For a hardship fund and solidarity movement - Leeds Amal

[goinpostal]

For those who havent recieved it yet, here's a Motion from Leeds CWU special general meeting 24.08.13. Let's organise support for our strike campaign and ensure members have more say in the running of the strike.

Leeds CWU believes:
The CWU recognises that privatisation of Royal Mail is the biggest threat yet to the USO and postal workers’ jobs, wages, and conditions.

We should allow members to get involved and have a say: Members did not have any say at key questions (like escalation) or moments in the previous disputes (such as dropping the strike for negotiations). We just got a “yes or no” vote in a ballot on a final deal often weeks after the strike had been stopped.

· Leeds branch requests that each office sets up a strike committee now to ensure we are well organised at the grassroots, with all invited to a regular central strike committee to coordinate our local campaign

· Leeds branch will call special general meetings at key junctures of the strike to ensure members can make their views known to the branch officers and the national leadership.

Hardship fund and solidarity: Some members will fear striking means falling behind in payments for their house, car or other debts, or not having enough for their family to get by. To that end we call on the national union to set up a hardship fund as in 2009 to ensure members can sustain the strike action necessary to win our demands, and take any possible steps forward along these lines locally.

Build solidarity: We will call a public meeting in Leeds requesting the support and help of the Leeds TUC, other unions and campaign groups such as the People’s Assembly, aiming to build a local solidarity movement in support of our campaign against Royal Mail privatisation and any strike. Branch officersto send a short motion to the next (end of September) Leeds TUC meeting to action this.

In conclusion, we need a pay rise and to protect our penson and terms and conditions, all of which are threatened by privatisation, and a national strike is the only way to challenge this.

Let’s get organised so we have a voice in national debates as they arise – such as how many days we should strike for, whether we should stop the action for talks – and can effectively place our demands on our leaders, while rolling out initiiatives (like a yes vote for the coming ballot) with as much energy as possible.

We will circulate this motion to the leadership, regions and directly to other branches nationally.