In memory of Des Beach: Victimised Royal Mail worker

[stage3]

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/ ... -m02.html

UK Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee

The following letter was sent by the UK Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee to Pauline, whose husband, Des, died on April 23 after suffering a catastrophic heart attack.


Des Beach [Photo by Des Beach]
The Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee (PWRFC) sends our deepest sympathy to Pauline and family on hearing of the tragic news of the passing of her husband Des Beach.

Des was a fellow postal worker with thirty-one years’ service for Royal Mail at the delivery office in Chester-Le-Street, County Durham.

Pauline, his partner of 34 years, contacted the PWRFC to inform us that Des had suffered a major heart attack on Easter Sunday from which he never recovered. He died the following Wednesday. Pauline explained, “He had the best care in the country in the Freeman hospital, but his brain was starved of oxygen making a recovery impossible. He was a very fit man who took care of his health.”

Des was 58, a non-smoker who played cricket, his favourite sport.

Pauline said that the expert cardiologists at the hospital all agreed that stress over the last couple of years was a contributory factor to his heart attack.

Des loved his job and had a spotless work record over more than three decades before he was unfairly dismissed on June 8, 2023.

He and van share partner Ross, faced the trumped-up charge of “intentional delay of mail.” This was towards the end of the 2022-3 national dispute at Royal Mail when management bullying was rife.

Des had returned to work from a long weekend and Ross after a period of leave on May 9, 2023, to find their shared duty had not been fully covered. They were therefore unable to complete their deliveries for the next two days. They were then scapegoated by management.


The conduct procedure leading up to their dismissals was a travesty of due process and company policy.

Ross, who had worked for Royal Mail for 18 months, did not qualify to bring a case of unfair dismissal due to the onerous two-year employment criteria, Des, with Pauline’s support, took out an Employment Tribunal claim. He had been a paid-up union member all his working life at Royal Mail.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) backed the Employment Tribunal (ET) claim brought by Des, who received a date for a hearing on February 2024. In the meantime, Des was forced to find alternative employment while Pauline pursued matters with the CWU legal services. But the support he received from the CWU went from sketchy to finally having his case dropped altogether.

Des was advised to take a low ball negotiated offer of £10,000 compensation which he rejected and then told he ran the risk of damages being awarded against him if he lost the Tribunal.

He explained later:

“The only reason I dropped my ET case in early January was due to lack of CWU support and being threatened with costs. I have since learned it is under one percent of cases where costs are awarded against the claimant in an employment tribunal case. Basically, I feel I was conned by the CWU.”

Des approached the PWRFC and World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) to tell his story in a fight to establish the truth, alert his colleagues to his unfair treatment and to clear his name against management lies and the complicit silence of the CWU.

This led to two interviews with WSWS reporter Tony Robson, the first a written interview in October 2024, the second a video interview conducted in November outside his former delivery office in Chester le Street. Both attracted a wide audience among postal workers, with the YouTube video receiving 7,600 views and 177 likes.

The WSWS published many messages of support for Des from postal workers including Andy, a Royal Mail postie in Northern Ireland, who asked, “How can the CWU allow Royal Mail to dismiss this lad unchallenged, whilst frauding the public daily on a seismic scale?”, and Kevin, a collection and delivery driver in Scotland for Parcelforce, who wrote “the union should have that whole office at the gate until he gets his duty back.”

Neither Royal Mail or the CWU have responded, let alone challenged the damning account which Des provided to the PWRFC and the WSWS. But their apologists on social media mounted a spiteful smear campaign against Des and the PWRFC, even questioning whether he even existed.


This was a desperate attempt to cover-up for the CWU’s collusion with Royal Mail’s management bullying and the deliberate sabotage of the mail to prioritise parcels, under the leadership of Dave Ward and Martin Walsh.

Following the sabotage of all industrial action, this has created the necessary facts on the ground for the dismantling of the mail service now rubber stamped by the Ofcom regulator under the euphemism of “USO reform”. In this way, working with the Keir Starmer’s Labour government, the CWU has paved the way for Kretinsky’s EP Group of asset strippers to convert Royal Mail into a parcel courier company along the lines of Amazon.

The human cost of this social vandalism in terms of inflicting injury and ill health on postal workers, physical and mental, has been swept under the carpet. The tragic early death of Des Beech raises the question: How many other postal workers have been made to suffer because of the pro-company collusion of the CWU?

Establishing the toll of this corporate rampage and preventing further harm will be the work of our committee, with the support of postal workers across Royal Mail.

