Communication Workers Union (United Kingdom)

Last updated
Communication Workers Union
AbbreviationCWU
Predecessor National Communications Union
Union of Communication Workers
FoundedJanuary 1995
Headquarters150 The Broadway, Wimbledon, London SW19 1RX
Location
  • United Kingdom
Members
Decrease2.svg 184,083 (2021) [1]
Key people
Dave Ward, General Secretary
PublicationThe Voice
Affiliations TUC, ICTU, STUC, Alliance for Finance, Labour, [2] NSSN, Momentum
Website www.cwu.org OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) is the main trade union in the United Kingdom for people working for telephone, cable, digital subscriber line (DSL) and postal delivery companies. It has 110,000 members in Royal Mail as well as more in many other communication companies. [3]

Contents

Formed in 1995 by the merger of the Union of Communication Workers and National Communications Union, its current general secretary is Dave Ward.

Sectors

CWU members work for Royal Mail, the Post Office, BT, O2, Sky, Accenture HR Services, EE, Virgin Media and other communication companies. Members' expertise includes engineering, computing, clerical, mechanical, driving, retail, financial and manual skills.

In 2020 United Tech and Allied Workers was formed as a branch of the CWU to represent workers in the technology industry. [4]

Royal Mail industrial action

2007

The basis of the strike was a disagreement over pay and pensions. On 7 June 2007, the union's postal members voted by 77.5% to strike after a 2.5% pay rise coupled with £350 million every year for five years (totalling £1.5 billion) of cuts was offered. [5] [6] They took their first one-day strike on 29 June 2007, and the second on 12 July and 13 July. The action then progressed to a series of rolling strikes.

2009

Further industrial action was taken in 2009. An overwhelming three to one vote in favour backed the dispute and two days of national strike action were called in October 2009. This followed significant periods of local strike action in London, Bristol and areas of Scotland. Following the national days of action, the TUC were involved in brokering an "interim agreement" that provided a "period of calm" for the union and Royal Mail to negotiate a full and final agreement on the introduction of modernisation and relevant working practices. Following the interim agreement, strike action was suspended and talks held under the auspices of Acas.

In December 2009, a national agreement was struck and a ballot of the membership on an agreement on pay and working conditions was carried out. This agreement was overwhelmingly supported by CWU members in January 2010. The agreement increased pay and changed working arrangements, particularly in delivery. The agreement was headed "business transformation" and discussions and implementation arrangements continued nationally and in each workplace on the detail of the agreement. As a result, both the union and Royal Mail claimed to have agreed a fully funded modernisation plan.

BT industrial action

2010 BT industrial dispute

In early 2010 the CWU balloted all of its BT employed members for strike action over a pay claim for 2010. The ballot result was never announced due to legal challenges but following extensive negotiations CWU reached an agreed settlement on pay with BT. A national ballot of members overwhelmingly agreed the pay deal.

2021 RPE industrial dispute and strike

On 24 February 2021, 170 BT Openreach employees commenced a total of three weeks strike action in opposition to the companies unagreed changes to their Terms & Conditions, along with proposals that could impact taxpayer expenditure for public funded projects.

CWU Deputy General Secretary, Andy Kerr commented that "the fact that management’s total intransigence on the issue has resulted in the first industrial action anywhere in BT Group for 22 years tells its own story."

The staff involved were Repayment Project Engineers (RPE). Their job involved diverting and/or protecting BT cables during major building works, including local authority and government schemes.

To date, the industrial dispute has not been settled and is still debated at executive level.

2022 BT and Openreach industrial dispute and strike

In June 2022, the CWU conducted its first company-wide industrial action ballot in BT Group since 1987. In Openreach, where 28,425 CWU members were entitled to vote, participants recorded a 95.8% ‘yes’ vote for industrial action on a 74.8% turnout. In BT, where 10,353 were issued with ballot papers, another ‘yes’ vote of 91.5% was recorded on a 58.2% turnout.

