VIDEO: Royal Mail victim deliverer Des Beach exposes the anatomy of a management frame

In this video, Des Beach, a 31-year Royal Mail delivery driver from County Durham, England, talks about his unfair dismissal with Tony Robson of the Socialist World Website (WSWS).

An earlier interview with Des, published by WSWS on October 17, gained wide readership among Royal Mail employees, with many messages of solidarity posted on social media. Postal workers who contacted WSWS emphasized that this was not an isolated case. Many shared similar experiences of management bullying to enforce unachievable workloads, and the refusal of Communication Workers Union (CWU) officials to defend themselves.

In his final interview outside the Chester-Le-Street delivery office where he worked, Des lays bare the anatomy of a ruse by Royal Mail executives based on fabricated allegations of “deliberate mail delay”. The CWU refused to defend him.

Des says the current wave of casualties is the result of last year’s sold-out national deal, co-authored by the Postal Executive led by Dave Ward. This has led to a two-tiered workforce, giving the company an incentive to push out long-serving postal workers and replace them with newcomers with lower wages and working conditions.

The Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee (PWRFC) is calling for a campaign against management intimidation. Postal workers should not be made scapegoats for the company’s deliberate neglect of the postal service! Committees of ordinary people should be established in every workplace to ensure the collective defense of anyone bullied, victimized and entrapped by management.

The CWU has backed Royal Mail’s bid to ease the Universal Service Obligation and accelerate the transition to an Amazon-style parcel courier service. She is working closely with the Labor government to facilitate the takeover by Daniel Kretinsky’s private equity group, in return for promises that Kretinsky will work with officials at the boardroom table. Ward describes this as a “new ownership model”.

The union-backed Falconer Review gave the green light to the company’s hostile regime against Royal Mail workers. Of the 400 representatives and employees fired or suspended in connection with the 2022-3 national dispute, only about half were eligible for Falconer’s rigged process. In exchange for reinstatement, they had to accept a reduced disciplinary charge remaining on their employment records and waive their right to the employment tribunal. Royal Mail was acquitted of the largest massive fraud in a labor dispute since the miners’ strike of 1984-1985.

We are appealing to our fellow postal workers to share this video interview with Des and to contact us about similar cases. Help break the wall of silence that Royal Mail’s business partners have erected in the CWU bureaucracy.