CWU conference
Huge profits for BT and Royal Mail, cuts and attacks for workers
Socialist Party members in the CWU
CWU official picket armband, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)
As the 2016 Communication Workers Union (CWU) conference takes place British Telecom (BT) continues its obsession with cost cutting, despite a 14% increase in profits to £2.6 billion last year.
CWU members are expected to constantly increase productivity which results in stress and anxiety. Every minute of every day they face intrusive monitoring and need to provide detailed explanations for not reaching unachievable targets.
BT are circumventing the no compulsory redundancy agreement by making life at work a living hell.
A number of propositions at conference express dismay that the promised benefits of their ‘Workforce 2020’ agreement has not been forthcoming. Well, we told you so!
It was always intended to reduce pay and increase hours. We need to fight for agreed pay and conditions and for a 36-hour week for all!
Performance management and the health and wellbeing of our members dominates the agenda reflecting the continuing callousness with which BT treat us.
Gains have been made in Openreach’s service delivery sector which can hopefully be extended across the whole of BT.
Public ownership
However the real aims for the union should be to achieve a safe working environment that is focussed on employing enough staff to deal with the workload.
This can only be achieved by action and the public ownership of BT, which is union policy. There is a motion to the executive committee calling for CWU to lobby for the renationalisation of BT to be in the next Labour Party manifesto.
While Royal Mail workers have gained nothing under privatisation, some people have done very well. George Osborne’s best man heads up a hedge fund which has secured profits of £36 million from the privatisation of Royal Mail in under six months – £210,000 for each day since the sale in 2015.
The government has been slammed by the National Audit Office for an under-priced sale which saw City firms walk off with two thirds of the public asset while 40,000 ordinary individual investors were excluded.
The Socialist Party also backs the renationalisation of Royal Mail – a demand that is again being legitimised by the crisis in Tata Steel.
A privatised Royal Mail attacks workers’ rights – shown in the victimisation of Wakefield CWU rep and Socialist Party member John Vasey who was sacked by Royal Mail. John led a successful campaign to win his reinstatement. This shows that action gets results and we urge conference to back all propositions committing the union to take action against the government’s anti-trade union bill.
