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In this video, Des Beach, a Royal Mail delivery worker from County Durham, England with 31-years’ service, speaks about his unfair dismissal with Tony Robson from the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS).
An earlier interview with Des, published by WSWS on October 17, received a large readership among Royal Mail workers, with many posting messages of solidarity on social media. Postal workers who contacted WSWS emphasised this was not an isolated case. Many shared similar experiences of management bullying to enforce unachievable workloads, and the refusal of Communication Workers Union (CWU) officials to take up their defence.
In his latest interview outside the Chester-Le-Street delivery office where he worked, Des exposes the anatomy of a frame-up by Royal Mail managers, based on manufactured charges of “intentional delay of mail”. The CWU refused to defend him.
Des says the current wave of victimisations are the result of last year’s sellout national agreement co-authored by the Postal Executive led by Dave Ward. This has produced a two-tier workforce, providing the company an incentive to drive out long-serving postal workers and replace them with new entrants on inferior pay and conditions.
The Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee (PWRFC) is calling for a campaign against management intimidation. Postal workers must not be scapegoated for the company’s deliberate run-down of the mail service! Rank-and-file committees should be established at every workplace to ensure the collective defence of all those being bullied, victimised and framed-up by management.
The CWU has backed Royal Mail’s drive to offload the Universal Service Obligation and speed up the transition to an Amazon-style parcel courier service. It is working hand-in-glove with the Labour government to facilitate the takeover by Daniel Kretinsky’s private equity group, in return for pledges that Kretinsky will work with officials at the boardroom table. Ward describes this as a “new ownership model”.
A greenlight for the company’s hostile regime against Royal Mail workers was given by the union-backed Falconer Review. Of 400 reps and workers sacked or suspended in connection with the 2022-3 national dispute, only around half were deemed eligible for Falconer’s rigged process. In return for reinstatement, they had to accept a reduced disciplinary charge remaining on their employment records and waive their right to the Employment Tribunal. Royal Mail was thereby exonerated for the largest mass frame-ups in an industrial dispute since the miners’ strike of 1984-5.
We appeal to our fellow postal workers to share this video interview with Des, and contact us about similar cases. Help break the wall of silence erected by Royal Mail’s business partners in the CWU bureaucracy.
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