Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials, 27 July 2009

London's postal workers are taking industrial action again this week - this time for another 24-hr "rolling strike" which started on Saturday in London Delivery Offices. Distribution and Sorting workers will be out this Monday and Tuesday.

For some London workers this will be the 5th strike day in their fight against Royal Mail's on-going job cuts, impossible workloads and its drive to replace 40-hour-a-week, permanent workers with part-time temps. Another 500 offices may soon join in strikes, but so far a national strike has not been organised even if the issues are common to all.

In the meantime the union, the CWU, continues to offer the government a 3 month moratorium on strikes - if they will only stop their implementation of the cuts. Apparently 2 days of talks were scheduled - but so far, even in striking offices, the imposition of the cuts continues, week by week. Of course, the government did shelve the sale of a 30% share in Royal Mail, (temporarily), but it has in no way shelved its attacks on the Royal Mail workforce.

So, yes, there is no question at all that postal workers have every reason to fight. The majority are angry and ready for a battle, despite today's difficult conditions as the 91% strike vote on a 70% turnout in London shows. On the other hand, the union leadership has been dragging its feet, to say the least. Even its day of action on 17th July was not intended as a rallying point for workers nationally. They call Royal Mail's attacks on the workforce/decimation of the service an "attack on the union", explaining that all they want in exchange for their no-strike deal is to be recognised as "equal partners", plus a new national agreement on modernisation, which of course means job cuts, but ones which they've rubber-stamped first!

This is not what most postal workers would consider the objective of their strike. They know full well that RM never keeps to agreements anyway. They saw how the 2007 strike (national, unlike this one), was mishandled by the union leaders. In fact they always achieved more by their unofficial action! Nor do many of the strikers agree with the idea of rolling strikes ("maximum disruption" at "minimum cost" to the strikers, as the leadership explains it). They know that hitting hard by going on all out strike gives the best chance of winning in the least time!

Unfortunately, instead of disrupting Royal Mail, the CWU leadership's strategy is, in effect, disrupting the strike's potential. But this merely means that postal workers will have to find their own leaders from within the ranks of the strikers. That will be the first step towards stopping the barrage of attacks they face!

The swine flu "helpline" and website only became live last week. But already thousands of courses of antiviral drugs have been "dispensed" according to tick-boxing of symptoms. Officials estimate that 100,000 more people caught the flu in the last week alone - although, out of probably several hundreds of thousands altogether, only 26 have died.

There was a long delay in the launch of this online/phone service. But it wasn't so as to ensure it was fully professional and the best possible substitute for seeing your doctor. On the contrary, it has been staffed by 1,500 workers without any medical qualifications, who were given just 6 hours training. They are probably temps, too - and who knows what they are paid by the private outfit which the government contracted to provide this new "service".

On the other hand, workers at NHS Direct, the 24-hr helpline which is professionally staffed, and who had to cope with flu enquiries up to now, are having their jobs cut, as we speak, by this same government!

Indeed, in a sense the way this flu "pandemic" has emerged and how it has been handled really shows how this system is entirely unfit for purpose. If there is truly such a threat from a flu pandemic, how come the WHO has not led the vaccine research and manufacture and supply of anti-virals - funded by all governments? Instead, rival drug companies were left to compete to supply the drugs and produce the vaccine. So pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline has just been able to announce profits up 12%! Roche and Sanofi-Aventis will soon follow!

What's more, while the "Tamiflu" everyone is getting may become less effective as the virus develops resistance, the (GKN) vaccine which Brown is buying, will only be available in October - when joint international, not-for-profit efforts could probably have made it much faster and for minimal cost!

Of course, the last thing we can expect from Brown's government is that it would challenge the drug companies' profiteering out of the flu pandemic. Not when it, itself, is actually cutting NHS services which could have provided direct, competent help - rather than expanding these services so that they can adequately meet what it claims could be a really critical situation by this autumn! Small wonder that new health minister Andy Burnham is asking the public not to get hysterical and overload the NHS! Because he has set the scene for just that.