CWU rank and file campaign against pay offer - no sign of big brother

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.

It's good to see that the principles of trade union democracy still exist in the CWU. Rank and file organising, and local initiative, are essential to building a healthy trade union movement. Without them, no matter how impressive your leadership, the union is doomed to sterility and ultimately failure.