LTB 547/17 - Royal Mail Group dispute : High Court judgment and National Briefing : & Video

[Jonesy 1971]

What happened to this alleged document that the CWU had from RM stating that they dint want or need external mediation? This was bounded around a week ago on here I'm sure it was! But if I am wrong I must have dreamed it

Nope, that was posted, I remember. Must've been chucked out as being too awkward to consider

Thanks Laggy at least I wasn't dreaming!

Haven't deleted a post in weeks. Merged and amended some, but none deleted.

Search harder

tbt, I wasn't questioning where it was on here, I was asking why it wasn't effective in the injunction hearing? I thought that should have been. :-)

[TrueBlueTerrier]

[LaggyBand]

What happened to this alleged document that the CWU had from RM stating that they dint want or need external mediation? This was bounded around a week ago on here I'm sure it was! But if I am wrong I must have dreamed it

Nope, that was posted, I remember. Must've been chucked out as being too awkward to consider

Thanks Laggy at least I wasn't dreaming!

Haven't deleted a post in weeks. Merged and amended some, but none deleted.

Search harder

tbt, I wasn't questioning where it was on here, I was asking why it wasn't effective in the injunction hearing? I thought that should have been. :-)

I'm interested too. We've already got two different ratio decidendi thrown around, one is that the clause is binding so follow it, the other is its about consequential loss - there must have been some good reason why the doc failed to aid the union..

[Jonesy 1971]

What happened to this alleged document that the CWU had from RM stating that they dint want or need external mediation? This was bounded around a week ago on here I'm sure it was! But if I am wrong I must have dreamed it

Nope, that was posted, I remember. Must've been chucked out as being too awkward to consider

Thanks Laggy at least I wasn't dreaming!

Haven't deleted a post in weeks. Merged and amended some, but none deleted.

Search harder

tbt, I wasn't questioning where it was on here, I was asking why it wasn't effective in the injunction hearing? I thought that should have been. :-)

I'm interested too. We've already got two different ratio decidendi thrown around, one is that the clause is binding so follow it, the other is its about consequential loss - there must have been some good reason why the doc failed to aid the union..

TBT sorry I should have asked the question more clearly! Laggy, yeah I did think think that in true judge rinder style " paper doesn't lie" and should of stooped the injunction succeeding! bang, dead!

[fishtank]

It was in the London divisional statement to its members

You may have heard about Royal Mail's threat of obtaining a court injunction. The CWU are going to argue that Royal Mail have taken executive action on closing the DB Pension Scheme and broken the Agenda for Growth Agreement and that there has been external mediation during the talks and that this has been led by Peter Harwood, the ex head conciliator of ACAS, and the union has got a letter from Royal Mail that they did not need to use ACAS within the negotiations.

[LaggyBand]

That's it! Soooooo...would be interesting to hear why it was ineffective. Maybe we'll never know..

[mark.cup]

Probably lost it....?

[Jonesy 1971]

It was in the London divisional statement to its members

You may have heard about Royal Mail's threat of obtaining a court injunction. The CWU are going to argue that Royal Mail have taken executive action on closing the DB Pension Scheme and broken the Agenda for Growth Agreement and that there has been external mediation during the talks and that this has been led by Peter Harwood, the ex head conciliator of ACAS, and the union has got a letter from Royal Mail that they did not need to use ACAS within the negotiations.

Nice one F/T I knew I read it somewhere. It's the same question from me as well as laggy, if they had this letter from RM then how the hell did it not stand up in court. I am seriously disgusted that the CWU didn't get an award in favour of us (not interested in the judge v working class crap) it's a point of law if there's a document declining mediation, how the f**k can RM win an injunction for no extended mediation when they themselves declined it? This is totally f***ing wrong and should be appealed.

[LaggyBand]

It was in the London divisional statement to its members

You may have heard about Royal Mail's threat of obtaining a court injunction. The CWU are going to argue that Royal Mail have taken executive action on closing the DB Pension Scheme and broken the Agenda for Growth Agreement and that there has been external mediation during the talks and that this has been led by Peter Harwood, the ex head conciliator of ACAS, and the union has got a letter from Royal Mail that they did not need to use ACAS within the negotiations.

