LTB 188/15 General and Local Council Elections 7th May 2015

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Letter to Branches





No. 188/15

Ref: 535.09

Date: 23rd March 2015

TO: All Branches with Postal members

Dear Colleagues,

General and Local Council Elections 7th May 2015

This LTB is to provide confirmation to Branches of the arrangements that have been put in place to deal with the above mentioned elections. Branches will note that the embedded slides which are Royal Mail slides confirm that payments are applicable for Poll Cards and the Candidate “Election Communication”. Also included with this LTB are the guidelines issued to managers who will also be aware of the payments due.

The Easter weekend will be a critical period with no deliveries on the Good Friday and Poll Cards arriving for delivery which could hit on the Saturday. It is essential that this information is cascaded to all CWU Delivery Representatives ASAP so that they can arrange resourcing meetings to deal with the election material.

We had requested photo evidence of the material due to arrive in delivery offices, but, as you will see, with a potential of between 7 – 10 candidates per constituency and 650 constituencies it would not be possible for such an amount of photo evidence to be supplied, as they could all be different. The simple identification of election material attracting payment is that identified on the slides ‘What Is Candidate Mail?’.

There will be some D2D in the system but this will be at the posters’ discretion. We have established that Royal Mail does not and will not encourage parties or candidates to use the medium in preference to Candidate Mail as there are severe consequences for Royal Mail should there be any disputes about the postings of D2D and when and where they were delivered, or more to the point not delivered or delayed, and a party believes this influenced the outcome of that particular election. Having discussed this with Royal Mail we don’t believe it to be in their best interests to encourage D2D in preference to Candidate Mail.

CWU Reps will also need to be aware that the Poll Cards are due to be delivered in line with their product specification, although we have made the point that there should be a sensible and pragmatic approach to this that allows for some flexibility where necessary.

Any enquiries to Bob Gibson’s Office, quoting reference 535.09
Email address: hnutley@cwu.org or mstewart@cwu.org

Yours sincerely

Bob Gibson
CWU Assistant Secretary - Outdoor

[TrueBlueTerrier]

DELIVERY OF ELECTION MATERIAL 2015

1. In 2015 we have the following elections scheduled to take place on 7 May:

General Election
Council elections in 279 local authorities

2. There will be ‘Election communication’ candidate material for the General Election (but no ‘Election communication’ candidate material for the 279 local authority elections).

‘Election communication’ candidate mail will attract the normal unit payment rate for the delivery office.

3 Each elector will receive one poll card covering all of the elections they are eligible for.

Poll cards will attract the normal unit payment rate for the delivery office.

4 There should be no extended delivery overtime for poll cards and ‘Election communication’ candidate mail (unit payments are made instead).

5 The service standard for addressed ‘Election communication’ candidate mail is delivery within three working days from receipt.

The service standard for unaddressed ‘Election communication’ candidate mail is delivery within seven working days from receipt.

The service standard for delivery of poll cards will depend upon which of our products (e.g. 1c, 2c, DSA) each returning officer chooses to use. The cards should be dealt with in line with the normal specification for each product stream.

There is a further Poll Card Mailing Option that is available for Local Authorities to use which has a three day delivery specification; this will carry no indicia other than the words ‘delivered by Royal Mail’.

6. Royal Mail and the CWU recognise our obligations to deliver ‘Election communication’ election material for all candidates and parties. All of this material is checked to ensure that it meets legal requirements and the norm is that delivery will be made by the walk holder. However, if as a result of personal circumstances or beliefs, an individual requests alternative arrangements, we will respond sympathetically. It is not expected that we should get any collective issues but if any arise we will talk with the Divisional Representative.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

National Agreement covering the Delivery of Election Material

1) Introduction

This agreement between Royal Mail and the CWU is in line with the commitment
made in the Pay and Major Change Agreement dated 19 December 2003. It introduces
a new national standard payment and procedure for the delivery of election material
as required by that agreement (see Appendix B section 4 sub Para d)).

2) Scope of this Agreement

This agreement covers all addressed and un-addressed free election communications
marked “ELECTION COMMUNICATION” and Poll Cards (excluding Proxy Poll
Cards). It replaces all previous national and / or local agreements covering the
delivery of election materials and poll cards from the date of this agreement.

3) Delivery Specification

Addressed items: delivery to take place within 3 working days from receipt (including
Saturdays). (Except certain elections relating to Europe where it may be extended to 7
days from receipt.)

Un-addressed items: delivery to take place within 7 working days from receipt
(including Saturdays).

The impact of delivering this letter traffic will be excluded from normal workload
calculations.

All other operational issues will be dealt with at local level in line with the IR
Framework.

4) Payments

All existing local payments covering the delivery of election material as stated in
paragraph 2 above will remain in place, and in accordance with this agreement, with
the following exceptions.

1. The minimum payment for delivering election material will be 3p per item.

2. The maximum payment for delivering election material will be 6.6p per item.

3. All hours based schemes will be converted to pence per item schemes and then the
criteria in 1 and 2 above will be applied. Where delivery offices have introduced a
SDD revision since the last delivery of election material then the following formula
will be applied prior to the criteria in 1 and 2 above being applied.
Previous no. Walks X O/T hours per walk e.g. 35 X 2 hrs hours = 3.5hrs
Current no. of Walks 20

4. In those Units where there are two payments e.g. 4.5p for the first three parties and
1.67p for additional parties the minimum payment will become 3p with any payments
over this amount being retained.

5. In those Units where there is a mixture of hours and pence per item based payments the process in 4) 3. above will be followed for the hours based element, with the process in 4) 4. above then being applied.
Where election material items exceed 20g in weight a further 0.5p will be payable.
These revised payments apply from the date of this agreement and cover all election material as identified above. They are payable on an individual basis, and are not affected by any collective criteria/responsibility.