The CWU hoped that such an overwhelming demonstration of workforce anger would persuade management back to the negotiating table were, however, met with BT categorically refusing to re-open 2022 pay negotiations.

As a result, the first national industrial action in BT Group for three and a half decades took place on 29 July and 1 August – with the all-out strike days being solidly observed by members in both BT and Openreach.

Two further all-out strike days took place on Tuesday 30 and Wednesday 31 August.

Following this, another four days of strike action was announced for Thursday 6 October, Monday 10 October, Thursday 20 October and Monday 24 October.

The dispute, which involves more than 40,000 CWU members working for BT and Openreach, was triggered by BT’s unilateral imposition of real-terms pay cuts for all CWU-represented grades.

Affiliations

Labour Party

The CWU has long been affiliated with the Labour Party; for example Alan Johnson, a previous General Secretary, later became a Labour Member of Parliament (MP) and ultimately held a number of Cabinet posts including Home Secretary. Since 2001, the CWU has donated over £9million to the Labour Party but relationships became strained over Labour plans to privatise Royal Mail in 2007 and Dave Ward, the CWU's representative on the Labour Party's National Executive Committee announced he was stepping down from this role because he believed it conflicted with the interests of union members. [7] He was replaced by Andy Kerr.

At the CWU Annual Conference 2008 there was much debate about the union's relationship with Labour. It was agreed, and remains union policy that a ballot would be held to cease funds to the party if privatisation of postal services took place. As the privatisation proposal from the Labour government in 2009, the Postal Services Bill, was defeated through the unions campaign, led by the left wing Labour loyalist and long term General Secretary Billy Hayes, with the support of Labour backbenchers, affiliation has remained in place.

Since the election of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government the union has sought to re-define its relationship with the Labour Party. In July 2010 the union's National Executive Committee agreed to nominate and support Ed Balls MP for Labour leader in the 2010 leadership ballot. In turn, Ed Balls MP supported the unions Keep The Post Public campaign in the summer of 2010 in opposition of the planned coalition government's intention to privatise Royal Mail.

In September 2015, CWU endorsed Jeremy Corbyn's campaign in the Labour Party leadership election. [8]

In August 2017, it was announced that the organisation will formally affiliate to Momentum after its ruling executive voted unanimously in favour to join the organisation. General secretary Dave Ward, told the New Statesman that "the general election showed the value of Momentum as part of the wider labour movement", and that the body, which emerged from Corbyn's 2015 leadership campaign, was now "a major political force in the UK", saying it had a "key role to play in securing a transformative Labour government". [9]

1st Class Credit Union

1st Class Credit Union Limited was formed in 1992, as Glasgow District Postal Workers Credit Union, it became the Scottish Postal Workers Credit Union in 1998, before adopting the present name in 2007. [10] A member of the Association of British Credit Unions Limited, [11] it is open to members and employees of the CWU. [12]

The credit union is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the PRA. Ultimately, like the banks and building societies, members’ savings are protected against business failure by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. [13]

In 2016, it was awarded a large grant of £60,000 by the Lloyds Banking Group Credit Union Development Fund to strengthen its capital asset ratio. [14]

Leadership

The following people have served as General Secretary of the Communication Workers Union:

1995: Alan Johnson (UCW) and Tony Young (NCU) jointly
1997: Derek Hodgson and Tony Young
1998: Derek Hodgson
2001: Billy Hayes
2015: Dave Ward

The second most senior official is the Senior Deputy General Secretary:

1998: Tony Young
2001: Tony Kearns

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Mail</span> Postal service company in the United Kingdom

The Royal Mail Group Limited, trading as Royal Mail, is a British postal service and courier company. It is owned by International Distributions Services. It operates the brands Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide (parcels). The company used the name Consignia for a brief period in the early 2000s but changed it afterwards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Union of Mineworkers (Great Britain)</span> British coal mining trade union

