Postal union to fight Royal Mail sell-off

[fishtank]

The theme and demand of the Labour Government and Hooper was that that the union and Royal Mail needed an agreement on modenisaton of the industry which had to have automation etc linked to it. The change is massive.

....and the demands/wishes/hopes/fears of the membership...your employers?

[andy2007]

Look, the fact is, that we (the members) saw this coming, and HQ did not. It's not the first time that's happened either, is it?
Is that because of wishful thinking, or living in denial?
I think it's probably the former.

You're also right that the decision about whether to call a ballot won't be made on here. Well, that's stating the obvious, isn't it?
The point is though. This site allows people to discuss the issues Nationally, which is virtually impossible to do, without having lots of seperate regional and/or local meetings. And having someone else relay your thoughts. Now obviously, that's an important process, which must happen. Particularly as there are a lot of Posties who aren't members of RMC, and far fewer senior Union Reps. So a lot of important people would be missed, without the meetings. Knowledge is power. And the more information we can get access to, the better informed we will be. And therefore, the better able to make good decisions.

Now athough, if called. I will Strike to prevent Privatisation. There's a lot we can do, before it comes to that. And with any luck, it won't be neccessary. But it's a useful weapon to have, so that we can fall back on it, if all else fails.

[Cut Off King]

1, The Postal bill means that no new owner can have any risk on pensions in the future so therefore the pension scheme will cease with only the back service protected as the bill does not allow for the care scheme to continue as it can lead to a further defcit. Therefore the only scheme which cannot is a money purchase which means that the new owner does not fund pension scheme, only you fund it. In addition as POL will stay in public ownership the old scheme will have to be split into two meaning that your past years are not totally sercure.

2. The bill provides 15 opportunites for the USO to be watered down or removed including whats included in the USO , to franchising out the uso in some areas regions and the removal of the uso on certain days.

3, Now the issue of defending the agreement the bill does not state that the modensation agreement will hold the field under the new owner or owners well lets have a look at what is in this agreement , it safeguards full time jobs to a level of 75% , it overarching objective is to avoid complusory redunances , it gives you a payment for door to door , it gives you a pay rise and the numbers of revisons and payments linked to them. What happens if a new owner comes in an rips that up and removes your supplement , removes the safeguards etc and imposes harsher changes ?

dingo

You forgot...

4, What happens if I ( and others like me ) cant get full time paid release from my duties, We'd have to endure 6 x D2D's for £20! ( not to mention late saturdays too )

[Martin Walsh]

Cut off king , another cheap shot on full time release I see , well I think members want their area reps to reprsent at protential dismissal interviews , appeals , grivences , alldged B& H cases , meeting the members in the offices they are covering , asisting fixed term contracts , MTSF issues , attending meetings at Divisonal level , organising Branch unit rep meetings , SI meetings , attending IHR meetings , stage 2 and stage3 meetings , assisting the local rep with any issues , Christmas , Easter , arrangements , along with countless other issues. Yes there may be a few reps who abuse release but the majority work dammed hard and often its a thankless task.

Now tell me , how would you have stopped later Saturdays ? Would you have convinced Royal Mail to change their wholeplan on a Saturday , different from Monday to Friday ?. Would you have stopped the machines running mail on a Saturday all together ? Believe me the union tried but the problem was even if the union had convinced Royal Mail not to have sequencing on a Saturday delivery offices would not have had the staffing levels to cope with it as the staffing levels would have been designed and based on what would be happening Monday - Friday.

Now what would you have done on door to door , Royal Mail were saying that workload had reduced in letters form and that were going to try and capture the still growing unaddressed market. Of course they wanted to do this without payment as they started from the basis that this is already being done within worktime. The union could not argue that it did not want more work and the policy of the CWU since 1994 has been to get Door to Door into workload whilst mantaining the remuneration. The Union has sercured 20.60 paid 52 weeks per year and whilst on sick leave and regardless whether your office has 2 , 3, 4 , 5 or no door to door arrangements regardless of whether bad weather stopped you going out on delivery or not. It is a permanent addtion to basic pay the only dfference it is not pensionable. It will increase each year with your pay rise.


