ELECTION fatigue will get the better of many of us before May 7, as the attempted smears of geeky-yet-laddish Ed Miliband continue to roll off the Tory press machine.

But there’s one election that’s already over, and its victor is raring to go. Step forward Dave Ward, who was last week elected general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, which represents workers in the post and telecoms sectors.

Ward ousted incumbent Billy Hayes, under whom he has served as deputy general secretary for 12 years, heading up the union’s postal division and negotiations with Royal Mail.

He needed a couple of days to recover after hearing the news that he’d won, Ward tells me when I visit the union’s offices in Wimbledon.

Now he’s back in the swing for the inevitable transition period as the union’s conference kicks off tomorrow before he takes up the post on June 1. But it’s clear he’s finding the formalities a little frustrating. “I’m really quite excited about getting this period out of the way and sitting down and thinking about a new strategy,” he says.

It’s been a tough few years for the communications sector. The privatisation of Royal Mail in 2013 came after a previous failed attempt under New Labour.

In the past year the CWU has slammed the government for failing in its duty to provide a level playing field in the postal sector, and instead allowing competitors to cherry-pick lucrative routes and leave Royal Mail to deliver to remote corners at cut-price rates under the universal service obligation. Cue slashed profits for Royal Mail and the inevitable effect on the workers.

And it’s been grim times for workers elsewhere. Thousands of City Link parcels deliverers learned on Christmas Day that their jobs were gone — and the vulture investors who unions (in this case, not the CWU but RMT) say drove the firm into the ground will still swan off with £20 million.

The CWU faced criticism for not putting up enough of a fight over privatisation — though as Ward points out, they had little backing from elsewhere. If Labour had pledged at the time of privatisation to renationalise the post, it could well have deterred investors and halted the privatisation in its tracks.

But no sooner had the party’s conference backed this position, shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna told the cameras that it wasn’t to be.

Interestingly, Ward thinks the deal the union secured off the back of the strike threat over privatisation — called off once the service was floated on the stock exchange — is something the whole sector can learn from.

“We built something after privatisation,” he says.

“We examined what happens in competitive scenarios, in privatised scenarios, and drew up a list of things we were fearful of. We secured an agreement that stops Royal Mail doing things a private company could do.

“They won’t franchise deliveries, which we’d been very worried about, and we’ve had that in Parcel Force for 10 to 15 years.”

At City Link workers were reportedly pushed into bogus self-employment, leaving them with zero protection when the firm went bust. But Ward insists this guarantee against fragmentation, alongside promises over conditions, will prevent a similar rot seeping into Royal Mail workplaces.

“We’ll be trying to spread that thinking across the movement, and firstly across the sector,” he says. “We’re going to call for all unions [in the sector] to come together. I tried to do something similar when Billy was general secretary … but if I’m honest it didn’t meet with too much enthusiasm.”

This isn’t the only criticism the general secretary-elect has of the approach his union has taken in the past.

Although a Labour member who previously sat on the party executive, Ward promised on his campaign materials “no more something for nothing, blind loyalty to Labour.”

When I press him on this, he stresses that he is not proposing disaffiliation. But he says it’s time for a “tougher line.”

He tells me: “Every union meeting I’d go to, people were asking: why are you giving money to Labour?

“I just don’t think trade unions can be effective if they put all their efforts into getting a Labour government to serve us and change the balance of forces.”

And while hoping for a Labour victory next month, he says Ed Miliband “could have gone a lot further” in opposing austerity and “addressing fundamental problems” around workplace conditions.

The CWU recently asked its existing members whether they want their political fund contributions to go to the Labour Party — as affiliated unions are required to do under new party rules brought in last year. Later on, a press officer points out sacks of letters containing the responses.

“Going forward things have to change,” Ward continues. “They have to change anyway. I want the union to develop its own political views based on fresh debates in our union. I want to assert our policies over politics, not the other way round.”

On a practical level, he’s in favour of the CWU changing its rules to allow non-Labour members to sit on its political committee, and “only supporting MPs who support our policies.”

He says he “stayed neutral” over the Collins review that outlined the changes because he’s sceptical that the old way has ever worked. He suggests the reason unions haven’t put up a fight — such as when they voted down an anti-austerity amendment at Labour’s national policy forum — is a knowledge that it would be ignored.

But nor is he in favour of the deals struck that produced this result. “Other unions think it gives us a few lines in the manifesto.

“I got up at Labour conference last year and said I didn’t understand how an £8 an hour minimum wage could be a flagship policy.”

What about the wider union movement? In an age of mergers, Ward stresses his opposition to “a takeover by any of the big unions.”

“A lot of trade unions have lost their independent base,” he says. “My belief is that that industrial side of the union must be at the forefront. A lot of unions have tried to build a political voice on sand.

“I’m not into the thing where people talk on platforms and never roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty.”

After talking for 45 minutes , he says he’s “more focused than any time since the result” on the challenges ahead.

“People always see this role [general secretary] as heading off into the sunset,” he sighs. “I’ve never seen it like that.”

CWU will not be the only union to debate its organising and political strategy over the next few years.

But Dave Ward is perhaps the most ready of all union leaders to plunge into this debate — while not letting us forget that unions can’t be built from the top.