DEFEND THE POSTIES! DEFEND 6-DAY DELIVERY & 20,000 JOBS!

DEFEND YOUR POSTIES! DEFEND 6-DAY DELIVERY! DEFEND OVER 20,000 JOBS!

Wednesday 29th of April is National Postal Workers Day.


This union event is designed to show solidarity with workers who have carried out life-threatening work throughout the COVID-19 crisis.


It's designed to allow the public to say 'Thank You' to the posties for their valiant efforts, but now it must also become a declaration of solidarity against a brutal, full-frontal declaration of war by Royal Mail bosses. 


Literally on the eve of national #PostalWorkersDay, Rico Back and the rest of the millionaire dictators in charge of Royal Mail have unilaterally declared that from the 11th of May, letter delivery will only be Monday to Friday, with parcels and packages delivered on Saturdays.


This is a blatant breach of the longstanding Universal Service Obligation (USO) whereby every household is guaranteed deliveries six days a week.


That's precisely one of the core issues at the heart of the showdown between postal workers and their privatised bosses, which led to two overwhelming strike ballots, before and since Christmas. 

Royal Mail use Corona crisis to smash jobs and public services!

With the outbreak of the killer virus, CWU trade union leaders suspended plans for strike action, in the hope the bosses would stop their assault whilst posties helped to provide a key service to the beleaguered public.

But instead, the employers have declared war on the union, its members and on the public service they provide. In the midst of the pandemic. That's stooping down low, even by their standards. 


They entirely bypassed the union in reaching this decision.


Their plan was never mentioned in discussions with the union just days ago.


Their announcement is undoubtedly timed as a ruthless act of provocation, cold and calculated, putting the CWU in the position of having to either surrender, or stand up and fight back - and then face a tornado of media vilification.


That's where other workers and unions need to rally round the posties and make it clear we will not accept abolition of 6-day service, just as we will not accept the loss of 20,000 or more Royal Mail jobs.


Royal Mail have cynically used the coronavirus crisis as a smokescreen for ramming through an assault which the union had resisted on behalf of members and the public for the past two years.


The same bosses have shown absolutely no concern for the health of the workforce. 
At first they refused to put anybody on furlough. They resisted the demands of the union for full pay for any worker with childcare problems, or where their sick pay had been exhausted, or were self-isolating with symptoms, or looking after other shielded household members.

They arrogantly told workers who faced literally no income to go to a charity.


It was only after massive union pressure and publicity that they made a concession. But it still does not include furlough for posties with childcare issues, nor for the over-65s, nor for anybody who wants to self-isolate because others in their household have the symptoms.


On top of which they've refused to back-date any pay, and expect workers who are put on furlough to use at least two weeks of the their annual holidays.


Now they're trying to con the public by dressing up abolition of 6-day delivery as a measure to "ease the pressure on posties".

That is a barefaced lie.


Imposing it within 10 days, as they propose, will cause mayhem for shift patterns for drivers, delivery staff and those in sorting offices alike, also threatening pay-cuts in many cases.


It's a cynical attempt to abolish a longstanding service, get rid of at least 20,000 jobs, and smash the power of the union in the process.

Workers and trade unionists need to stand up with the CWU - stand by your posties.

 I spoke to TAM DEWAR, CWU Divisional Officer for Scotland and Northern Ireland: 


"In all this time Royal Mail management have shown no concern nor readiness to act in defense of workers' safety.

Whereas posties see COVID-19 as a life-threatening virus Rico Back and his cabal see it as a commercial opportunity and a chance to rush through changes to working practices they have been unable to do so far because of union resistance.


Postal workers are not only been fighting COVID-19 but fighting the employer as well.


The only way we got any safety measures was through collective action.

We wanted to protect posties' safety and lives by each of them working a 3-day week during this crisis, but keeping the 6-day delivery. Of course Royal Mail bosses ruled that out on grounds of cost.


It's only by taking action as a trade union we won any protection.

The Chief Executive needs to be sacked and replaced by somebody who's willing to work with the union to defend the future of Royal Mail. 

Otherwise it would be sold off to Amazon or Poundland, because the past two years have been an absolute disaster commercially since Rico Back took over.


We could well now be forced into taking strike action nationally by the actions Royal Mail. 

They have declared all previous agreements are scrapped from now on. 

They have announced there will be no deliveries on Saturdays and claim to have the support of Ofcom and the government.


It's true that letters have collapsed in number during this crisis, but there are absolute stacks of packets piled up at Mail Centres. 

It's ten times worse than the Christmas rush, for example with at least ten huge trucks queued up at the Glasgow Mail Centre, full of parcels.

The bosses want to control their budget, refusing overtime, but still demanding the work is done, even though 20% of the workforce are off sick.