So tell me what would you have done would you have said we dont want extra measured work , do you really think Royal Mail would have listrened ? they are growing the door to door market just as they knew they would do and guess what in places like London where they could not get it delivered for love or money under the old sysetem and London was not on its own in terms of quality.

[dvbuk55]

As per usual dingo is being economical with the facts...........the figure is £20.60 PRO RATA when formerly a part timer was paid for delivering the same as a full time member they are now paid pro rata for exactly the same amount of work........now that may be OK for dingo and his 99% full timers but it certainly wasn't OK for the 45% part timers in my office and many others across the nation.............this wasn't a deal for the majority but a deal for the minority.

As for asking what would others have done.............you are the ones PAID to look after the members interests with full time release to spend planning the approach to the problems not agreeing with RMs plans. As you state there are meetings for this that and the other but are they meaningful or just shooting the breeze on past glories.

[barbario]

This privatisation is only really only about stealing our pension which i am told has 27 billion in it. I can't help thinking thats where our Government is going to get the 7 billion to give to Ireland

[feduppostie]

a thankless task?

is the full time release while the rest of us have been slogging our guts out in the snow and ice not thanks enough?

and for the record our rep decided he couldn't represent someone recently in their conduct interview cos he was too busy ( you'll have to get someone else to do it - his words)

mind you this same rep is now bowing and scraping to the DOM to pull some loophole so he can keep his 4 day weeks despite the office voting for a different shift pattern in a democratic vote

in his words if 7 more people need to go part time so I keep my 4 day week so be it

welcome to the new CWU in it for themselves and whatever they can get

thank god I saved myself the subs and canceled my membership - if I'm gonna get shafted I would rather it be from RM which I expect than the CWU for which I was paying for the pleasure

rant over

[feduppostie]

and for the record RM has got d2d for virtually nothing

most of us lost the £12 odd early start allowance that we were told repeatedly was there for life

so now we do unlimited d2d for about 8 quid a week

thanks alot

and that is the full timers the part timers are still waiting to hear why they get paid less when they deliver the same as us

the second this deal was agreed was the end of the CWU AFAIK

shame they are to blinkered to see it

[arnold cheshire]

its a pity the union could fight for its members

[Martin Walsh]

Feduppostie the CWU will survive as most members will always want to be in a union in Royal Mail . Remember their terms and conditions and pensions they have have all been negotiated by the CWU.

Now lets examine your post , less than 40% of delivery postmen were on the £12 early shift allowance , the pay and mod agreement only stated it would be subject of grandfather rights if there was no restructuring of pay. The question is how many people are still starting at 5 after the walk sequencing revison ?

You do not do unlimited door to door as the cap is just going up to 6 and not all areas will get that number.

The union sercured £20.60 pro rata for part timers not bad when you consider that door to door is done within your conditioned hours and by trapping early shift allowances when no many will work at those times in the future. Now every one recieves a delivery supplement which is a permanent additon to basic pay and paid 52 weeks per year and will rise with pay rises. The reason why a part timer only recieves pro rata payment is if they recieved more than they would have an higher hourly rate than a full timer which would not go down very well. Now it is not true all part timers deliver the same as full timers , we have different types of part timers ie some Saturday onlys , some who only work Friday and Saturdays, some are 20 hours some 30 hours so pro rata is the only way you can pay when you convert money to your basic pay.

By the way I am not blinkered just know that your mis quoting the facts

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Feduppostie the CWU will survive as most members will always want to be in a union in Royal Mail

I really hope that the CWU don't rely on this as a National thing as one day it WILL bite you in the ass.

