LTB 294/21 - Average Pay on Annual Leave (Holiday Pay) in Royal Mail Group - Branch Ballot Result and Next Steps

[Dexydog]

I asked when are we getting the money, because, erm, the agreement has been ratified.
And there wasn't a full and proper vote.
I have read the deal, it's rubbish.
And now they have suddenly announced the next 6 qualifying periods will be monthly ones it would seem. (Not in the original agreement that I can see).
Which is why I want the money I am owed and then I'm leaving.
The company is crap, the union is almost as bad.

[fb1969]

The company is crap, the union is almost as bad.

The union is worse as they think the company is brilliant.

[Dexydog]

How does the branch vote work exactly?
I'm still astonished that 24 branches didn't return a vote-how is that even possible??
In my unit of 120 I don't think anyone even knew there was anything agreed, let alone any one of them getting a vote on it
Just seems a bit of a stitch up.
Why are people putting up with this?- the general apathy of the workforce shows how much they have been ground down.

[Kaning It]

Ballot papers issued 100

Ballot papers returned 76

What's going on here?

In the words of Alan Hansen, absolutely shocking. How can a branch not return a vote on such an important matter?!

I’m pleased to say my branch consulted us (albeit through our Facebook group) and as most of us voted no, the branch therefore voted against the agreement too. Didn’t make a difference in the end mind.

I would imagine if everyone understood the legislation and caselaw development for average pay/annual leave, many more would have said no - it’s been poorly represented.

So now, agency staff get average holiday pay every time, actually employees may well not.

I think it’s intentionally been made as confusing as possible so people don’t look away from their Love Island and actually spend 10 minutes reading the proposed agreement. Even now I’m seeing people ask en masse ‘when we getting our money?’ They don’t realise they could do 25 hours of OT a week every week, but one month if they have 2 weeks Annual Leave and come back to find the DOM has cut out all their OT for the other 2 weeks, that’s nearly 2 X £300 before tax waved away. And repeat for the 2nd part of the year.

If my DOM has his wits about him and does that to me I stand to miss out on about £700 a year pre tax.

The union haven’t helped themselves at all, all the information they release about anything has to be overload central. They can’t do simple summary bullet points for us rushed off our feet, tired from our rounds plebs to understand. It’s like both the Union and RM have overloaded us with gobbledygook so we just say yes.

I don’t like that, it’s wrong.

Agree totally with the overload point.

Too many have been confused by this having to define regular argument and/or Brexit may have changed things. Of course apathy after 7 long years is also an issue where people have been ground down to accept something rather than nothing but a Union should not put their members in that position. They should keep at it and get the right and fair result, not a cop out.

Re Brexit, the EU Working Time Directive was made part of UK law by the Working Time Regulations and so that shouldn’t matter and re regular, no need whatsoever for the ridiculous definition. As I have said previously, last year’s change to a 52 week reference period is all it needs. I have not seen any examples of any companies who have defined regular or any tribunal decisions which make an issue of this - if they exist why haven’t the Union backed up this position with examples? ‘The Good Work Plan’ gives a neat example of how it is supposed to be following the change from a 12 to 52 weeks reference period. No mention of a definition of ‘regular’ and in fact the opposite as the point is that holiday pay should reflect the hours worked across the year:

“Example of how a 52 week holiday pay reference period would operate
Chitrita works in a large retail store, working on average 35 hours each week. May, June and July are quieter months for the store and so Chitrita typically works 25 hours per week. Under the current 12 week reference period for holiday pay if Chitrita takes holiday in August, immediately after this quieter time, her holiday pay will reflect her 25 hour working week. This means she will receive less holiday pay compared to busier times of the year.

However, once the reference period is extended to 52 weeks, Chitrita’s holiday pay would reflect her average hours for the entire year, which are usually higher than during these quieter months. This is a fairer approach for Chitrita and her employer as her holiday pay will better reflect her working hours across the year.”

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... -work-plan

But what’s done is done. And those with outstanding claims can carry on if they like. The Union agreeing with RM to not support the very members they encouraged to make a claim is a such sell out. It will be interesting to see how many of the 6000+ do carry on. If it’s the majority, RM will no doubt offer settlements rather than fight every single case at an ET.

[SSkUNkY]

I fought and won two previous cases, and received payouts, and I intend to pursue my current claim to its conclusion in spite of this agreement.