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is a trade union for coal miners in Great Britain, formed in 1945 from the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). The NUM took part in three national miners' strikes, in 1972, 1974 and 1984–85. Following the 1984–85 strike, and the subsequent closure of most of Britain's coal mines, it became a much smaller union. It had around 170,000 members when Arthur Scargill became leader in 1981, a figure which had fallen in 2023 to an active membership of 82.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fire Brigades Union</span> Trade union in the UK for firefighters

The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) is a trade union in the United Kingdom for wholetime firefighters, retained firefighters and emergency control room staff.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers</span> British trade union

The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers is a British trade union covering the transport sector. Its current President is Alex Gordon and its current General Secretary is Mick Lynch.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers is a public-sector trade union representing postal workers including letter carriers, rural and suburban mail carriers, postal clerks, mail handlers and dispatchers, technicians, mechanics and electricians employed at Canada Post as well as private sector workers outside Canada Post. Currently comprising upwards of 50,000 members, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers has historically been labeled as militant because of some of the actions undertaken since its inception in 1965 to help guarantee rights to all postal workers. According to former president Jean-Claude Parrot, "We succeeded to get the support of the membership because we earned our credibility with them...we got that reputation [of militancy] because we earned it."

The Grunwick dispute was a British industrial dispute involving trade union recognition at the Grunwick Film Processing Laboratories in Chapter Road, Dollis Hill in the London suburb of Willesden, that led to a two-year strike between 1976 and 1978.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2007 Royal Mail industrial disputes</span>

The 2007 Royal Mail industrial disputes.

William Hayes is the former leader of the Communication Workers' Union in the United Kingdom.

The 1988 United Kingdom postal workers strike was a strike in the United Kingdom in August and September 1988. It was the country's first national postal strike for 17 years, and began after postal workers at Royal Mail walked out in protest over bonuses being paid to recruit new workers in London and the South East. As a result, postal deliveries throughout the United Kingdom were disrupted for several weeks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2009 Royal Mail industrial disputes</span>

The 2009 Royal Mail industrial disputes is an industrial dispute in the United Kingdom involving Royal Mail and members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which began in the summer of 2009. It was the country's first industrial action involving postal workers since 2007 and came about after the Communication Workers Union accused Royal Mail of refusing to enter into dialogue regarding how the implementation of modernisation plans would affect the job security of postal workers.

David (Dave) Ward is a British trade union leader and General Secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which was formed through the merger of the Union of Communication Workers and the National Communications Union in 1995. The CWU is the largest trade union in the United Kingdom for people working in the Postal and Telecommunications industry with over 180,000 members. Ward is a co-chair of Stand Up To Racism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unite the Union</span> British and Irish trade union

Unite the Union, commonly known as Unite, is a British and Irish trade union which was formed on 1 May 2007 by the merger of Amicus and the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU). Along with Unison, Unite is one of the two largest trade unions in the UK, with over 1.2 million members in construction, manufacturing, transport, logistics and other sectors. The general secretary of Unite is Sharon Graham, who was elected on 25 August 2021 with 46,696 votes on a turnout of 124,127, with her term beginning on 26 August 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Labour Party leadership of Jeremy Corbyn</span> Jeremy Corbyns tenure as Leader of the Labour Party

The Labour Party leadership of Jeremy Corbyn began when Jeremy Corbyn was elected as Leader of the UK Labour Party in September 2015, following the resignation of Ed Miliband after Labour's defeat at the 2015 general election. Disillusioned by a lack of a left-wing voice in the 2015 leadership contest, Corbyn stood on an anti-austerity platform. Of the candidates who stood, Corbyn received the fewest parliamentary nominations. Many who nominated him said they had done so not to support his candidacy, but to widen the debate by including a socialist voice. However, Corbyn soon became the frontrunner and was elected with a landslide of 59%.

