What I meant by reading the room

[guardianangel]

Stage 1 and 2's are issued 99% of the times anyway unless your family of one of the bosses,on another note does anyone on here at all think the administrator can protect the uso with job losses its delusional talk,its now time to make a stand and stop this gaslighting from royal mail and the cwu,
we have hit the end of the road as a postal service run privately it can't go on any longer its time to make a stand ,I'll be voting NO !!!! so the cwu is better putting all their efforts into achieving a government run postal service instead of appeasing Royal Mail and their privately run company abusing the very members they are suppose to be protecting . VOTE NO !!!!! and dont let any REP or senior official try talking you around its the worst deal in history for any British worker.

[miles_peters]

I'm angry because it feels like the CWU got played all the way along by RM. The CWU were to slow to react and too cautious. Basically everything that RM wanted they are getting most of it, and in 2 years time they will get the rest. In the mean time RM will continue to destroy our jobs and the business as we know it, an absolute game plan to get what they want over the next 2 to 5 years. The deal is full of holes for RM to exploit to the detriment of the workforce and the current way RM is. I think everyones jobs are still at risk (maybe not immediately) whether the deal is voted in or not.

[scotchy1962]

Ah the joys of another pay offer!
Its as always another grey day in the life of a postie, the offer is on first glance not to bad looking, but dig into if and all the old fears are still there.
What we all know, with this bunch running the company, is that unless you get it literally etched in stone they will backtrack and read it whatever way suits them. Flex and seasonal just mean do more when we tell you, sick pay will change if we go over a certain % on the sick?? Who decides how many are on the sick and keeps a tally of it? Pay rise is what i suspected as little as they can get away with. £500 stick it where the sun dont shine a sweetener is always no good, better to get a % rise as its always in your pay.
My verdict is that they will never get enough lipstick on this porker of a deal to sell it to the majority.
The alternative is........ we dont really know, RM say they will go tits up, CWU have a fear they will go tits up and i think i will call bullshit, to many dangers for RM to allow it to go into administration.
So where do we go except possibly back to the drawing board and thrash out a better option??
Who knows i am just a lowly postie who probably shouldnt have a opinion.

[Pidleypoo]

The reps in our office have both resigned their positions yesterday after the announcement of the deal.

Sick pay has hung out to dry people with long term or chronic illnesses like myself.

We’re looking at 6-7 hour delivery spans and the untold damage over the long term to our physical health….imagine being outdoors for that long in cold and wet weather with the equipment we get.

Annual leave is now even tougher to get with seasonal hours.

We’re all working 2 hours a week for free this autumn.

Bench merging is apparently coming In despite all of the trails done on it saying it doesn’t work.

The union has kept us all in the dark for ages about most of this because we were led to believe some of these things were red lines.

Read the room ?

[DGH]

I cannot believe union (you have the costings) would rather protect the minority with legacy allowances than to appease the broader membership with some other form of benefit to our t&c's, these legacy allowances are gone and only serve to enrich the minority of the rapidly depleting membership population

Agreed. Some of those allowances are simply a nonsense now. And I get one of them. . .

[thebigone]

This is a no deal

[theelegend701]

Down with the union its a no from me

[anTi]

I cannot believe union (you have the costings) would rather protect the minority with legacy allowances than to appease the broader membership with some other form of benefit to our t&c's, these legacy allowances are gone and only serve to enrich the minority of the rapidly depleting membership population

Agreed. Some of those allowances are simply a nonsense now. And I get one of them. . .

It seems this was prioritised. Jobs for the boys springs to mind.

[worktotime]

some of your comments are an insult to what we have given up to protect our t&c , if you want to read the room get yourself on delivery and in delivery offices then you will see what reading the room means , revisions railroaded in by E/A and what has the union done to change this ? , nothing and im sick of hearing what royal fail wanted at the start of this and trying to polish this turd of an agreement to get members to accept it , isnt going to work . and so be it if the company goes tits up .

