I've been updating the blogroll for 4glengate.net tonight, and added several new links. One of them is to a new website set up by rank and file postal workers in the Communication Workers' Union, called (obviously enough) CWU Rank and File. I hope the site is a success. The CWU remains one of the most active and militant unions in the UK, but the level of rank and file dialogue and debate is (so my comrades in the CWU tell me) not much higher than that in other unions. I hope that blog helps to address that.

The prime motivation behind the blog seems to be to encourage CWU members to reject the current offer put to them by Royal Mail in response to a series of strikes held by CWU members earlier in the autumn. The offer is out to ballot this week, I believe, and there's already an impressive list of CWU branches which are recommending members reject it displayed on the website. It all reminds me more than a little of another website which advocated and organised opposition to another pay offer. That website though was the subject of hostile measures undertaken by the union bureaucracy organising the ballot, and branches identified as opposing the offer were told they could not do so.

We spent a very good half hour on the CWU picket line at Leicester's APC last night. The atmosphere was terrific - determined but very positive, and everyone involved seemed to be very clear that the strike was not a token gesture but a step in a campaign which absolutely has to win.

The stakes are very high. Not only are postal workers facing a below inflation 2.5% pay rise but Royal Mail bosses are also intent on making major cuts to both jobs and services. This is a scenario that will be eerily familiar to all health workers, and the links between our fight and that of the postal workers are obvious. We're both up against a public sector pay freeze dictated by Gordon Brown in his last days as Chancellor, and the threat of privatisation of our essential public services.