Post workers fight speed-up

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• Tom Jackson and the UCW (formerly UPW) executive are about to face a major confrontation with the membership of the Manchester Amalgamated Branch who were forced into strike action last week.

The bureaucracy seems to have settled a similar dispute in London last week, but the Manchester dispute could escalate into other areas.

The dispute is round the divisive "Improved Working Methods" (IWM) which is a polite phrase for local productivity deals.

The UCW bureaucracy had been trying to sell the deal to the membership fot some years and finally succeeded last May by a narrow margin.

Jackson emphasised then that the scheme was voluntary, and would be controlled, monitored and agreed by those participating.

The Post Office management in the Manchester area have been trying since last June to negotiate such a deal.

This would have meant an end to statutory meal breaks, the mobility of staff to change duties, and removal of concessions as well as loss of posts.

Talks reached deadlock and the management instead of taking it to national level gave each member an Edwardes-style letter on how much would be gained, quoting bogus facts and figures supposedly from the Preston Office involved in the scheme.

The management, seeing that the membership could not be divided, issued a statement saying that the scheme would be implemented on Monday 26 January whether there was agreement or not!

Southend Cleansing was about to "go private" . The unions had still not been officially informed.

On December 4 a special full council meeting was told that the successful tender was from the Exclusive Cleaning Group, a subsidiary of Brengreen Holdings of Walton Cross.

£100 per copy The chairman of this company, David Evans, is a Tory councillor and Highways Committee chairman in St. Albans.

It has emerged he was invited to tender for the contract as early as March 1980! The tender document drawn up by Southend's borough engineer has been available to any interested local authority at £100 per copy. It is believed that over 100 have been sold.

A picket was put on the Trailer Park on Monday and staff worked their normal shifts and took their normal breaks.

At 4 p.m. that afternoon two drivers were instructed to cross the picket line, they refused and were suspended.

The afternoon shift of the parcels office then withdrew their labour. The Monday night shift was suspended and con Tuesday came out on strike.

Wednesday saw the arrival of ex-Stalinist UCW bureaucrat Maurice Styles.

Negotiations were held all day Wednesday and taken to a Branch Committee Meeting that evening where it was agreed to bring out the Mechanised Letter Office night shift and subsequent shifts.

Negotiations were broken off on Thursday with management tearing up national agreements and prepared to bring in the deal over the heads of officials and the membership.

In the wake of the dispute, some offices that have accepted 'Improved Working Methods' (like Leeds) are now thinking of coming out.

Workers from the office came across to help picket.

The Post Office is trying to divert letters to other officesa step which must be resisted by UCW branches.

Maurice Styles left on Thursday saying that he would recommend official support.

But Manchester must be prepared to fight on whether it is made official or not-the solidarity found around , the • is growing and must be built on.

The tactics of bringing in deals over the heads of workers from BL, the steel industry and now the Post Office has to be fought.

The document specifies that the selected firm will have to purchase the whole 60-vehicle Cleansing Service Fleet-valued at £300,000. But Exclusive Cleaning appears to have escaped this, and is selecting only 17 vehicles.

The firm has stated that only 205 of the present 250 cleansing employees will be employedand Evans has refused to speak to union representatives until after the operation has commenced in Southend.

This move is plainly a pilot run for a wholesale Tory attack on local government services. The TGWU 1/293 Branch is mounting a campaign against the plan, and is seeking moral and practical support.

Contact A.B. Smith, 39 Earlshall Avenue, Southend-onSea, Essex. successful campaign against the cuts demanded by Pollock CLP (No. 16) which calls for "persuading controlling • Labour Groups to refuse to implement the cuts, with full financial and physical support for any Councillor who may be victimised", , "backing all trade unionists who take action against the cuts" and "persuading all controlling Labour Groups to implement a policy of no cuts, no increased charges, no natural wastage, no rates or rent increases."

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