They seem hell bent on switching to parcel deliveries which could affect about 27,000 jobs.

If you can't drive you can't deliver. And when we got removal of two workers to a delivery van, because of social distancing, Royal Mail did not hire a single van to compensate - even though there must be thousands of hire vans available during the lockdown.


We had strikes in four places in Scotland using health and safety legislation, because people were being forced to work in unsafe conditions to deliver pizza leaflets and leaflets for companies that are shut! 
All that after it had been declared an essential service. 
Our idea of an essential service would be delivery of prescriptions, food and looking out for the vulnerable, not junk mail. 
If we have to take strike action now, nationally, we will welcome support on the picket lines." 

UNELECTED JUDGE TRAMPS ON WORKERS' RIGHT TO STRIKE: stand by the posties!

An unelected High Court judge today trampled basic, democratic workers' rights in the muck, as he rushed to the defence of absentee multi-millionaire Royal Mail boss, Rico Back.

Mr Justice Swift was quick to ban the right of 110,000 postal workers to go ahead with strike action in defence of their jobs, dignity at work and the vital public services they deliver, despite 97.1% of them voting for such action, in a landslide 76% turnout in the ballot.

This upper-class representative of the rich and powerful - who has the brass neck to be adorned with the title 'Justice' Swift - was obscenely hasty in his defence of the profiteers who've taken over the reins in Royal Mail, only to shred the Four Pillars Agreement signed with the CWU union a year ago. 
As CWU postal section leader Terry Pullinger rightly, angrily, declared, "The Courts of Justice are here to defend millionaires and the establishment."

Members of the CWU are raging at the outrageous accusation that their union is guilty of "improper interference" during the strike ballot in September,  in what the bewigged dictator called "a form of subversion of the ballot"
His bogus accusations were based on the claim the union had encouraged a Yes vote, and that some members opened their ballot papers at work rather than in the privacy of their homes. 

Not One of 110,000 Complained! 

As CWU leaders from every region of the country spelled out, not one single member of the 110,000 workforce ever complained to the independent scrutineers about interference in the ballot, or about being pressurised by the CWU, or any other objection to how this phenomenally successful exercise in mass democracy was conducted. 

The brutal truth is that Swiss-based Rico Back and his unelected Royal Mail Group board are hellbent on smashing the working conditions and jobs of these workers, hoping to scrap 6-days-a-week delivery, renege on the agreed transition to a 35-hour week by 2021 without loss of pay, and create an insecure Parcelforce operation modelled on the gig economy, bogus self-employment and zero hours contracts  - as practised by Rico Back already on the European continent. 

The equally ugly reality is that this boardroom of vandals fear the impact of united strike action prior to Black Friday and Christmas, and have employed the services of the class-ridden judiciary to invent stories of irregularities and ban such strikes. 

A Threat to All Workers 

The entire trade union movement needs to awaken to the profound significance of this assault on the CWU and its membership. 
It's an assault on the right to campaign as a union; the right to vote and uphold that vote;  indeed the right to strike.  
The wider unions need to rally behind the CWU, in whatever action their members decide to take in response to this crusade by the marauding millionaires and their Courts, in what Dave Ward has described as "a call to arms". 
This is as-near-as-damn-it to a ban on the right to strike, even the right to vote... without "improper interference" by the Courts, in "a form of subversion" of what masquerades as democracy under the rule of the capitalist rich. 

A Mandate for Defiance 

The strength of feeling in the sorting and delivery offices had already triggered unofficial walkouts at the rate of one a week, and then fuelled the phenomenal vote to take the first national strike action in a decade. 
Whatever the CWU decides to do in response to this brazen trampling on workers' rights by the Courts, media and Boris Johnson's outgoing Tory regime, this mood for resistance should not be allowed to dissipate. 

As we've written previously, the scurrilous attacks on the posties for daring to vote to strike at the busiest time of year, and during a snap General Election, should only serve to highlight just how critical these workers are to the functioning of several aspects of society.  
And that pivotal role should be harnessed as leverage in defiance of this High Court bosses' subversion, to stop the industrial vandals from obliterating not only the postal service,  but fundamental rights won through hard battles by past generations of trade unionists and socialists. 

Stand by the Posties

Likewise, just as the Courts, mainstream media and Tories have combined forces, so too the workers' movement needs to rally behind the posties in this hour of greatest need for solidarity. 
The Scottish Socialist Party is on standby to help enlist support in our unions and communities for that call for solidarity from the posties and CWU. 

STOP THE TORIES STAMPING ON THE POSTIES!

Royal Mail workers recently voted by a whopping 97.1% YES for strike action. A statistical display
of the levels of anger and readiness to defend their jobs, pensions, wages, conditions - and the
public service these 110,000 CWU members help deliver. 

But what are the broader issues driving the posties towards the first national strike action in a
decade? 

