LTB 054/25 – Royal Mail Group: Special National Briefing & Postal Policy Forum – Wednesday 21st & Thursday 22nd May 2025

[HarrySutton111]

If I remember right 25,000 no and shamefully 33,000 didn't even bother voting,hardly a massive victory, I voted no, thought it was a shameful and embarrassing deal, I believe now it has damaged the cwu beyond repair, I certainly won't ever cross a picket line but you'll never see me on one again, not that they'll ever be another strike in my opinion. I struggle to see the difference between cwu and management now.

[drb]

It will go through - despite whatever you say.
As a branch we faced those people, or the devil. I can tell you now, everything Martin has stated about their tactics is 100%.
Thankfully we were able to reinstate 9 of our branch through the Lord Falconer review. They blatantly said this in my face - we are going to sack them.

[HarrySutton111]

It will go through - despite whatever you say.
As a branch we faced those people, or the devil. I can tell you now, everything Martin has stated about their tactics is 100%.
Thankfully we were able to reinstate 9 of our branch through the Lord Falconer review. They blatantly said this in my face - we are going to sack them.

Pleased for them, we lost ours, great lad he was.

[drb]

The right wing media always quote "1979 - the winter of discontent"

2020 to 2024 was actually 4 years of discontent and the biggest attack on working people & trade unions as far back as I can remember.

*The employment tribunals systems is over 2-years back logged due to tribunal judges leaving from 2016 to 2018, due the (now) unlawful system of charging £250 per application. This method was overturned at the supreme court, and on one of it's ruling stated that it was against the Magna Carter.
Royal Mail knew the backlog was there

*Removal of overtime due to taking part in lawful strike action - not upheld in the high court. Royal Mail took a punt on this and won. High court decisions in favour of trade unions are/is very poor. However, the claims are always FROM the employer, (the last three were backed by the (then) business secretary). In fact the (then business secretary) took the role of ACAS certification/trade union recognition of a chosen trade union from ACAS and appointed themselves as the "Central Arbitration Committee (CAC)". In a nutshell - removal of trade union recognition. This has gone now.

*Removal of contractual sick pay over the dispute, (all monies were withdrawn on Christmas week). Employment tribunal claims files - and all monies were reinstated with support from the CWU legal department. After the reinstatement of the contractual sick pay, Royal Mail said to us - "We were always going to pay them back" (six-months later). What if we did not file the tribunal claims?
*The Lord Falconer review (Royal Mail did not want it), has set a lot of legal precedence, particularly in dismissal law and various elements of the 1992 Labour Relations Consolidations Act 1992" and "The Employment Right Acts 1999".

*There no way nor any chance that we, (as a union) could of approached the (then) government asking them to fund letter delivery (no profit since 2015) and also pay rises & start times. In fact, "fire & rehire" was rife then. Legacy contracts was their enemy, and like Thames Water, they would have had a secondary workforce to run the USO element. We need to understand how (financially close) we were of going under. Members I have spoken to (countless) get this fact, and are quite smart. In fact the vast majority don't really go online and trust the union, (that's my experience). It may hurt some to hear this but the fact of the matter is, no member trusts their manager, and would rather talk to their rep.

Too add - we are about to embark on changing the service to adapt to the ongoing digital revolution, how this is done will not be online, it will be about ideas from reps & network, processing, delivery, but also union policy on jobs & jobs security, pay, (those three aspects are the biggest concerns from our members).

* The new employment rights bill - I can reveal that the biggest HR firms have advised their clients (the biggest employers in the UK), to create "employee committee's where trade unions do not exist"). Trade Unions in the UK helped shape that current bill and are still pressuring the government to do more - that's how it works. It's bloody hard though - but speaking for our branch - we won't give up.

[redlen]

Redlen alongside the Agenda for Growth agreement was a legal contract. With any set of legal guarantees there will be potential get out clauses which are called force majure.

