Paul Garraway

However since the commencement of the ballot, not unsurprisingly, both the CWU leadership and management have been pushing the deal. Management even put a new letter on our frames offering us £350 on 14 December if the deal is ratified. Billy Hayes even sent out a pathetic "Please support us" postcard. Things must be desperate.

'Your world has turned upside down, and if you strike it will turn upside down again.' So warned Royal Mail chairman Allan Leighton, shortly after post workers narrowly rejected a national strike ballot over pay. The post workers' world has not turned upside down - but Leighton's surely has. An unofficial strike by over 35,000 workers has produced one of the biggest victories the British trade union movement has seen in over 20 years.