“We have been forced to ballot for national strike action because Royal Mail management have breached an agreement reached in 2007 on pay and modernisation by imposing changes in shifts, driving up workloads, slashing jobs and refusing to negotiate any changes.
“We have lost 40,000 jobs in the last two years due to voluntary redundancies and dismissals, but not a single one of these 40,000 jobs has been replaced. That’s meant postal workers have seen a huge increase in workload.
“Management though say we are still not working hard enough. They’ve imposed a pay freeze, despite the latest financial results showing £321million annual profit. They’ve also told us we won’t receive any further benefits for further changes. The CWU rejects this Royal Mail managements vision of a future of an overworked, underpaid workforce, with no say on what goes on and an industrial strategy of managed decline
“The CWU is calling for an immediate halt to the imposed changes without agreement. We are demanding real negotiations leading to a new comprehensive agreement covering all aspects of modernisation across our industry.
“We are fighting for a shorter working week and an increase in our basic pay. Our members have worked hard to create Royal Mails profits and should receive a fair share of the company’s success.
“The CWU believes a positive future can be agreed with Royal Mail in relation to modernisation and a successful company, but that can only be achieved by negotiation, mutual respect and agreement.
In Part two of a three part article on the Irish economy, Paul Murphy looks at some of the factors depressing the domestic economy, focusing on debt and unemployment, as well as analysing whether the government's export focused strategy can be successful.
The world is a mess. War, poverty, and oppression are now part of the daily lives of billions round the globe. Even during the last boom 80% of the world’s population – 5.4 billion people – lived on less than $10 a day. Now that the world is in the midst of this crisis even the head of the World Bank has said it will result in “a human and developmental calamity… the number of chronically hungry people is expected to climb over 1 billion this year”. The wars in the middle east, enviromental destruction and worsening economic turmoil are only the most recent striking examples of the crises facing humanity.
A recent report by the Northern Ireland Audit Office (“School Design and Delivery”) has revealed further mismanagement in Caitriona Ruane’s Department of Education. In the five years up to April 2010, there was massive under-spending on the maintenance and improvement of school buildings and grounds. Out of a budget of £1.21 billion over this period, £353 million was simply sent back to the Treasury.