There were two specifically written into this , one was if the company got into financial difficulties and needed to withdraw from the legal obligations and the other was if the union took strike action.

We took strike action covering both pay and change and this triggered Royal Mail writing to the CWU withdrawing the legal obligations in August 2022.

We have now under the EP agreement for those legal protections back but all legal protections will have similar force majure elements within them.

The Agenda for Growth protected us for 8 years from the worst aspects of privatisation.

Martin

Once again thankyou for your reply. As you know prefer an educated debate rather than opinions or emotions the same as yourself.

Force majure in reality now means nothing. The only people that still use it are insurance companies and can be best described as an "Act of God event" that stops parties fulfilling a contract such as an armed conflict or terrorist event.

The only get out clause as i remember was if one party instigated executive action contrary to the express terms in the Agenda for Growth. Such as implementing a two tier workforce or industrial action such as a ballot etc which was an express term. Express terms give certainty so Force majure as stated will be irrelevant.

So bottom line being it was the CWU who breached that agreement that led to implementing inferior contracts on new entrants and the slash and burn policy under Simon Thompson.

If the CWU is to move forward and get respect back on the shop floor, then it needs to acknowledge that error of judgement publically and say sorry we got it wrong, not excuses.

Now I am not having a dig at the CWU, the opposite.

The reason why the CWU cannot recruit new members as well as reps is exactly due to what has been described above. In my own opinion, the CWU since Dave Ward became General Secretary has given away almost all the hard fought terms over the previous 25 years and the members have been given nothing back. The view of the CWU is that things have to change as letter traffic is deminishing. That is true but the call rate for the foot slooger has not changed is just one example on how out of touch HQ are.

[Hyrrokkin]

Redlen alongside the Agenda for Growth agreement was a legal contract. With any set of legal guarantees there will be potential get out clauses which are called force majure.

There were two specifically written into this , one was if the company got into financial difficulties and needed to withdraw from the legal obligations and the other was if the union took strike action.

We took strike action covering both pay and change and this triggered Royal Mail writing to the CWU withdrawing the legal obligations in August 2022.

We have now under the EP agreement for those legal protections back but all legal protections will have similar force majure elements within them.

The Agenda for Growth protected us for 8 years from the worst aspects of privatisation.

Martin

Once again thankyou for your reply. As you know prefer an educated debate rather than opinions or emotions the same as yourself.

Force majure in reality now means nothing. The only people that still use it are insurance companies and can be best described as an "Act of God event" that stops parties fulfilling a contract such as an armed conflict or terrorist event.

The only get out clause as i remember was if one party instigated executive action contrary to the express terms in the Agenda for Growth. Such as implementing a two tier workforce or industrial action such as a ballot etc which was an express term. Express terms give certainty so Force majure as stated will be irrelevant.

So bottom line being it was the CWU who breached that agreement that led to implementing inferior contracts on new entrants and the slash and burn policy under Simon Thompson.

If the CWU is to move forward and get respect back on the shop floor, then it needs to acknowledge that error of judgement publically and say sorry we got it wrong, not excuses.

Now I am not having a dig at the CWU, the opposite.

The reason why the CWU cannot recruit new members as well as reps is exactly due to what has been described above. In my own opinion, the CWU since Dave Ward became General Secretary has given away almost all the hard fought terms over the previous 25 years and the members have been given nothing back. The view of the CWU is that things have to change as letter traffic is deminishing. That is true but the call rate for the foot slooger has not changed is just one example on how out of touch HQ are.

[Smoothbackground]

Unless I’m being thick, I cannot see how force majeure would have any applicability here. Force majeure arises usually from catastrophic, unforeseeable events. More likely is that the agreement had “conditions precedent” which were breached by the CWU, one of which was no further industrial action to be taken by CWU or its members, thereby causing the entire agreement to fall away and ceasing to have any effect.

[Valentina@1]

Redlen alongside the Agenda for Growth agreement was a legal contract. With any set of legal guarantees there will be potential get out clauses which are called force majure.