[iainwilson]

Ballot papers issued 100

Ballot papers returned 76

What's going on here?

In the words of Alan Hansen, absolutely shocking. How can a branch not return a vote on such an important matter?!

I’m pleased to say my branch consulted us (albeit through our Facebook group) and as most of us voted no, the branch therefore voted against the agreement too. Didn’t make a difference in the end mind.

I would imagine if everyone understood the legislation and caselaw development for average pay/annual leave, many more would have said no - it’s been poorly represented.

So now, agency staff get average holiday pay every time, actually employees may well not.

I think it’s intentionally been made as confusing as possible so people don’t look away from their Love Island and actually spend 10 minutes reading the proposed agreement. Even now I’m seeing people ask en masse ‘when we getting our money?’ They don’t realise they could do 25 hours of OT a week every week, but one month if they have 2 weeks Annual Leave and come back to find the DOM has cut out all their OT for the other 2 weeks, that’s nearly 2 X £300 before tax waved away. And repeat for the 2nd part of the year.

If my DOM has his wits about him and does that to me I stand to miss out on about £700 a year pre tax.

The union haven’t helped themselves at all, all the information they release about anything has to be overload central. They can’t do simple summary bullet points for us rushed off our feet, tired from our rounds plebs to understand. It’s like both the Union and RM have overloaded us with gobbledygook so we just say yes.

I don’t like that, it’s wrong.

Agree totally with the overload point.

Too many have been confused by this having to define regular argument and/or Brexit may have changed things. Of course apathy after 7 long years is also an issue where people have been ground down to accept something rather than nothing but a Union should not put their members in that position. They should keep at it and get the right and fair result, not a cop out.

Re Brexit, the EU Working Time Directive was made part of UK law by the Working Time Regulations and so that shouldn’t matter and re regular, no need whatsoever for the ridiculous definition. As I have said previously, last year’s change to a 52 week reference period is all it needs. I have not seen any examples of any companies who have defined regular or any tribunal decisions which make an issue of this - if they exist why haven’t the Union backed up this position with examples? ‘The Good Work Plan’ gives a neat example of how it is supposed to be following the change from a 12 to 52 weeks reference period. No mention of a definition of ‘regular’ and in fact the opposite as the point is that holiday pay should reflect the hours worked across the year:

“Example of how a 52 week holiday pay reference period would operate
Chitrita works in a large retail store, working on average 35 hours each week. May, June and July are quieter months for the store and so Chitrita typically works 25 hours per week. Under the current 12 week reference period for holiday pay if Chitrita takes holiday in August, immediately after this quieter time, her holiday pay will reflect her 25 hour working week. This means she will receive less holiday pay compared to busier times of the year.

However, once the reference period is extended to 52 weeks, Chitrita’s holiday pay would reflect her average hours for the entire year, which are usually higher than during these quieter months. This is a fairer approach for Chitrita and her employer as her holiday pay will better reflect her working hours across the year.”

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... -work-plan

But what’s done is done. And those with outstanding claims can carry on if they like. The Union agreeing with RM to not support the very members they encouraged to make a claim is a such sell out. It will be interesting to see how many of the 6000+ do carry on. If it’s the majority, RM will no doubt offer settlements rather than fight every single case at an ET.

CWU agreeing with RM to not support the very members who brought their claim to tribunal is the lowest of the low. I will return the favour and withdraw my subs. I’m winning already. I encourage the 6000 to do the same

[smartin1982]

Again more bullsh*t from a bullsh*t union.
Celebrating an agreement and pushing through a vote when nothings actually agreed at all.

You’re a joke and an absolute halfwit, pullinger . RM bosses will be sat round that table pissing themselves at you. All you’ve done is knock their court cases on the head for them . Moronic .

[yellowbelly]

........
And now they have suddenly announced the next 6 qualifying periods will be monthly ones it would seem. (Not in the original agreement that I can see).
..........

It was in the original agreement:

There is no definitive meaning given to the term ‘regular’, so as part of our negotiations
we have agreed that regular overtime for employees is overtime worked for a minimum
of 8 hours each month, measured over a 6-month period (26 weeks). For practical
purposes, the regularity of overtime will be measured using ‘periods’ of 4 or 5 weeks
(broadly equivalent to a month) rather than calendar months.

They've just specified what dates each 4 weeks are within that 6 monthly period (as there are no months which are exactly 4 weeks - apart
from Feb) and that match up with working weeks.