If the Union believes it will survive whatever it does then its on very unstable ground and probably explains why members are getting disaffected. The CWU should be looking at how they can keep the membership they have, and increase it where possible (as they are starting to talk about, lets hope the actually action is dynamic) rather than relying on a captive membership.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

By the way I am not blinkered just know that your mis quoting the facts

No your presenting your opinions as you have experienced them as is "Feduppostie" - just because their points and experiences don't gell with yours does not make it any less factual - in fact it matches mine alomst exactly.

less than 40% of delivery postmen were on the £12 early shift allowance , the pay and mod agreement only stated it would be subject of grandfather rights if there was no restructuring of pay. The question is how many people are still starting at 5 after the walk sequencing revison ?

- No the question isn't how many are starting after 5am - why because the reason the ESA was protected because the national agreement made us all start 1 hour later. The question should then be how many start at 6am - the answer would be a lot different.

Perhaps I could present it slightly differently - how many people lost £12.50 ESA and got £20.60 Del Supplement - net benefit £8.10 - Part timers who get £8.10 Del Sup only need a contract of 15 or 16 hours to make the same gain.

[dvbuk55]

Feduppostie the CWU will survive as most members will always want to be in a union in Royal Mail

I really hope that the CWU don't rely on this as a National thing as one day it WILL bite you in the ass.

If the Union believes it will survive whatever it does then its on very unstable ground and probably explains why members are getting disaffected. The CWU should be looking at how they can keep the membership they have, and increase it where possible (as they are starting to talk about, lets hope the actually action is dynamic) rather than relying on a captive membership.

You have to ask yourself why anyone would shell out subs. Those who are prepared to support the union are actually paying for quite a lucrative existence for "those in the know" and "those who see the big picture" and of course the CWU itself, the buildings, heating, lighting, allowances, a pension which is better than that they will receive, loans, the list is endless.......................is it any wonder that the membership itself becomes secondary when there is so much to lose?

The real question is what is different for someone outside of the union......the pay and conditions are exactly the same and in some areas are considered to be a "safer" bet than someone in the union!

[Martin Walsh]

TBT the CWU have 130 000 postal members , Royal Mail chat has 19 000 members. 990 active users over the last 24 hours , so how can you guage whether the CWU is losing the support of its membership ?

The CWU locally , area wide , divisonally and nationally do lots to support members. Whether thats providing reprsentation at attendance interviews , dismissal interviews , appeals , ETs , DSS interviews , OHS appts , Legal and Medical claims , neogitiations , dog bites , safety , wage rises , pension discussions , attempting to stop privitisation etc.

Mainly on this site you hear about whats gone wrong rather than whats gone right. There have been over 600 revisons and yes some have been disasters but a lot have not been. But how many posts are made when a revison goes in and works and members get their money and attendance patterns ?

Now it may be a fair comment that I said that Fed up postie was misquoting the facts , well I think he is having read and re-read and used the agreement. Yes that is my opinion.

Now not everyone moved to later deliveries under network 08 , and some under their pay and mod revison agreements moved back to earlier starts. What I was saying is that the agreement stated that you only had grandfather rights if there was not a pay simplification deal. The union had made it clear within the Pay and Mod agreement that it wanted a such a deal .

So the question is valued how many indivduals will start at 5 when they have walk sequencing as that is the time which the allowance kicked in. By the way up to the Way Forward shift allowances did not exist it was NDA per hour.

Now in terms of who benefited and who did not , well it will vary , yes some part timers will have lost out but their again not all part timers did 3 door to door and most did not have either early shift 1 or 2.

Now we can both accuse each other of living in a gold fish bowl , you seeing the world from the posters of Royal Mail chat and me seeing it from a London point of view. However I do believe that I get a more balanced view as I get reports from all divisons and they are warts and all reports , thats why I have argued that there should be a full audit of every office revison so we know why some are working and others are not.

[fishtank]

The most pointless thought a man can ponder is..."Where did that train come from?"....

You keep paying attention to the "warts and all" divisional reports...and we'll keep listening to our colleagues...not on here dingo but actually on the floor in the D.O.s and Mailcentres and we will wait for the train together.