It's about the threat to 20,000 jobs as the Royal Mail Group Board plan to offload Parcelforce
as a separate business. 

It's about bosses reneging on the Four Pillars Agreement signed last year, which protects
pensions, and sets out a 'flightpath' towards a 35 hour week. 

It's in response to the rampant bullying by management which has provoked local office
walkouts at the rate of one a week. And the Amazon-style threat of tagging workers' every
 movement at work.  

But overarching the multitude of grievances is the entire direction of the service, which the
Four Pillars Agreement promised the workforce union would have a say over, whereas the
new Board has contemptuously shut them out.

Privatisation Robbery 

Royal Mail was privatised by the Tories and LibDems in 2013 - at a time the public service had
notched up profits of £400m - after threatened strikes had stopped earlier attempts by Blair and
Mandelson's New Labour government to flog it off to the privateers. 

It was a bargain basement sale; given away for £1.5billion less than it had been  valued at by
a government-hired team of investment bankers! 

It was run by Moya Greene on an annual salary over £1m; she then got a £2.6m golden
handshake when she left. 

In steps a new Board, led by Rico Back, who received an 'encouraging' golden hello of £6m,
on top of his £2.7m annual salary. Not that Rico is in bad need of a handout; he commutes
500 miles to his RM job from his £2.3m luxury penthouse, which overlooks Lake Zurich, in
Switzerland. A bit of a contrast with the average CWU member's salary of £28,274, for traipsing
up and down closes in all weathers. 

Royal Mail hatchet-man Rico Back has more than a room with a view

In fact, the make-up of the Board gives a clue to the future that the 500-year-old Royal Mail faces,
unless the force of argument by the posties' union is combined with the argument of collective force,
 in the form of strikes and political campaigning. 

Bosses Want a Gig Economy 

Rico Back has previous! He was head of GLS, a European courier service which specialises in
use of bogus self-employment, 14-hour days, and as little as €3-an-hour! Their horrendous,
precarious employment standards - and sackings - have provoked strikes and rooftop protests
in northern Italy in 2016 and April 2019. 

Rico Back is not unique on the RM board. His 8-person team includes Michael Findlay, long-time
banker, who for seven years was Director of UK Mail, one of the larger private courier companies.
They too rely on bogus self-employment, plus hefty fines for workers being off sick, including a
courier who was hammered for £800 after being in a car accident whilst on duty. 

Then Findlay helped sell UK Mail to Germany's Deutsche Post, gaining £130m for the founding
 family, the Kanes, whose senior member gave £550,000 to the Tory Party.

Corrupt Tories in Charge 

The murky, tangled web of links between ruthless capitalist directors and the Tories is further
personified by Royal Mail Group Senior Independent Director, Baroness Sarah Hogg. Her
husband, Douglas Hogg, was the first Tory MP to resign from parliament after the 2009 MPs'
 expenses scandal. The pair of them enjoyed the generosity of the public purse in their Lincolnshire
Manor house, for such items as upkeep of a moat, an Aga cooker, £18,000 annual gardening costs,
and money for 'a mole man' (?!). 

But Sarah is her own woman: she was head of John Major's Tory policy unit in the 1990s; lead
author of their 1992 Manifesto which advocated rail privatisation; and was made Director of the
Treasury by George Osborne in 2016/7, as he wielded austerity measures like a mad axeman. 

Baroness Hogg's husband's rip-off claims for moat, Aga and 'mole man'

Rico's cohort also boasts two former British Airways directors, Keith Williams and Maya da Cunha,
who bitterly clashed with BA unions in their drive to cut costs.

And we shouldn't ignore Donald Muir, who carries the mind-boggling title of 'Transformation Director'
at Royal Mail. To be fair, he prefers the self-description of 'Transformation Guru'. 

And the type of transformation in mind? As CEO of Global Titanium Solutions, he previously
charged the NHS £935,000 for lending his expertise to handing over large chunks of the NHS
to private profiteers. 

Fear the Worst - and Fight it! 

With a gang like that in charge, in cahoots with the Tory government that some of them openly
help to fund, the posties and CWU are absolutely justified in fearing the worst, and fighting it. 

The Board members not only want to renege on the agreed 35-hour week by 2021, but have
blatantly refused to defend the Universal Service Obligation, which guarantees 6-days-a-week
delivery to all 30 million UK households, at the same price regardless of location. 

They clearly want to shift to a 5-day or 3-day delivery, which would not only threaten 20,000 jobs,
 but add to social isolation for millions of people who often rely on their local postie for human
contact, help in emergencies, and support. 

Breaking up Royal Mail, setting Parcelforce apart as a separate entity, would be the first step to
GLS-style employment; bogus self-employment, insecure work, poverty pay, and back-breaking
workloads.

