. what affects the whole union, not the industrial policies of differing sectors...

Dave Ward, Billy Hayes and the CWU

The article in Solidarity 609 is an interesting contribution to the debate going on within the CWU [Communication Workers’ Union], but it is wrong on several levels. As an activist within the union for many years I am very familiar with the positions taken by its leaders and the discussions around the union’s political strategy. In the time Labour was in office there was a lot of criticism of their approach to Royal Mail which was a publicly owned body throughout their 13 years as a government. The stance taken by Dave Ward during that period was a reflection of the anger felt by postal...

Trade union struggle and political struggle - an interview with John McDonnell

John McDonnell, Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington and former Shadow Chancellor, spoke to Sacha Ismail. After Labour Party conference, what do you think will happen with Starmer’s leadership? Do you think he’ll be around for a long time? It’s impossible to tell at the moment. At the conference he used the traditional Blairite, Mandelson playbook. Attack your own party to demonstrate you’re a strong leader; do a big personal speech to try to demonstrate you’re a normal human being; make banal statements instead of policy commitments. It didn’t work: the bounce in the polls didn’t happen. The...

Issues behind CWU conference

The option presented by the Executive to the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) Special Virtual Conference on 7-9 November , to maintain the union’s affiliation to the Labour Party, is right. But the detail it contains, a focus on lobbying and supporting the Labour metro mayors, makes no sense. Dave Ward, the CWU general secretary, has moved on a little, but essentially this is a reprise from when Dave Ward pushed disaffiliation to gain profile against Billy Hayes, whom he defeated for general secretary in 2015. He did that to appear more left-wing, though in fact Hayes, for all his flaws, was...

CWU to debate Labour links

The agenda for the 7-9 November Special Virtual Conference of the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) has been released . Motions from branches were only permitted on subjects designated by the NEC. That said, this will enable activists the first opportunity in a long time to debate some key issues. The event will open with a section on Anti-Racism, which is unlikely to be controversial, followed by one on Politics, which certainly will be. Here the choice will be a complete break with Labour or a reduction in financial support to the party. The latter is the National Executive Committee (NEC)...

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