You don't need me to tell you that there is a cost of living crisis in the UK and it's

only set to get worse this winter. Trade unions are already trying to fight back and

they've got no choice really, with employers imposing real-terms pay cuts on their staff.

The CW, the communications workers union, is no different. They represent staff in the

Royal Mail, BT, who are suffering precisely those problems. I spoke to Dave Ward, General

Secretary of the CW to see his thoughts about how working people in fight back. Hello, Dave,

welcome to Downstream. Hi, Aaron, good to be here. You are the General Secretary of the

Communication Workers Union. You represent Royal Mail workers, BT workers, more besides,

we'll talk about that in a moment. How did you get your job? Because, you know, the public

now is increasingly familiar with Mick Lynch, and so I think your personal story is probably

of interest. Yeah, I joined the GPO, as it was then, back in 1976 as a telegram boy, and

then I went on to be a postal worker at two in delivery office, and I spent 13 years as

a local rep before I did any other job in the union. I loved it. I still got all the same

mates that I had then, and I have to say that some of the cleverest people that I've ever

come across postal workers, one of the things I've learned, no matter what CEO you meet, what

political leader you meet, ordinary working class people are really smart, and they have some

great ideas, and it's just about bringing the confidence of the collective strength of workers

together. So, yeah, I went through all of that. I did various jobs in the union, got elected,

every position you stand for is an election. I've been very fortunate in that I've won every

election I've ever stood for, and that culminated in becoming the general secretary of the CW about

seven years ago. I've pretty much done all the various positions leading up to that, you know,

the main negotiating positions for London, for National Union, and now the general secretary.

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