Two Futures - Them or Us 

As new technology and patterns of behaviour change the service from predominantly letters to
parcels and packages, the boardroom dictators are hellbent on slashing jobs, wages, rights,
dignity at work and public services, to turbocharge profits. They are trying to avoid or crush the
union, fully aware that the CWU and its members stand for an entirely different future, where
social provision trumps profiteering every time. 

And the nightmarish likelihood of a Boris Johnson government, boosted by a general election
majority, adds to the privateers' arrogance - and to the gravity of this battle between two futures. 

Demand Workers' Voice 

The CWU wants to uphold the Four Pillars Agreement, including the chance to have a voice
over the entire role of the service in the modern world.  

And France gives us a glimpse of one aspect of this alternative vision. When postal service
bosses there wanted to cut costs and compete with the gig economy, the posties and their
unions resisted, demanded and won reforms. This includes formal recognition that part of the
posties' job description is called 'veiller sir mes parents' - 'keep an eye on my parents'. This
involves them checking in with pensioners on their rounds, and sending messages to their
family to keep them abreast of the wellbeing of their older relatives.

Stamp Out Tory Assault

These contrasting futures are in collision, as Royal Mail bosses make no meaningful concessions
in talks, and massive strike action looks unavoidable and necessary to turn back the tide of assaults
on workers and the communities they service, alike. 

Trade unionists and socialists have a duty to build solidarity with the posties in this fight for their lives. 

The bosses are deploying the media to whip up fear at the impact of strikes pre-Christmas, or the
impact of strike action during a general election.  

We need to counter this with the truth; the bleak future if this marauding gang get away with looting
the vital public services millions rely on, after they've already plundered public funds for their own
grotesque financial gain. 

And the impact of pre-Christmas action, endorsed by an unprecedented mandate in the 97.1%
majority, is precisely the leverage required to halt the capitalist looters in charge of Royal Mail.  

Renationalisation and Democracy 

In building solidarity, the case for renationalisation of Royal Mail - for public ownership, but with
democratic working class control of plans and decisions - should be broadcast loud and clear.
The two contrasting, colliding visions and plans for the future make it starkly clear who stands
for a decent, civilised society, looking after people rather than profit. 

Stand by your posties! Build solidarity, in your unions and communities, to beat back the
capitalist looters. Demand renationalisation of Royal Mail and telecoms, to provide secure,
well-paid jobs and twenty-first century services to the public, instead of stuffing the pockets
of a few shareholders and Tory-funding directors. 

HIGH COURT OF INJUSTICE: stand by your posties!

In a class-ridden fashion that was all too predictable, a High Court judge has granted Royal Mail bosses an interim injunction against the Communication Workers' Union strike action going ahead next week (19-21 October).

The mass democracy of a 9:1 majority for strike action amongst 110,000 CWU members has been trampled underfoot by an unelected judge on behalf of the unelected Royal Mail Group bosses.

After the resounding Yes vote was won - despite all the threats and obstruction thrown up by Royal Mail bosses - they tried to get a legal crushing of the subsequent action by absurdly claiming the union had not taken sufficient steps to inform its members of the planned strikes. Only those posties on a trip to Mars, with all communication channels to ground control cut off, could have been unaware of the planned action! 

These scared, desperate, but brutal bosses had to drop that crude nonsense, but then pursued the line of seeking an interim injunction on grounds of financial damage to the company. 

Court of Class Injustice

In stark confirmation of the role of the judicial arm of the state in the struggle between workers and big business employers, the judge had to decide who would suffer the greater financial damage, depending on whether he allowed the democratically decided industrial action to go ahead, or not. So his decision was to financially protect the Royal Mail bosses, at the expense of stalling the fightback by posties. At the expense of democracy. He instructed the CWU to suspend all industrial action "until external mediation had been concluded". 

The Issues Remain

But in reality this judicial setback only defers rather than defeats the struggle by Royal Mail workers. 

The issues remain. 

Nothing has been solved in the struggle to defend workers' pensions from a cut of up to 30%. 

Nothing has been conceded on the CWU's demands for a decent wage on retirement; or for a 35-hour working week without loss of pay, inclusive of breaks, to protect jobs, reduce drudgery and harness the advantages of new technology; or for defence of the right of union reps to properly function; or to withdraw plans for a two-tier workforce, with lower pay for new starters. 

The 9:1 Ballot Remains 

The ballot result remains.
As CWU General secretary Dave Ward declared outside the High Court of (In-)Justice:

"We walked into the Court with a 90% Yes vote, and we walked out still with a 90% Yes vote. This ballot is still live and kicking." 

The ruling merely delays the likelihood of strike action by 7 weeks, because the judge issued that as a deadline for the warring sides to reach an agreement through 'external mediation'.

