BRITAIN is ready for change after 14 ruinous years, and it’s up to us now to deliver that change. Services are on their knees after years of mismanagement, and that’s certainly true of Royal Mail, privatised by the Tories and Liberal Democrats in 2014. People across Britain rely on its …
Read More »Fewer strikes under nationalised railways, Aslef leader says
ASLEF general secretary Mick Whelan predicted fewer train driver strikes as he joined MPs outside Parliament ahead of the second reading of Labour’s railway nationalisation Bill today. The head of the train drivers’ union hoped that fewer “snouts in the trough” — profiteering rail franchise bosses — will see ticket fares go down alongside …
Read More »Editorial: Amazon workers in Coventry are charting a path to our movement’s revival
THE recognition ballot at Amazon’s Coventry warehouse is the fruit of years of organising by some of Britain’s most exploited workers. Officers of the GMB union entering the warehouse officially for the first time will be proud of shop-floor organisers who have taken on a global giant. But this is …
Read More »Postal services ‘under threat’ as Royal Mail owner welcomes £3.5bn takeover bid
ROYAL MAIL’s future is “again under threat,” the CWU warned today after the owner of the privatised service welcomed an improved £3.5 billion takeover offer from Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky. Parent company International Distribution Services (IDS) said that Mr Kretinsky’s EP Group had agreed to offer a set of “contractual …
Read More »STUC Congress 2024 The future of the postal service is under serious threat
ALMOST all delegates arriving at this week’s STUC Congress in Dundee this week will have had their credentials delivered by CWU members who work in Scotland’s postal service. While the STUC’s longevity is notable in reaching this, its 127th Congress, it is nonetheless dwarfed in comparison to the institution that …
Read More »Former Post Office chief and MD denies oversight of wrongful prosecutions
THE Post Office’s former chief executive and managing director both claimed they did not remember having oversight of the wrongful prosecution of subpostmasters at the Horizon scandal inquiry today. More than 700 subpostmasters were prosecuted by the Post Office and handed criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015 as Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon system made it …
Read More »Royal Mail warns of jobs chop under plans to scrap second-class deliveries on Saturdays
ROYAL MAIL has warned that up to 1,000 jobs could be axed under plans to scrap second-class letter deliveries on Saturdays. In its submission to a consultation on the future of the universal postal service (USO) by industry regulator Ofcom, the privatised company also proposes to cut the service to …
Read More »Workers’ rights have not improved since the P&O scandal – quite the reverse
ROGUE ferry operator P&O’s illegal mass sacking of seafarers two years ago exposed how feeble workers’ rights in Britain have become. Despite a flurry of cosmetic outrage from Tory ministers at the time, they have done nothing to deter employers from copying P&O by dismissing workers en masse to replace …
Read More »‘Gross mismanagement’ of Royal Mail to blame for firm’s £1bn losses, union says
THE “gross mismanagement” of Royal Mail is to blame for the privatised firm slumping to losses of more than £1 billion, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) warned today. The owner of the 500-year-old company, International Distributions Services (IDS), revealed it suffered an operating loss of £1.04bn for the year to late March, …
Read More »Royal Mail boss Simon Thompson steps down following strikes
MORE changes are needed at the top of Royal Mail, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) said today after under-fire chief executive Simon Thompson finally confirmed rumours that he plans to step down. The former banker, who was accused of misleading MPs earlier this year when he denied that bosses were intrusively …
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