Carlisle Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition met yesterday to discuss the Royal Mail sell off and twelve people attended. The meeting unanimously agreed the following resolution.

 

Carlisle Trade Unionists and Socialist Coalition

Resolution 14^th October 2013

This meeting condemns the privatisation of Royal mail and urges the public to support the fight by the Communication Workers' Union to maintain the service, jobs and conditions. If the mail workers have to strike to win these, it will be a fight in all our interests. We therefore expect politicians from all parties to take an unequivocal position on this fight: either FOR or AGAINST.

655,000 people now own what used to belong to all of us. Once again the 99% have been robbed by the 1%, and the big business financed politicians have aided and abetted. These shareholders are not “investors” but chancers, who will soon sell to the big City finance sharks and rake off hundreds of pounds of our money for doing nothing. While the new owners will bleed the service of around £200m a year in dividends, the workers will lose jobs and income and we will all pay through stamp price rises and a worsening service.

70% of the population oppose this plunder of their property, but what do politicians care about democratic will? 96% of mail workers oppose it, so the government has rushed it through, while using the undemocratic anti-union laws to pre-empt effective strike action. We therefore call for the renationalisation of Royal Mail and the previously hived-off delivery services, without compensation but this time under the democratic control of the mail workers and customers.

We welcomed the support of the Labour Party conference for the CWU's call for Labour to give a public commitment to renationalise, but condemn the leadership's refusal and subsequent acceptance of the privatisation. We therefore call on Carlisle Labour Party and its parliamentary candidate, Lee Sherriff, to clearly state whether they are for renationalisation or not. Otherwise workers and their unions will inevitably look to build a new party to represent their interests.

We also pledge support to the firefighters, teachers, probation officers, academic and technical university staff, NHS workers and public servants currently defending their jobs, services, wages or pensions and urge them to unite in effective, coordinated action through a TUC led one-day general strike.