This is an entirely bogus proposal; a fig leaf for a naked, class-driven offensive against workers and their ability to defend both their own conditions and the public services they provide. 

Negotiations on these issues have been dragged out by Royal Mail for 18 months already - including external mediation! 

Workers and their union reached the end of their collective tether, and only then balloted for strike action to force the out-of-touch bosses to sit up and listen. 

Strike Before Christmas 

As the CWU's Dave Ward declared, unless mediation leads to an acceptable offer in defence of workers and the great public service they provide, Royal Mail bosses are still staring down the barrel of a gun. The company either protects workers' pensions, pay, jobs, union rights and the service to the public, or they'll still encounter strikes before the peak Christmas period. 

And that's a key detail: the union is absolutely right to declare they will not allow the Royal Mail Board to string out mediation beyond the timescale specified by the High Court. 

The danger is that the employers want to stretch out 'external mediation' until the enhanced impact of a strike in December is dead and gone. They must not succeed. Either they concede to the demands of a workforce they are blatantly out of touch with during the mediation,  or they should be forced into doing so by decisive strike action before Christmas. 

Stand by Your Posties 

The war to defend Royal Mail services and it's workers is far from over. The use of the High Courts to tramp workers' democratic decisions into the dirt will only harden the resolve of these 110,000 men and women - and the determination of fellow trade unionists and socialists to build solidarity with them. 

SHAPE SCOTLAND'S FUTURE FOR WORKERS' RIGHTS

The SNP government's White Paper on 'Scotland's Future' contains many welcome reforms, and certainly represents a massive step forward from the jail-house conditions working class people currently endure. But a Freedom Charter for workers it is not.

Many of the measures pledged by an aspiring SNP government in an independent Scotland would substantially boost the living standards of Scottish workers and their families. Abolition of the bedroom tax, calling a halt to the dreaded Universal Credit scheme, scrapping of Trident - such plans would halt attacks on the poorest, and potentially release a fortune for spending on jobs, public services and people's incomes that is currently squandered on devilish weapons of mass destruction.

The headline-grabbing promise of free childcare of 30 hours a week during term time for all 3- and 4-year-olds and vulnerable 2-year-olds is a powerfully welcome key to many, many women (and some men) being able to realistically choose to work - provided of course the jobs were created.

Promises of a Youth Guarantee of either education, training or employment as a constitutional right for all aged under 24 is in stark, glittering contrast to the wasted generation under Westminster rule, and is indeed something socialists have demanded for years - again, provided we fight to ensure it is based on provision of a living income or student grant and is not a device exploited by employers to displace unionized, older workers with cheap youth labour.

Renationalisation of Royal Mail has been welcomed not just by Communication Workers' Union members but workers in general, as a means to reverse profiteering and service cuts at the hands of the privateers.

WIN OVER WORKERS

With 630,000 workers organised in trade unions - and probably at least as many again willing to join but terrified of victimization, job losses and blacklisting if they openly joined a union - the White Paper was a golden opportunity to enlist the support of the working class majority population of Scotland. But for those hesitating, or even being dragooned into the No camp by the scurrilous Fear Factory that is Better Together and their offshoot United with Labour, a bold, striking vision of a markedly different future under independence is the necessary method of persuasion. 

Again, measured against what we suffer now under Westminster's rule by and for the millionaires, the SNP's prospectus is progress. But nothing like the advances the likes of the SSP or the broad-based Trade Unionists for Independence are striving for.

Labour's Social Contract provoked strikes‏

NO VOTE MEANS NO RIGHTS AT WORK

What do we face as a future if a No vote is cast next September? 

The UK already boasts the infamy of some of the lowest pay, longest working hours, shortest holiday entitlement and most savage anti-trade union laws in the western capitalist world. And things can only get worse! 

The Tory-LibDem boot-boys have slapped prohibitive fees on Employment Tribunal cases, pricing workers out of any measure of justice. They are hammering the right of union reps to function and represent members in the civil service. London's Tory Mayor Boris Johnston, an obnoxious reactionary disguised as a boisterous buffoon, has pioneered a drive towards banning the right to strike in the public sector, and for a 'review' of union balloting laws on industrial action whereby those members who abstain would be counted as voting against any proposed collective action. And as well as ushering in further cuts to the block grant to Scotland from Westminster, a No vote would embolden the Old Etonians to lay waste to what little workplace rights remain. 

So trade unionists don't even face a choice between the status quo and independence, but between a further clawing back of gains won by past generations of trade unionists and socialists in struggle - or a chance to improve our lot as workers by voting for the right to get whatever government the Scottish people elect!

Irish Social Partnership increased inequality

TIMID STEPS FORWARD

The White Paper rightly states that under Devolution, "the Scottish government is responsible for training the present and future workforce, equipping them with the skills and knowledge they need, but has no say in how they are treated once they are in a job." 

