Support the Communication Workers!

The recent news that the Communication Workers Union members had voted for a strike a Royal Mail came as no surprise. Support for industrial action was strong with three quarters voting in favour.

The Government has actively been undermining the Royal Mail for some years. Unfortunately, thanks to our so-called 'free' capitalist media the truth hasn't got out. Most people think that Royal Mail is in trouble because of a decline in the sending of letters now that increasing numbers people use electronic means. The real reason is that the government has been encouraging private operators to cherry pick the most profitable parts of the Royal Mail's business. In addition, Royal Mail has been forced to pay these operators peanuts to deliver their mail for them.

If you listened to Mandelson you would think that the gaping £9 billion hole in Royal Mail's pension fund was the fault of the postal workers. But the deficit was caused by the government taking a ten year pensions holiday in which it made no contributions to the fund.

The government intend to privatise the Royal Mail. Nobody except the private operators and bureaucrats in Brussels want them to. Neo-liberal EU legislation is driving the process. Ideology disguised as economics. The end result will be a poorer service, redundancies and pay cuts for postal workers and nice fat profits for the private operators. The costs will be dumped onto the workers - as usual. The communication workers are in a tough spot but they deserve out wholehearted support.