UK Postal Workers’ Strike Ends (2003)

Mon Nov 03, 2003

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On this day in 2003, a wildcat strike involving two-thirds of Royal Mail workers in the United Kingdom (around 20,000 people) ended in victory for the striking mail carriers.

In August of that year, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) called for a national strike for higher wages, however the proposition we defeated in a close vote. A few months later, in late October, postal workers engaged in a wildcat strike of their own, indicating a lack of trust between union rank-and-file and leadership.

The strike began when a driver in Dartford, London was sacked and 400 co-workers engaged in a spontaneous work stoppage. Within eleven days, 20,000 to 25,000 workers were out, mostly from London and the South East. More than 16 million letters per day were piling up and, after a few days, 10,000 post boxes across London were sealed off.

On November 3rd, after the management promised that there would be no repression, sackings or local deals, the strike was resolved. On the aims of the workers and why the strike was successful, one worker commented:

“It was a defensive, but successful strike. The issue is we broke the anti strike legislation. In this case even the headquarters union official were not trying very hard to enforce the law and the local union reps were actively working against the law. We broke through the unions officials ‘anti-strike’ politics again, and we were successful when we did.”