On Sunday April 27, it was reported to a PWRFC meeting that the CWU had agreed to have heart monitors attached to delivery workers at a USO reform pilot office for “fatigue monitoring”! There is no reference to the first principle of safety—prevention of injury.

Safety practices thrown overboard by the CWU include bag weighing and a sliding scale of bags during delivery to reduce fatigue and the use of equipment to avoid having to carry delivery pouches. This cuts across the agreement of CWU officials at national and divisional level for increased delivery spans and call rates in the name of “financial sustainability.”

Walsh states that we must accept the reality of privatisation, USO reform and the Kretinsky takeover. For those who do the job, this translates to a demand that we work until we drop. We will not be lectured by well healed bureaucrats—our health and lives matter more than the profits of the oligarchy!

We are deeply saddened by the death of our fellow worker Des Beach. He exemplifies all that was best among those many postal workers who believe in a public service and working-class solidarity and oppose how privatisation has ruined the service and their working lives.

The best tribute we can pay to Des is to take forward this fight: As Des told the committee in his most recent message to us, “Great to see people supporting me. Hopefully what you are trying to achieve will help others in future.”

[tramssirhc]

Rest in power brother.

[baldrick]

Very sad. Rest in Peace now Des.
My condolences to his family and friends.

[NWpostie]

Shocking, to be stabbed in the back twice by RM and CWU, it is surprising the delivery office didn't walk out in act of solidarity, are they so brow beaten that they developed Stockholm syndrome supporting the management ?

RIP

[Hyrrokkin]

I wonder if any of the posters who trolled that Des Beach was a lie and a figment of stage3's imagination a few months ago will stand up and apologize after their pathetic attempts at trolling !

I doubt it as it was just easier to score some pathetic points and try to be smarmy smart asses

RIP Mr Des Beach

[moon71]

RIP Des Beach. A good man who was a good postman, a valuable employee of Royal Mail. With many fantastic years service to the bususiness.

Sadly corrupted by the PWRFC thinking and direction, that direct personnal action in the bitterest dispute the business has ever known would result in this. A personnal poor decision, probably thought of as a way of helping the fight against an aggressive employer who wants to change our terms and conditions that would lead to your dismissal, would lead to this sad end.

I'm thinking of you Des. Sadly the PWRFC will try to martyr you, but said and done, you just wanted to do you walk earn your money and go home.

The stress the PWRFC put upon your shoulder, is unforgiveable.

[stage3]

Well said Hyrrokin but as you anticipated, trolls like Moon71 lack any decency as shown by the comment he has posted.

Moon71 now describes Des as a "good man" and "valuable employee" when he even questioned his existence. This was his response to the courageous step Des took to speak out in his interview with the PWRFC and WSWS last October, about his victimisation by management and the complicit silence of CWU.

Des conducted the second interview in November as a video outside his former delivery office for 31 years at Chester le Street, to directly answer the smear he did not exist.

Des's widow Pauline approached the PWRFC because she wanted his former colleagues to know that stress caused over the last two years was a contributory factor to his massive heart attack, according to expert cardiologists. She wanted everyone to know how this tragedy was influenced by his unfair dismissal and lies by management, enabled by the CWU HQ.

Moon71 from denying Des's existence changed tack, but the smears continued that his sacking on trumped up charges of "intentional delay of mail" was not the result of management bullying over impossible workloads, but having been "corrupted" by the PWRFC into militant activity. The PWRFC first met Des more than a year after he was dismissed, Moon71 is fixated with branding anyone who stands up as a troublemaker. This will be seen as the degenerate language of an apologist for RM and CWU HQ, in contrast many postal workers expressed their support for Des directed their criticism at the CWU for enabling this injustice to take place.

[tramssirhc]

RIP Des Beach. A good man who was a good postman, a valuable employee of Royal Mail. With many fantastic years service to the bususiness.

Sadly corrupted by the PWRFC thinking and direction, that direct personnal action in the bitterest dispute the business has ever known would result in this. A personnal poor decision, probably thought of as a way of helping the fight against an aggressive employer who wants to change our terms and conditions that would lead to your dismissal, would lead to this sad end.

I'm thinking of you Des. Sadly the PWRFC will try to martyr you, but said and done, you just wanted to do you walk earn your money and go home.

The stress the PWRFC put upon your shoulder, is unforgiveable.