It makes the welcome pledge that an SNP government with the full powers that independence provides would "reverse recent changes introduced at Westminster which reduce key aspects of workers rights. For example, on independence we will restore a 90-day consultation period on redundancies affecting 100 or more employees." 

Likewise they will abolish the 'shares for rights' scheme recently initiated by the Coalition, bribing workers into surrendering fundamental redundancy and unfair dismissal rights, etc, for a few non-voting company shares.

Welcome promises, but very timid. Not a word about scrapping the bulging package of anti-union laws ushered in by Thatchers Tories in the 1980s, retained by Blair and Browns Labour regimes, brutally added to by the current Thatcherites - both Tory and LibDem!

No mention of the guaranteed right to be in a union, the right to strike without fear of victimization,  the right to take solidarity action with fellow workers.

No sign of Worker Director at First Scotrail RMT strike in 2010!

WORKING WITH THE UNIONS

In sharp contrast to the vilification of trade unions offered by the Better Together parties, 'Scotland's Future' sets as its priority "working directly with the trade unions, employers' associations, employers and voluntary sector to build a partnership approach to addressing labour market challenges". 

The Paper goes on to promise "particular focus on encouraging wider trade union participation and recognition of the positive role that can be played by collective bargaining in improving labour market conditions."

The central proposals on offer from the SNP are the formation of a National Convention on Employment and Labour Relations, involving employers and trade unions, and a subsidiary Fair Work Commission.
The latter "will deliver the mechanisms for uprating the national minimum wage", with the "guarantee that it will rise, at the very least, in line with inflation, to ensure work is a route out of poverty".

LIVING MINIMUM WAGE

Considering the UK minimum wage has lagged inflation for years, leaving workers at least £675 worse off than if it had tracked price rises for the past 5 years, this is better than the No campaign can offer hundreds of thousands of workers. 

But it is miserably timid, with no pledge nor proposal for a guaranteed living level of minimum wage, legally enforced.  

Matching inflation but starting with the current £6.19 an hour for those over 21 - and the White Paper is silent on the lower youth rate - would certainly not be 'a route out of poverty'. 

The SNP swear their allegiance to the Living Wage Campaign, and are right now funding a Poverty Alliance Accreditation Scheme - seeking to persuade employers to pay at least £7.45 an hour. 400,000 Scottish workers earn less than this. But again this is not a legally enforced government figure, merely an aim that they seek to cajole employers into paying, based on the core faith the SNP has in businesses big, medium and small.

SOCIAL PARTNERSHIP

These proposed structures are founded on a central philosophy of 'social partnership' between employers, trade unions and government. 

The SNP even raises the idea of worker directors - imitating the actions of 14 out of the 28 EU states where workers have some form or other of representation on company boards. They advocate "employee representation to bolster longterm decision-making and improve industrial relations". 

Given the way workers' trade unions have been cast out into an industrial Siberia the last 30 years, frozen out of important discussions, with dictatorial management all too common, this is a very seductive prospectus. But it is strewn with pitfalls and lethal traps. 

CLASH OF INTERESTS

Of course, elected union representatives having direct access to discussions on their employers' plans would be a massive advantage compared to, for instance, the capitalist dictatorship on display by INEOS boss Jim Ratcliffe at Grangemouth. Access to secret company accounts would help unions restrict the shenanigans of employers.

But the problems arise because the interests of workers and those of their capitalist private employers clash; in essence there's a conflict over who gets the bigger share of the wealth produced, whether in wages and conditions for the workforce, or profits and dividends for the big shareholders. 

WORKER DIRECTORS?

Social partnership amounts to the partnership of the rider and the horse - not two people with common interests, equals.

In many cases worker directors are gagged from speaking out on company secrets, or at the very least bound by the decisions the majority on the board. That seems to be the situation already in the NHS.
The SNP White Paper lauds First Group as a local example of their model for the future, mentioning the transport giant has had a worker director since it was set up in 1989. That begs the question: where was this 'workers' voice' when First Scotrail launched its savage assault on rail workers a few years ago - when in fact it was uncovered that the SNP government had secretly agreed to subsidise the company for any losses they incurred through strike action by the RMT union? Is that what social partnership entails?

TOKEN PARTICIPATION

In some retail companies, committees exist with handpicked workers on them, partly in an attempt to bypass the collective union and it's elected stewards, partly to pass down the message of top management to the shop floor, disguised as the 'decisions' of these workers on the carefully moulded committee. Despite all the window dressing, this is an attempt to undermine, not enhance, the collective bargaining of organised workers.

INDEPENDENT TRADE UNIONS

The proposed Convention is of course a welcome arena for the unions to independently advocate  measures that meet the needs of their members - ranging from advocating a formula for a living level of legally enforced national minimum wage for all over 16, to a charter of workplace rights. 

