Victoria Square Crown Post Office Birmingham Solidarity Banner Drop

Postman Pat and his Wildcat | 19.07.2007 07:09 | Workers' Movements | Birmingham

Early in the morning, just as day was dawning, Postman Pat and his Wildcat shinned up some scaffolding at the Crown Postal Office in Victoria Square, Birmingham, and unfurled a large banner in solidarity with all the striking workers at Crown Postal Offices.

Victoria Square Crown Post Office Birmingham Solidarity Banner Drop

Post Office staff are striking today because they face up to 1500 job losses and 80% of staff face pay cuts. There are also plans to cull Crown Postal Offices across the country, and sell off 85 post offices to WH Smith.

The banner reads, 'People not Profit - Save Our Post Office'. Royal Mail's so-called 'business plan' and 'modernisation' reflects the increased privatisation of our core services. This represents 'the thin end of the wedge’; public sector jobs are being hived-off to corporations whose sole motivation is the accumulation of profit at the expense of services and jobs.

Solidarity with the Posties!

Postman Pat and his Wildcat

Additions

Up the Posties! Up the scaffing!

19.07.2007 10:06

That banner looks the bollox! Well done to the comrades for getting up early and shinning up the scaffing. There is a lot of unrest in Birmingham (as well as the country as a whole) when it comes to job security. There have been a lot of 'cut backs' over the last few years - HP, Rover, Cov Car workers. I think there are going plenty to come - Post Office workers, Blood Service, Jaguar, Land Rover. We have got show solidarity and resistance and be prepared to organise.

The capitalists don't give a shit about us, our families or communities. They are loyal only to the profit margin. Whether you can pay the rent or feed the kids is incidental.

An injury to One is an injury to All

Crowning glory

19.07.2007 15:20

I have just got back from Solihull and KIngs Heath after helping CWU members with their picket lines today.
After speaking to one of your guys at Solihull this morning I thought I'd check out your website.
Just as this came up I got a call from the office saying what had hapened....what a fantastic stunt...I hope no animals were injured during filming!
Thanx for your support

Dave S
CWU
Birmingham

Dave Smith
mail e-mail: davesmithcwu@blueyonder.co.uk

New Postal Workers Chat Forum

19.07.2007 17:57

Check out this chat forum for all postal workers. It's run by postal workers too.

Lot's of news, gotta register first though.

http://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/forum/index.php

brum wobbly
Homepage: http://www.royalmailchat.co.uk

Comments

Hide the following 10 comments

Brilliant job, fellow workers!

19.07.2007 11:57

Great stuff! Victory to the posties, up the IWW!

Serge Forward
Homepage: http://www.leicestershire-iww.org.uk

nice one

19.07.2007 12:15

good positioning too!

tony

Up the Posties!

19.07.2007 17:41

Nice banner people!

its good to see that there is solidarity with the striking posties throughout the birmingham area. If we are going to finally put the brakes on the wave of attacks on the working class that have been initiated under the guise of "modernisation" "competition" and "national interest" then solidarity across industries is not only essential but entirely necessary.

The attacks that are taking place in the form of below inflation wage increases (wage cuts), intensification of the work process, job losses and causualisation of employment are taking place throughout most sectors in this country and beyond and are rolling back the concessions won by workers through years of hard fight against profiteering employers.

If each sector stands alone in the face of these attacks then we can expect to see further attacks on wages and working conditions, the employers and government will get away with what we allow them to get away with, this realisation should also be the realisation that we have the power, potentially, not only to halt these attacks but to turn the tide, take back the initiative and fight for a world based upon the needs of people and not the demands of profit charts.

Up the posties! Long live solidarity!

BrusiedShins

Unity is strength

19.07.2007 19:00

Great precision work with the banner drop!

It's clear the importance of sticking by the postal workers in this fight: not only are their terms and conditions at risk, but their very livelihoods, and the spectrum of vital services which the whole community needs. Together we are stronger - a victory in this dispute will help all of us defend public services as they come under fire from the government and their friends, our bosses.

Branch Secretary, West Mids IWW
mail e-mail: westmids@iww.org.uk

well done

20.07.2007 11:03

brilliant stuff, keep it up!

Sheffield Wobbly

You don't care about the poor subpostmasters

22.07.2007 07:26

You are crazy with your so called demands. Every time you strike it is not just you who does not work but a vast majority of the whole network.

Unlike you who have a regular salary which does not go up or down during the year, when you work, we sub postmasters have to take what is thrown at us andhave no say. Unlike you, I have seen over a 10% decrease in my salary over last year and the prospect of a further decrease this year. Just to fund you payrise. Get a life and live in the real wolrd.

The days of fat salaries and large pensions in this sector are long gone for the likes of you and I.

Mark Harriosn

subpostmasters boo hoo hoo!

23.07.2007 12:04

subpostmasters are businesspeople. they are capitalists, in essence. they live off the profits of our labour.

we are talking about real workers whose only power comes from collective action like these strikes.

mark seems to be another sufferer from "poor little rich boy" syndrome...

bugle

Wrong target, Mark!

23.07.2007 15:20

Mark, if you as a sub-postmaster have taken a paycut in recent years the money is not being taken from you to fund any postal workers' payrise. The guilt lies with disgustingly greedy executive bastards like Adam Crozier, who cream off more from annual profits than they could ever spend in a lifetime. Parasites like him are the reason there is no more for the likes of you.

And you are mistaken to think that you have no say. The way to win power and job control is to organise as one united workforce, not to widen false divides between groups of workers in the same industry. This infighting only helps the bosses keep their positions at the top of the heap.

It is in everyone's interest that those on the bottom rung with the worst pay and conditions can improve their lives - we should be bringing them up to the better level that some already enjoy and then struggling on together for what is rightfully all of ours. The days of 'fat salaries and large pensions' in the public sector are only gone if we stop demanding them!

Branch Secretary, West Mids IWW
mail e-mail: westmids@iww.org.uk

Don't moan, organise!

23.07.2007 21:15

Mark Harrison,

The West Mids IWW branch sec is right... don't moan, organise!

Hopefully not all people in sub-postoffices are as defeatist as you. Grumbling against postal workers just because they get paid a salary is totally unjustified. You want things better for yourself, then don't slag off others who have the bottle to stand up and fight. Stand up and fight yourself.

Bugle, you're barking up the wrong tree here. Sub-postmasters are not exactly capitalists - mostly small business "petty bourgeois" who nevertheless work hard and aren't really living the high life. And just because Mark is a whinger doesn't mean we have to have a pop at everyone who works in a sub-postoffice.

Serge

Serge Forward
mail e-mail: leics@iww.org.uk
Homepage: http://www.leicestershire-iww.org.uk

Sub standard comment

20.09.2007 23:01

As I'm sure Mark is aware some £1.7 billion has been put aside by government to "compensate" his colleagues who no longer want to operate sub postoffices, far from poor cousins they are in fact paid to close their offices.
His comments are naive and selfish.
This is money earned off the backs of directly employed staff from Royal Mail Group.
The sub office network is massively subsidised by the corporation, and always has been.
When we take action the sub office network benefits from an increase in work, we are defending our terms and conditions from an onsluaght by Post Office Ltd.
They propose pay and allowance cuts, as well as closing our final salay pension scheme and reducing benefits, should we sit back and accept it?
We are defending our jobs and those for the next generation, I do have to pinch myself sometimes to remind me what century we're in sometimes.
Welcome to the race to the bottom...
Unity is strength!