Red-block propaganda campaign didn’t go well
Royal Mail has suffered a severe ‘owning’ on social media after an ill-advised attempt to smear 115,000 CWU union members who have just voted massively for strike action over the company’s feeble pay offer.
Royal Mail decided that a solid red block would act as the background for tweets blaming workers for the company’s abysmal 2% pay imposition and assault on working terms and conditions, such as this:
The company also posted a tweet claiming its actions were needed because it is ‘losing £1 million pounds [sic] a day and we need to change what we are doing’. It seems Royal Mail’s communications team didn’t notice that the next tweet down its feed was one pointing to its full-year 2021/22 results – which show that it made £758 million profit, a profit of over £2 million per calendar day instead of a loss of £1m.
But that fact did not escape the union’s supporters, who quickly started to adapt the business’s propaganda format to deliver some blunt and inconvenient facts, of which just a few are shown below:
CWU members working for Royal Mail voted by 98.7% in favour of strike action on a huge 72% turnout. CWU general secretary Dave Ward said the vote was:
another rejection of those at the top of Royal Mail, who should consider their positions.
Postal workers in this country are being pushed to the edge, but there can be no doubt that they will fight the planned erosion of their workplace rights with determination.
Right now, this country is growing sick of a business elite who are completely out of touch with ordinary people and their lives.
Things are getting harder and harder for normal working people so that incompetent bosses can have an easy life. But this union will fight this disgraceful state of affairs every step of the way.
The CWU’s message to Royal Mail’s management is simple: do right by your workers.”
Unlike their Royal Mail counterparts, the CWU’s communications team has been ‘playing a blinder’ on social media:
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