Scotland's trade unions should welcome the Convention, and use it to put forward the views of independent trade unions. But they need to thoroughly discuss the lessons of experience here and abroad when it comes to so-called social partnership and 'worker directors'.

SOCIAL CON-TRICK
Back in the 1974-79 Labour government, something very similar was implemented, named the Social Contract, initially popular with some of the lower paid who won wage rises in the first phase, but bitterly nicknamed the Social Con-trick in the following years - until it was smashed on the rocks of workers' strike action in 1978-9. 

The core problem was that the government could control (i.e. hold down!) wages, but they couldn't control prices in a capitalist economy, leading to rip-roaring inflation and a collapse in workers' real wages. 

Union leaders who were the architects of this earlier edition of 'social partnership' were discredited, workers confused, Labour defeated, and Thatcher elected by default!

IRISH SOCIAL PARTNERSHIP

More recently, workers in the South of Ireland have been hamstrung and made to pay the price of horrendous capitalist crisis because their national union leaders sold them a pup - successive National Agreements that allegedly ensured bosses and workers were 'all in it together', which drastically hampered their ability to fight back collectively and defend living standards.

WORKERS' CONTROL

Of course, in all probability an independent SOCIALIST Scotland would include properly elected workers' representatives on workplace committees, to control day-to-day operations, and a working class majority elected onto boards of publicly owned industries, services and cooperatives. But that is a far cry from what is on offer from this White Paper, which is rooted in the open continuation of privately owned capitalist enterprises, which in fact are promised cuts of up to 3 per cent in Corporation Tax.

THE ONLY WAY IS YES!

Trade unions and their members cannot afford to be neutral on the Referendum. We have far too much to lose if we don't help win a majority for independence. More wage cuts. Even worse assaults on services. Catastrophic removal of the remaining rights we have at work. And all of these regardless of what colour of rosette the capitalist Prime Minister in Westminster wears.

SEIZE THE MOMENT - SHAPE THE FUTURE

The SNP government's White Paper is one version of independence, but only one. It says itself, "Each of Scotland's political parties will bring forward policy proposals at the future election to an Independent Scottish parliament." 

Absolutely. And the duty of trade unions, as the biggest single collective body in Scotland, is to seize the unique opportunity offered by national self-government, and combine with socialists to carve out a future that goes far beyond the vision painted in this White Paper. 

Fight for public ownership of key sectors like energy, North Sea oil and gas, the banks and industrial giants - with new forms of democratic control and management by working class people that go way beyond a few token 'worker directors'. 

With socialist change we could build a genuine social partnership. 

This White Paper is a very substantial improvement on what we have in the capitalist UK; it is pale and timid compared to what socialists and the trade union movement need to campaign for on the road to a Scottish workers' republic.

VOTE YES TO REVERSE ROYAL MAIL PRIVATISATION

Don't be fooled by the Labour weathervanes...

As the New Labour weathervanes whizzed round 180 degrees at the Brighton beaches last week, trying to face the same way as majority public opinion, announcing popular promises that fly in the face of their earlier track record, some people might have fallen for their trick: vote to stay in the UK in 2014, vote for 'Red' Ed and a Westminster Labour government in 2015, and live happily ever after.

Not any more!

Enemy within!

One in three Scottish households, shuddering in fuel poverty, will cheer the threat of a 20-month price freeze, reject the blackmailing of the Big Six profiteers with their threats of an investment strike, power cuts and general mayhem - and ask where the mainstream media screams about "holding the country to ransom" and "the enemy within" have disappeared, since they trot out such diatribes every time miners or other workers dare to defend their communities from destruction. 

And those of us in the broad-based Trade Unionists for Independence (TUFI) will still ask why Labour doesn't just declare for democratic public ownership of this blackmailing, profit-crazed cartel of energy giants - because you can't control what you don't own!

Labour's belated abolitionists

Scottish working people will mightily cheer the pledge to scrap the bedroom tax. But we will still ask why Labour did nothing to expose and resist it's introduction at Westminster a year ago; failed to pledge its abolition when it was imposed 6 months ago; why for months Labour councils refused to even ban evictions and indeed issued eviction notices in North Lanarkshire; and only eventually got round to announcing their new policy of abolition long after the SSP, SNP, Greens and even the LibDem conference had all done so.

Political weathervanes rely on people having short memories. They can't be trusted. Labour announced this in large measure to con people into 'waiting for a Labour government' at Westminster to banish the bedroom tax - to vote NO in 2014 and leave the entire welfare system in the tender hands of Westminster, just forgetting that successive Labour and Tory governments have hammered the poorest and cut public sector jobs through their savage cuts.