Philip Eric Rene Jansen is a British businessman, and was the chief executive officer (CEO) of BT from February 2019 to January 2024, having previously been CEO of Worldpay since April 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fórsa</span> Irish trade union

Fórsa is an Irish trade union for public service staff. With over 80,000 members, it is the largest public service union in Ireland, and second largest trade union in the state. It was created following a ballot of the Public Service Executive Union (PSEU), the Irish Municipal, Public and Civil Trade Union (IMPACT) and the Civil and Public Services Union (CPSU) in November 2017, where the majority of each union voted to amalgamate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Tarry</span> British Labour politician, MP for Ilford South

Samuel Peter Tarry is a British politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ilford South since 2019. He is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group parliamentary caucus. On 10 October 2022 he was deselected by the Ilford South Constituency Labour Party as its candidate for the next election. He remains an active MP representing the Labour Party.

The 2022–2024 United Kingdom railway strikes are an industrial dispute in the United Kingdom between rail workers and companies, with the latter supported by the UK government. The rail workers are represented by several unions including the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) and the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF). The railway strikes commenced on 21 June 2022 after workers walked out over wages, planned changes to working practices – involving the removal of guards from trains, the reduction in the number of open ticket offices, and an increase in the age at which people could claim the young persons and senior citizen card – and the threat of redundancies. The industrial action was the largest in the sector since 1989, and involved 40,000 workers nationwide.

The 2022 BT Group strikes were an industrial dispute between the telecommunications provider BT and members of the Communication Workers Union over pay amongst the backdrop of the UK cost of living crisis. The strike action was taken by CWU members working for BT group's communications infrastructure subsidiary Openreach alongside those employed at the company's call centres.

Since May–June 2022, a series of labour strikes and industrial disputes have occurred in various industries of the United Kingdom's economy as workers walked out over pay and conditions. The strikes took place with rising inflation, and demands for pay increases that would keep pace with this inflation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2022–2023 United Kingdom postal workers strikes</span> 2022 industrial action amongst postal workers in the United Kingdom

Starting in May 2022, postal workers in the United Kingdom undertook a series of strikes and industrial disputes. They principally involved members of Unite and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) at both Royal Mail and the Post Office. The Royal Mail strikes ended in July 2023 after workers agreed to a three-year pay deal with Royal Mail.

References

  1. "Annual Return for a Trade Union" (PDF). publishing.service.gov.uk. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
  2. "TULO's member unions | Unions Together". Archived from the original on 2012-03-11. Retrieved 2012-02-14.
  3. Royal Mail staff vote to strike over pensions. BBC NEWS. Published 3 October 2017. Retrieved 4 October 2017.
  4. Mellino, Emiliano (22 September 2020). "Google and Microsoft staff set to join the UK's first tech trade union". Wired. Condé Nast.
  5. "Postal workers back strike action". BBC. 7 June 2007. Retrieved 2007-06-11.
  6. "Vote 'yes' and strike against Royal Mail attacks!". Workers Power. Retrieved 2007-06-11.
  7. "CWU rep Dave Ward to stand down from Labour NEC". The Socialist Worker. 1 May 2007. Retrieved 29 October 2009.
  8. Watt, Nicholas (10 September 2015). "Communication Workers Union backs Corbyn as antidote to Blairite 'virus'". The Guardian . Retrieved 15 July 2017.
  9. Bush, Stephen (23 August 2017). "Britain's largest communications union to affiliate to Momentum". New Statesman . Retrieved 28 August 2017.
  10. About us 1st Class Credit Union (retrieved 13 March 2015)
  11. Credit unions in membership of ABCUL Archived 2015-01-03 at the Wayback Machine Association of British Credit Unions (retrieved 1 November 2014)
  12. Trade union members benefit from credit union services Archived 2015-04-02 at the Wayback Machine Credit Union News, Vol. 15 No. 3, Association of British Credit Unions, December 2013
  13. Credit Union Guide Financial Services Compensation Scheme (retrieved 2 April 2015)
  14. 2016 Winners Archived 2018-08-06 at the Wayback Machine Credit Union Foundation (retrieved 5 August 2018)