There were two specifically written into this , one was if the company got into financial difficulties and needed to withdraw from the legal obligations and the other was if the union took strike action.

We took strike action covering both pay and change and this triggered Royal Mail writing to the CWU withdrawing the legal obligations in August 2022.

We have now under the EP agreement for those legal protections back but all legal protections will have similar force majure elements within them.

The Agenda for Growth protected us for 8 years from the worst aspects of privatisation.

Martin

Once again thankyou for your reply. As you know prefer an educated debate rather than opinions or emotions the same as yourself.

Force majure in reality now means nothing. The only people that still use it are insurance companies and can be best described as an "Act of God event" that stops parties fulfilling a contract such as an armed conflict or terrorist event.

The only get out clause as i remember was if one party instigated executive action contrary to the express terms in the Agenda for Growth. Such as implementing a two tier workforce or industrial action such as a ballot etc which was an express term. Express terms give certainty so Force majure as stated will be irrelevant.

So bottom line being it was the CWU who breached that agreement that led to implementing inferior contracts on new entrants and the slash and burn policy under Simon Thompson.

If the CWU is to move forward and get respect back on the shop floor, then it needs to acknowledge that error of judgement publically and say sorry we got it wrong, not excuses.

Now I am not having a dig at the CWU, the opposite.

The reason why the CWU cannot recruit new members as well as reps is exactly due to what has been described above. In my own opinion, the CWU since Dave Ward became General Secretary has given away almost all the hard fought terms over the previous 25 years and the members have been given nothing back. The view of the CWU is that things have to change as letter traffic is deminishing. That is true but the call rate for the foot slooger has not changed is just one example on how out of touch HQ are.

well said

[ted_e_bear]

Unless I’m being thick, I cannot see how force majeure would have any applicability here. Force majeure arises usually from catastrophic, unforeseeable events. More likely is that the agreement had “conditions precedent” which were breached by the CWU, one of which was no further industrial action to be taken by CWU or its members, thereby causing the entire agreement to fall away and ceasing to have any effect.

Possibly the case that the person at CWU HQ in charge of choosing long words for them to slip into conversations made a Del Boy type error on this occasion

[postslippete]

We need to understand how (financially close) we were of going under. Members I have spoken to (countless) get this fact

Not the case and I'll explain why.


RM in suggesting that they were losing one million pounds a day is nothing new; they played the same party trick when Crozier and Leighton were in charge. What the RM board did was entirely deliberate and if you are a Union man, you will know that it's a familiar story. However, for the company to go into administration it would need to show that it cannot or is unlikely to pay any of its debts and reveal all of its assets. While RM were "allegedly" making operating losses of millions of pounds - IDS have billions in assets. In fact, the company was sitting on £3.8 billion in retained earnings and nearly £2 billion in available liquidity!! So if anything, considering the legal guarantees that RM made to the government as regards its USO obligations at the time of privatisation it would more likely mean that they would have had to sell GLS, the "profitable" company instead.

While the board had hinted about a group separation of the two companies ever since RM changed its name to IDS; the onus was always on trying to make the method changes in RM work. It was RM's past profits that allowed it to buy GLS (or German parcel as it was then) in the first place and it was profitable just before it was privatised. And there is no doubt that the company are still manipulating the figures to make RM's accounts look worse than what they are. They did this over the headline 'billion pound loss' in 2022-23 which included all sorts of impairment charges when in fact the actual adjusted loss across the group was 'just' £71 million. Imho losses in RM will continue for as long as we still have a universal service obligation while company profits are being spent elsewhere - automation, parcel hubs, bonuses for managers, parcel lockers....

I don't think there was ever any real danger of us going into administration and it was merely mentioned to encourage posties to vote for the last deal.

[drb]

Thank you. I can confirm that during the accounts submission to the CWU (from RM), in which was confirmed.