Gyrations on Royal Mail privatization

But for anyone teetering on the brink of voting against Scottish self-government, surely Labour's gyrations on public ownership of Royal Mail is a loud, rude awakening?
Trade Unionists for Independence (TUFI) - founded 15 months ago - has consistently stated (including in our Statement of Aims) that we are not out for independence just to swap flags and emblems, but to give the Scottish working class majority their first EVER real chance to elect a government with the powers AND the political will to stand up for the working class, through measures such as "reversal of all privatization and outsourcing".

Tory theft for private profit

The Tories are rushing through privatization of Royal Mail, threatening the universal service, six-day delivery, rural services, and the jobs, conditions and pensions of postal workers. There is no excuse for this, as Royal Mail makes hundreds of millions in profit, (£403m last year), which could be invested in genuine modernization.

So TUFI - which includes our affiliate, 4,000-member Scotland no 2 branch of the Communication Workers Union - welcomed the announcement of Alex Salmond that a post-independence government would bring Royal Mail back into public ownership. 

That makes at least the SNP, Scottish Socialist Party and Greens on the side of public ownership and of the CWU union, whose members rejected privatization by 96%!

Deterrent to criminal profiteering

Imagine the joy of most working people when the UK Labour conference in Brighton added its voice to the call for renationalisation of Royal Mail, assuming the Tories and LibDems ram it through regardless?
Of course some of us who've been around a while, with good memories, didn't forget that it was the Westminster Labour government of Blair, Brown and Mandelson that first tried to privatize Royal Mail, only retreating in the face of strike action by the CWU, and general public outcry.

Nevertheless, the UK conference of Labour adding its voice to the declaration of future renationalisation was a powerful warning to the profit-hungry vultures hovering to pick apart the body of the universal service, devouring the profitable bits, tossing aside the likes of rural services. A deterrent to criminal profiteering at public expense.

Labour spits on its own conference

Well, it would be, if decisions at Labour conferences meant anything! 

Before the trade union delegates who moved the motions for taking back Royal Mail (and the railways) into public ownership had returned to their seats, 'senior figures' in Labour's leadership were briefing the media that a future Labour manifesto for 2015 would NOT include these policies. Just like numerous similar conference decisions had been ignored by the Labour leadership in the past.

And now we have it out in the open. Labour's Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna‏ has spelt out unequivocally that Labour will NOT reverse privatization of Royal Mail.

Chuka Umuna: Labour will NOT reverse privatization on Royal Mail

Solidarity with strikers

TUFI is committed to building solidarity with workers taking action against attacks by the UK government - in this instance, 120,000 postal workers, across Scotland, England, Wales and N Ireland.

Our solidarity knows no national boundaries. 

Can the same be claimed by the poisonous cocktail of Tories, LibDems and Labour in Better Together? Or even Gordon Brown's 'United with Labour' wing of Better Together? Are they out denouncing privatization of Royal Mail, pledging solidarity with strikers, promising to take the service back in 2015?
No, the only sure route to saving this (and other) services from being plundered by the profiteers is to combine international solidarity with fellow trade unionists alongside campaigning for Scottish independence as a means to an end: to win the powers and a government of the left with the willpower to save our public services, through their return to public ownership where they've been privatized.

Legal strangulation of workplace rights

And we haven't even mentioned the fact Labour conference never even committed to repeal of the vicious anti-union laws, being added to day and daily at the current Tory conference. 

The Tories are using their Blue Jamboree in Manchester to announce plans to treble the membership threshold required to seek union recognition; abolish the 'deduction from wages' system of collecting union membership subs in order to hamper the unions' functioning; scrap facilities for elected union shop stewards and reps to represent members; charge 'market rates' for union accommodation for meetings; in addition to the insurmountable hurdles of fees for Employment Tribunals recently added to the most oppressive anti-union laws in Europe.

These laws - ushered in by Thatcher, retained by 13 years of Labour governments, added to already by Cameron, Clegg and Cable - are designed to prevent unity and solidarity in workers' self-defense, and in action to save public services. But a Westminster Labour government after 2015 is set to keep them.

Workers: join TUFI

It is time more trade unionists and trade union branches followed the road of the 4,000-strong CWU Scotland no2 branch, by joining TUFI, fighting for a workers' vision of what we want in an independent Scotland, helping to liberate working people from the suffocating stranglehold of Westminster regimes (whether Tory, LibDem, New Labour, UKIP, or any combination thereof).
A Scotland with a Charter of Workers' Rights as part of a written constitution, matching at least the best of any in Europe. A Scotland that protects and expands public services and taxes the obscenely rich and big business to help fund them. A Scotland for the millions, not the millionaires.

Don't be conned by the Labour weathervanes; they don't even listen to their own party members!

By Richie Venton, Trade Unionists for Independence (TUFI) steering group