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SWP member and CWU president Jane Loftus votes for sell-out of postal workers strike
Dave Isaacson criicises leading SWP members who have undermind and sabotaged attempts to forge rank and file organisation in the CWU. Now SWP member Jane Loftus has actually endorsed a sellout deal. Full text at link.
There was one significant omission in Jim Moody’s article on the sell-out of the postal strike by the Communication Workers Union leadership, which allowed CWU president Jane Loftus to come out of it looking rather good, when actually she has been an utter disgrace (‘Militants condemn sell-out’, November 12).
Loftus, a long-standing member of the Socialist Workers Party and therefore supposedly a revolutionary, is also a member of the CWU’s postal executive committee (PEC), which voted unanimously on November 5 to accept the interim agreement and call off the strikes, just as the strength of the postal workers was starting to be realised. This goes completely against the position of Loftus’s organisation. Socialist Worker has rightly stated that “Leaders of the postal workers’ union were wrong to suspend strikes at Royal Mail last week … There was no reason for the union to sign up to the agreement. The proposed escalation of strike action - that would have seen two 24-hour strikes in close succession last week - had widespread support within the union” (November 14). Another Socialist Worker article by Cambridge CWU rep Paul Turnbull calls on postal workers to “restart the strikes immediately”. Yet neither questions why Jane Loftus did not vote against this sell-out - indeed her name is not mentioned at all. Activists in the SWP and militants in the CWU need to ask what is going on here. The SWP’s newspaper, Socialist Worker, is arguing one thing, while their highest placed member in the CWU is doing the exact opposite. Like other socialists all over the country, SWP activists put massive amounts of time and energy into supporting the postal workers and their strike. No wonder Socialist Worker might not want them to know that their own comrade on the CWU leadership colluded in undermining that hard work.
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Friday November 20, 2009 12:13
by Anne Mc Shane
annegmcshane at eircom dot net
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Comments (7 of 7)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7Jane loftus voted for the deal against the wishes of the SWP
She has now been expelled.
The SWP are ardent opponents of the sell out.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=19541
The same cannot be said of the SP
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/601/8338
There is no mention of Jane Loftus having been expelled from the SWP at the link you give.
When was she expelled?
And who did the expelling?
Presumably there was some sort of process?
What exactly is the point of your post? Are you trying to defend the swp, in some round about way?
Maybe I'm not getting this, but as far as I can tell, in an attempt to rescue the swp from the humiliation of having one of it's members vote against it's wishes in the CWU. You tell us that Jane loftus has since been expelled for her actions (which is in many ways a far worse crime, for a supposeedly democratic organisation). I really don't know what says more about the swp as a political party. The fact that one of it's members voted against it's wishes, or the fact that ,that same member was expelled for doing such a thing.
Then again the swp leadership have always been very trigger happy when it comes to expulsions!
It says here she resigned.
The SWP should come out openly and inform people what happened. I think that her action in voting to accept a rotten deal was dispicable and obviously completely against what the SWP stands for. I do not have a problem with her being held to account - she needs to be. The trouble is the way the SWP leadership has dealt with it - in a behind the scenes way that does nothing except feed rumours.
As usual CPGB is wrong as are the SWP leadership. The decision to call off the strike was a correct decision. Read about it here:
Postal workers force management back http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/8338
Panorama looks at the troubled Royal Mail and attempts to find out if recent job action is a case of postal workers who can't deliver, or won't deliver... http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_840...2.stm
"The Royal Mail are going to be the last people who move forward into modern times from an industrial relations point of view" - The last words given by Lord Sawyers in the Beeb's report !
[Might be worth nothing though given the British Broadcasting Corprations track record they are at least giving a wider airing of workers in struggle than even Indymeda does at times...]
Cleaners 'worth more to society' than bankers - By Martin Shankleman, Employment correspondent, BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8410489.stm ALSO http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8411494.stm
Union members at British Airways have voted to take strike action.
The industrial action will take place over 12 days from 22 December to 2 January.
This is the first walkout by British Airways cabin crew since 1997.
The action could affect up to one million air travellers.
Q&A: British Airways dispute http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8411494.stm