Secondly, if you remember, after the agreement was mandated (BT&G), the £500 per person (OPG grade) was a staggered payment, in that they could not afford one actual hit at once

During the dispute, (or there or there abouts), £750 million was made to a fleet company for new RM fleet. The financial situation continued to worsen, (after shareholders received their dividends). Subsequently RM were forced to give back the new fleet to that fleet company and then "leased" the new fleet off them. (this is still the case). We understand the new fleet consisted of required "bio diesel".

At no point was IDS utilised nor relied on for funding at this point. But what do I know - I'm a "union man".

You also mentioned the "legal guarantees" the government made back then - you are correct. Under the coalition government those guarantees held the field. The profit from RM would fund RM. Fast forward to 2015 - David Cameron - "“We will only sell our stake when we can be sure we’re getting value for money, but let’s be clear: holding over £1bn of Royal Mail shares in public hands is not a sensible use of taxpayers’ money.”

However, we will pass on your comments to members on IDS and tell members not to be concerned.

[Londonsburning]

These two prior comments are the encapsulation of the failure of corporate capitalism, and the reason RM will fail badly, with the top 1% of investors/employees walking away better off and the remaining 99% getting utterly shafted.

[postslippete]

You also mentioned the "legal guarantees" the government made back then - you are correct. Under the coalition government those guarantees held the field. The profit from RM would fund RM. Fast forward to 2015 - David Cameron - "“We will only sell our stake when we can be sure we’re getting value for money, but let’s be clear: holding over £1bn of Royal Mail shares in public hands is not a sensible use of taxpayers’ money.”

However, we will pass on your comments to members on IDS and tell members not to be concerned.

Wasn't it George Osbourne (the Chancellor at the time) that spoke about selling its remaining stake in RMG to reduce the government's overall deficit and he also said that RMG at the time was thriving? Fast forward to May 2022 and RMG announced that it had just made £758 million in profit, much of which came from the governments support that supplied them with testing kits and allowed them to keep running during Covid when other businesses had to remain closed. RM, or rather Simon Thompson, then claimed that RM was losing over a million pounds a day just weeks later but surely any possible bankruptcy would have created a political storm.

The government were committed to ensuring that RM have a sustainable universal service in the UK with Sunak who was PM opposing any end to Saturday deliveries by RM, so if the company was really facing bankruptcy then it would be more likely that GLS would have to be sold off. Regardless of whether IDS do not intend to cross-subsidise RM - when a company files for bankruptcy it has to reveal all of its assets and show that it cannot pay its debts. And therein lies the problem because IDS has a strong balance sheet and plenty of assets and I can't make it any plainer to you than that. Even Kretinsky who is buying IDS (which includes both RM and GLS) has been forced to commit to protect RM's USO and for the government to hold a "golden share" meaning that they will need to approve any key changes to RM's ownership, HQs and tax residency, even if is for only 5 years....

I don't know much about £750 million that was made to a fleet company for vans which were then leased back but what I do know is that the company have spent billions on dedicated parcel hubs and they are considered as a long term investment to our future. And as for the £500 staggered payment to OPGs; ain't it funny how they found £1k bonuses for managers while we stood on the picket lines. At xmas, these managers also took home £5k bonuses. It all speaks volumes about where the money is going in the company.

And what Union members should be concerned about is not just how USO reform will affect jobs but whether RM will still commit to no compulsory redundancies after OfCom's review of the USO is completed next year.

[SkiSunday]

Bring on the compulsory redundancy as I'm not leaving for nothing.

[postslippete]

Bring on the compulsory redundancy as I'm not leaving for nothing.

Voluntary redundancy is typically better than compulsory redundancy. Even if RM have reduced the VR terms you will receive more money because RM would need to make the redundancy pay package larger than the statutory redundancy pay. This is something that I assume the CWU is working on? i.e. looking after their members first; rather than try and bluff us by saying that it is only what the company can afford when they clearly spunk money up the wall on other things.