Moon71 is talking absolute shite and knows nothing about Des Beach. The latest posting by Moon71 proves that anything said by Moon71 has zero credibility and should be taken with a lorry load of salt. Using the death of a decent hard working member of the working class in an attempt to smear the rank and file movement amongst postal workers is the actions of a desperate broken union. The CWU are to blame here and if Moon71 is a member of the CWU it should throw Moon71 out. Absolutely disgusting.

[moon71]

You folks never saw the evidence. To pretend otherwise just reveals the propaganda machine the WSWS has subjected us too.

The stage3 cut and paste WSWS is so full of interviews of downtrodden postman stink of fantasy most the time, it's hard now to decipher fact from fiction from this bigoted organisation.

Forum members can't even be bothered to respond to the threads anymore, last one bombed if I remember. It's a torture you inflict upon the forum and an era of terror against decent RM employees who just want to come to work.

And you still haven't answered the questions. What exactly does the PWRFC want apart from cause trouble?

Disgracefull behaviour by the PWRFC trolls.

Let the man RIP.

[ANDREW CROCOMBE]

RIP Des Beach, condolences to your family & friends.A shocking end to a story that could happen in any D/O the way things are nowadays. We regularly have duties uncovered/ unfinished so to see the cowardly workers union response, very upsetting to everyone.

[Hyrrokkin]

Well said Hyrrokin but as you anticipated, trolls like Moon71 lack any decency as shown by the comment he has posted.

Moon71 now describes Des as a "good man" and "valuable employee" when he even questioned his existence. This was his response to the courageous step Des took to speak out in his interview with the PWRFC and WSWS last October, about his victimisation by management and the complicit silence of CWU.

Des conducted the second interview in November as a video outside his former delivery office for 31 years at Chester le Street, to directly answer the smear he did not exist.

Des's widow Pauline approached the PWRFC because she wanted his former colleagues to know that stress caused over the last two years was a contributory factor to his massive heart attack, according to expert cardiologists. She wanted everyone to know how this tragedy was influenced by his unfair dismissal and lies by management, enabled by the CWU HQ.

Moon71 from denying Des's existence changed tack, but the smears continued that his sacking on trumped up charges of "intentional delay of mail" was not the result of management bullying over impossible workloads, but having been "corrupted" by the PWRFC into militant activity. The PWRFC first met Des more than a year after he was dismissed, Moon71 is fixated with branding anyone who stands up as a troublemaker. This will be seen as the degenerate language of an apologist for RM and CWU HQ, in contrast many postal workers expressed their support for Des directed their criticism at the CWU for enabling this injustice to take place.

[tramssirhc]

You folks never saw the evidence. To pretend otherwise just reveals the propaganda machine the WSWS has subjected us too.

The stage3 cut and paste WSWS is so full of interviews of downtrodden postman stink of fantasy most the time, it's hard now to decipher fact from fiction from this bigoted organisation.

Forum members can't even be bothered to respond to the threads anymore, last one bombed if I remember. It's a torture you inflict upon the forum and an era of terror against decent RM employees who just want to come to work.

And you still haven't answered the questions. What exactly does the PWRFC want apart from cause trouble?

Disgracefull behaviour by the PWRFC trolls.

Let the man RIP.

Moon71 is doing the CWU no favours here. Moon71 simply reinforces what thousands of workers know and experience - the CWU is collaborating in the destruction of jobs and attacking it's own members. Keep going Moon71, keep digging that hole.

[Valentina@1]

CWU should hold their heads in shame,RIP Des

[Tman]

Could be that the stress triggered a heart attack, could be that it was unrelated, but it's good to see so many medical pathologists here willing and able to make a snap diagnosis and claim him as their own.
The PWRFC bunch have at last found a martyr in Mr Beach, whether he wanted that accolade or not.

[stage3]

Could be that the stress triggered a heart attack, could be that it was unrelated, but it's good to see so many medical pathologists here willing and able to make a snap diagnosis and claim him as their own.
The PWRFC bunch have at last found a martyr in Mr Beach, whether he wanted that accolade or not.

The only person setting themself as a greater authority than the medical experts is yourself, the cardiologists said stress was a contributory factor to the heart attack Des suffered. But don't allow the facts to get in the way of pathetic put down of other posts expressing sympathy and solidarity with Des and your twisted logic, that the PWRFC wanted him as a martyr . On the contrary we quote Des stating “Great to see people supporting me. Hopefully what you are trying to achieve will help others in future.”

You can't get your head around such a principled approach because you defend the collusion of the CWU top brass with RM management which is why you are so toxic.