[JKSmudge]

Just thought I'd throw this in to the mix as I have not seen this discussed.... I assume Bank Holidays are not part of the agreement.....

[Dexydog]

........
And now they have suddenly announced the next 6 qualifying periods will be monthly ones it would seem. (Not in the original agreement that I can see).
..........

It was in the original agreement:

There is no definitive meaning given to the term ‘regular’, so as part of our negotiations
we have agreed that regular overtime for employees is overtime worked for a minimum
of 8 hours each month, measured over a 6-month period (26 weeks). For practical
purposes, the regularity of overtime will be measured using ‘periods’ of 4 or 5 weeks
(broadly equivalent to a month) rather than calendar months.

They've just specified what dates each 4 weeks are within that 6 monthly period (as there are no months which are exactly 4 weeks - apart
from Feb) and that match up with working weeks.

I stand corrected, don't remember seeing that.
So what would be the purpose?- why not just do a 6 monthly calculation from September this year?
And I assume the 6 monthly calculation starts from March 2022??
EDIT- apologies these are the qualifying periods that you have to do 8 hours in??- that being the case we don't know the qualifying dates for April to September this year, unless that's in there too somewhere.
I may be guilty of not reading fully, but it is pretty complicated on the face of it.

[yellowbelly]

I stand corrected, don't remember seeing that.
So what would be the purpose?- why not just do a 6 monthly calculation from September this year?
And I assume the 6 monthly calculation starts from March 2022??
EDIT- apologies these are the qualifying periods that you have to do 8 hours in??- that being the case we don't know the qualifying dates for April to September this year, unless that's in there too somewhere.
I may be guilty of not reading fully, but it is pretty complicated on the face of it.

For the 2021/22 holiday period these will be 29 March 2021 to 26 September 2021
and 27 September 2021 to 28 March 2022.

Dexy as you've quite rightly pointed out there's nothing about the individual periods from 29 March this year
as there will be a couple of individual periods that are probably five weeks. Hoping one of them extends
the period where I didn't earn enough in the exact calendar month or else I'm screwed over for
the whole six month period!!!

[yellowbelly]

I asked when are we getting the money, because, erm, the agreement has been ratified.

Until the IT crowd can reprogram RM's remaining ZX81 for it to calculated automatically:

Royal Mail’s payroll function will make these ‘Top Up’ Payments 2 months after the end
of each Qualifying Period (i.e. November and May), albeit as a new and manual
process, the company’s payroll function will confirm arrangements once further
development has been undertaken.

so November should be the first backdated payment for the period March to Sep this year - I think from
deciphering the 'agreement'!

I'm guessing but could be wrong that RM make an offer for payments that might be due from the period when the CWU decided to encourage people down the ACAS/ET route (early 2019?) and March this year from the following statement in the LTB 245/21

If the proposed agreement is ratified, the Union will then send a letter to all claimants asking how they would like to proceed and whether they now wish to withdraw their claim for holiday pay. Back payments to an individual for arrears of holiday pay will be conditional on withdrawing the Employment Tribunal claim. There will be a reasonable time-frame for members to return the forms.

Edit: Just seen it in the 'Reps Briefing' that Woody posted here: viewtopic.php?f=67&t=100943

to paraphrase there will be 4 x 6 monthly periods covering Apr 19 to Mar 21 under the same criteria and RMG will communicate to
people who raised claims how they will be settled.

[Dexydog]

I'm leaving in September this year and intend to do 8 hours in the first week or so to try and qualify for the 6 month period April to September.
Anyone know what the agreement says for leavers-woupd I get the payment posthumously given that the payment won't be made until November?
Edit- the dates are there in the agreement woody linked for April to September this year, it just doesn't state the applicable year which is a bit of an oversight.
Sorry don't know how to highlight and link, I'm on a mobile phone.
Further edit- I'm now thinking let acas deal with whole lot, I really don't like how there's exemptions and qualifying months in this agreement, it just seems RM are using any excuse not pay what they legally owe.

[derekm]

The last jobs I worked in your holiday pay was calculated by what you earned the previous year. Pretty straight forward, this deal is a bit of a p@@@ take and for the union to agree to it is beyond belief.

[rubberbond]

I’m not interested in the union helping themselves, I pay my subs for them to help me , although I’m not sure they ever really can , as they no longer have the power and influence they used to have.