5) Quality Commitment

The payments are based on the requirement that all election material will be delivered in accordance with the delivery specification set out in paragraph 3. Where the specification is not achieved for any party/candidate then the payment for that party/candidates material will not be due.

6) Special Circumstances

It is jointly recognised that Royal Mail has a legal obligation to secure the delivery of election material for all nominated candidates and parties.
Whilst it is expected that delivery will be made by the individual due to undertake the particular delivery, local management will deal sensitively and sympathetically with genuine requests to deviate from this arrangement.

Such cases may arise as a result of personal circumstances or beliefs or where an individual believes that delivery of a particular item may incur personal risk.
If such instances arise alternative measures will be used to secure delivery. These may include the use of volunteers from within the office or neighbouring offices to cover more than one delivery or, as a last resort, the use of supplementary resource.

Both parties undertake to co-operate fully in the application of these principles and in resolving any difficulties that may arise surrounding the delivery of election material.


Signed ………………………… Signed………………………………
On behalf of Royal Mail On behalf of Communication Workers Union

Signed………………………….. Signed………………………………
On behalf of Royal Mail On behalf of Communication Workers Union

Date ………………………… Date………………………….

[comeracing]

POLL CARDS COULD HIT DELIVERY OFFICES ON THE SATURDAY AFTER GOOD FRIDAY ? COME ON EITHER THEY DO OR THEY DONT SOMEBODY OUT THERE MUST KNOW

[pinstripe]

POLL CARDS COULD HIT DELIVERY OFFICES ON THE SATURDAY AFTER GOOD FRIDAY ? COME ON EITHER THEY DO OR THEY DONT SOMEBODY OUT THERE MUST KNOW

You would think that they would let offices know in advance. I work in a MPU and Easter is a nightmare. Last year (Easter Saturday) we had to walk sort all wave one mail due to the amount of mail and lack of operators and that was without thousands and thousands of poll cards. This year has disaster written all over it. Still, work my hours, go home and sod them.

[deltaforce]

This agreement is 12 years old and yet still no increase in the original delivery payments whilst inflation has eroded at least 30 % of its value in that time. If we hadn't had a pay rise for 12 years there would be hell of a stink. So why is there no inflation adjusted payments?

[claretandblue]

I don't know about anyone else but we have had non stop election d2d everyweek either labour or libdem for the last 6 weeks.

[trythat]

DELIVERY OF ELECTION MATERIAL 2015

4 There should be no extended delivery overtime for poll cards and ‘Election communication’ candidate mail (unit payments are made instead).

I'm trying to find an answer from B.Gibson, when asked if OPG can claim OT as well as being paid for poll cards. I've tried searching and got nowhere I thought I saved it, but can't find it, hoping someone more organised has saved it. Just I have this problem everytime we have a new DOM, that you can't claim for both, we all know that RM don't employ DOMs for their common sense!

[TrueBlueTerrier]

You mean Dale Haddens email to Bob Gibson

http://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/communit ... =1&t=61877" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Subject: RE: Elections 2014

Sent: 02 April 2014 11:44
To: Bobby Gibson
Cc: Hayley Nutley; Andrew Martin
Subject: RE: Elections 2014

Dear Bob

I’m happy to confirm that we take exactly the same view on the extended delivery issue. The unit payments mean we don’t pay overtime for the election material or poll cards but if the volume of ‘non-election material’ workload requires overtime then yes that should be paid in the normal way. The fact that we make election material unit payments on the day does not mean there can be no extended delivery overtime.

Andy and I can make this clear to colleagues.

On your second point you’re right we do recognise there may be occasions where the volume of poll cards and other mail mean is it simply not possible to maintain the full product service specification. But we have to be careful about how we can say this in our communications. We ask people to do all they reasonably can and if having done so some poll cards fall back to the next delivery we would not withhold the unit payment. As you say we will be pragmatic where necessary. I sent the words in red below to our heads of IR in response to a request for clarity on what DOMs should do in the event that volume made it impossible to clear the poll cards on one day.

While we make every effort to meet these service standards there are occasions when volumes make this impossible and some fall into the next delivery. We do not intend to withhold unit payments in the event of this happening.

Dale Lang, Royal Mail head of Industrial Relations

[trythat]

I do believe thats the one, my fault, I only searched in 'Union Room', and theres me complaining about DOM & common sense, should of done a search board wide. Thanks again.

[worktotime]

it says that there will be no extended o/t payment , so if you go over everyday without these items as the delivery is to big , how do you cope with that one , can you refuse to deliver any of it ? or cut off ? any answers from the power above.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

it says that there will be no extended o/t payment , so if you go over everyday without these items as the delivery is to big , how do you cope with that one , can you refuse to deliver any of it ? or cut off ? any answers from the power above.

you can't refuse to deliver, or cut off, but you can apply the Overrunning deliveries procedure. It says that in the email.

The unit payments mean we don't pay overtime for the election material or poll cards but if the volume of ‘non-election material’ workload requires overtime then yes that should be paid in the normal way. The fact that we make election material unit payments on the day does not mean there can be no extended delivery overtime.

[worktotime]

thanks for that , I didn't read that one , dohh

[POSTMAN]

Usually what happens is,the world sends all it's mail to your office,you've a few poll cards and election stuff....and screws claim you can't cut off or claim because of said election material.

[spiderj]

Yep they try it on at ours
Actually works with some folk too.

Couple of us argued the toss successfully and said its OK we don't want the cash anyway so will just follow the overrunning delivery route as other commitments