[sixfoottwo]

some of your comments are an insult to what we have given up to protect our t&c , if you want to read the room get yourself on delivery and in delivery offices then you will see what reading the room means , revisions railroaded in by E/A and what has the union done to change this ? , nothing and im sick of hearing what royal fail wanted at the start of this and trying to polish this turd of an agreement to get members to accept it , isnt going to work . and so be it if the company goes tits up .

Well said.

These people Ward and Co haven't a clue what it's like on the shop floor NOW and that is going to get even worse If this sham gets voted in.

It's so bad I am 100% it will be thrown out and rightly so.

F***ING FUMING is not the word

[Chitchat]

The cwu say if we vote no, royalmail could go into administration? I have a very strong felling we are about to find out if that's true. Most of my office are voting no. And even the less engaged postie's are voting no. Taking the £1500 off the table once it was put out there, was a very bad move.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Listen this is an agreement which needs explaining and seen in the round.

The choice for everyone in the ballot is :

1. Vote Yes and whilst the agreement is not perfect and is an agreement which has changed all of Royal Mail’s plans for the better.

2. Or vote no and we will go on strike again and Royal Mail will have to show to the market it has a business plan which it can implement to keep it a going concern. That means they need to introduce more change by executive action and cut more jobs.

If they don’t avoid going to the wall then we are in uncharted waters , any administrator will not be interested in pay , sick pay , revisions , flexibility, all it will do is try and keep uso going and that means thousands of job losses and cuts to terms and conditions.

Do you really think if we thought there was anything else we could get we would have not tried.

Lots who are angry about pay would be even more angry if the union gambled with your jobs and Royal Mail went in administration and you stopped getting regular pay etc.

We do believe this agreement is the best we can get in the current circumstances and It has protections throughout.

On sick pay it was Hobson’s choice Royal Mail were either imposing it by Executive action or we modified the change including stopping the company automatically issuing stage 1 and 2 absences and having the ability if sick levels drop to remove the SSP pay for absences after the 1st.

There will be lots of meetings to explain this deal over the next few weeks and then the members will design but go into either option with your eyes open.

The agreement fails for me because it does not address the culture and current working environment within Royal Mail. You can't keep increasing duties and headcount and that's what Royal Mail are doing, posties are at their wit's end and the CWU hierarchy appears not to realise this.

I would have taken the 2% deal if those issues had been addressed they haven't so at present I am voting NO.

[thefox]

The reps in our office have both resigned their positions yesterday after the announcement of the deal.

Sick pay has hung out to dry people with long term or chronic illnesses like myself.

We’re looking at 6-7 hour delivery spans and the untold damage over the long term to our physical health….imagine being outdoors for that long in cold and wet weather with the equipment we get.

Annual leave is now even tougher to get with seasonal hours.

We’re all working 2 hours a week for free this autumn.

Bench merging is apparently coming In despite all of the trails done on it saying it doesn’t work.

The union has kept us all in the dark for ages about most of this because we were led to believe some of these things were red lines.

Read the room ?

Fair play to your reps they sound like principled men

[thefox]

The cwu say if we vote no, royalmail could go into administration? I have a very strong felling we are about to find out if that's true. Most of my office are voting no. And even the less engaged postie's are voting no. Taking the £1500 off the table once it was put out there, was a very bad move.

Agreed,i honestly think if 1500 was on offer it might have just made it through with people looking elsewhere for employment after getting money

[Jack1960]

Ive heard Martín Walsh speak at many an AGM , hes a realist and also pragmatic.
Deep down he must know this is a shocker of an agreement, its probably been left to him to make a case for it.
But it will come down to what is the alternative. It was a mistake to go in all fired up with the above inflation no strings campaign. Its clear that there had to be some give and take, but its clear RM have now got their toe in the door and its too late to close it now.
The one thing i think that most people agree on is that the union PR machine has been a calamity.
If there is to be a live presentation maybe Martín should do it. If the hierarchy want this in hes their best hope.
I dont think the read the room remark was meant to be taken as was but its made me think .
I will leaving the job within the next few months after 45 years always on delivery .I will be voting on other peoples future or maybe i shouldnt vote at all, either way his post has made me think.