CWU’s Dave Ward roasts Royal Mail bosses in Parliament

CWU Common Secretary Dave Ward has specified by damning element the brutal assault carried out on postal employee’ pay and circumstances at a choose committee in Parliament at this time.

Showing earlier than the Enterprise choose committee at this time, Ward accused Royal Mail bosses of “waging warfare” on workers and utilizing intimidation techniques, together with suspending greater than 200 employees, in a protracted dispute over pay and circumstances.

He advised MPs: “I believe it’s vital the committee recognise that the size of what we are saying is probably the most brutal assault on any body of workers that the UK has seen for many years. That you just recognise it truly is a battle for the way forward for each postal employee’s job, for the way forward for their phrases, circumstances, their pay and for the way forward for the companies that Royal mail present to the general public, most notably the common service.”

Ward mentioned that the corporate’s entire technique isn’t about modernising, which he mentioned was a phrase used to place unions on the again foot.

“What we’ve obtained now could be nothing greater than an asset stripping agenda”, he mentioned.

“It’s the following stage of breaking apart the corporate. It’s a levelling down agenda in the whole lot, within the worth of the roles that postal employees do, it’s about changing the prevailing workforce time beyond regulation with a brand new mannequin which we’ve seen throughout the UK which is predicated on self-employed employees the place they must take the burden of paying for their very own vans, they don’t get vacation pay, sick pay or pensions.

“It’s about prioritising the shareholders on this debate over key employees. Throughout the pandemic our members, they had been categorised as key employees, they stored the nation related, they stored Royal Mail going and obtained it to a place throughout that interval the place they made £758 million in earnings.”

Ward advised MPs that Royal Mail’s hierarchy had made catastrophic choices which they wanted to withstand and be held to account for, together with giving shareholders £567million of earnings by means of shareholder dividends and purchase again schemes.

He added that postal employees confronted an assault on the variety of jobs ‘the likes of which we now have by no means seen’ and that 1000’s upon 1000’s of jobs had been in danger.

It comes because the CWU prepares to poll its greater than 100,000 members over additional nationwide strikes, mentioned contemporary talks weren’t heading towards a suitable settlement.

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Ahead

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