Nice one F/T I knew I read it somewhere. It's the same question from me as well as laggy, if they had this letter from RM then how the hell did it not stand up in court. I am seriously disgusted that the CWU didn't get an award in favour of us (not interested in the judge v working class crap) it's a point of law if there's a document declining mediation, how the f**k can RM win an injunction for no extended mediation when they themselves declined it? This is totally f***ing wrong and should be appealed.

There must have been an exaggeration on what the letter meant; hard to say without seeing the wording, but perhaps the letter did not alleviate all of the burdens imposed by the clause, and so fell short of the entirety of its scope.

[Jonesy 1971]

It was in the London divisional statement to its members

You may have heard about Royal Mail's threat of obtaining a court injunction. The CWU are going to argue that Royal Mail have taken executive action on closing the DB Pension Scheme and broken the Agenda for Growth Agreement and that there has been external mediation during the talks and that this has been led by Peter Harwood, the ex head conciliator of ACAS, and the union has got a letter from Royal Mail that they did not need to use ACAS within the negotiations.

Nice one F/T I knew I read it somewhere. It's the same question from me as well as laggy, if they had this letter from RM then how the hell did it not stand up in court. I am seriously disgusted that the CWU didn't get an award in favour of us (not interested in the judge v working class crap) it's a point of law if there's a document declining mediation, how the f**k can RM win an injunction for no extended mediation when they themselves declined it? This is totally f***ing wrong and should be appealed.

There must have been an exaggeration on what the letter meant; hard to say without seeing the wording, but perhaps the letter did not alleviate all of the burdens imposed by the clause, and so fell short of the entirety of its scope.

I guess yr probably correct mate! Still the fight goes on.I honestly believe it's a shallow victory because they are now bound by a timeframe and an irrate union who won't want to concede anything . Also we still have a strike mandate for 6 months with the additional threat of action that can be triggered in the run up to Christmas if they still don't want to talk.

[fishtank]

they are now bound by a timeframe

In what way are they bound by a timeframe?
How long are they allowed to take to agree a mediator?
When will they schedule the first meeting?
No doubt Moya will want to be involved this time and obviously she's very busy.
Even if the mediation takes no more than 5 weeks how long does the mediator get to deliver his/her recommendations?
How long does royal mail get to deliberate on those recommendations before they offer a proposal?
They throw the union a bone but obviously need to iron out the technical details.
Obviously the union has to reply to that proposal, how long?

You could string this out for years and if we call a ballot before the process is fully exhausted RM will just trot back to court for another injunction, the union might scream stall tactics to the judge but RM will just explain how Christmas is such a busy time for the business and it's difficult to get all the important people together and if we could just put the whole thing on the back burner til February we could all sort this out amicably m'lud.

Can you genuinely see any other scenario playing out?

[mr hil.]

The mediator has two weeks to come up with his recommendations then a further week for the two parties to respond. The only delays could be in the first part of the process concerning agreeing on a mediator and supplying the relevant documents and appointing a representative

5.4 External Mediation
External Mediation will apply in the following circumstances:

•  If a local disagreement remains unresolved after Stage 3 of the IR Framework there will be 7 days for national intervention, after which it will automatically be referred immediately for external mediation.
   Where the national parties fail to reach agreement on a point of principle relating to existing agreements that has been referred to them, it will be referred for external mediation after a period not exceeding one month from it being initially tabled by either party.
   Where there is a national disagreement relating to a matter that is not covered by existing collective agreements, it will be similarly referred if an agreed way forward is not found within one month.
   Where unballoted industrial action continues beyond 48 hours.

• The External Mediator will be appointed from a jointly agreed panel managed by ACAS and will have no other connection with Royal Mail or the CWU. The mediator will be provided with all relevant papers and evidence, together with clear statements from each party on the issue that is in dispute and on which a recommendation is sought. Both Royal Mail and CWU will provide a representative to work with the Mediator to assist in understanding the issue in dispute, the background and the implications of any decision before it is made.
  
  In considering the dispute and making recommendations, the External Mediator will take account of any regulatory and legal requirements, the terms and spirit of the Agenda for Growth, Stability and Long Term Success Agreement, other relevant national agreements, the needs of customers, the universal service obligation, and the need for appropriate efficiency supported by a climate of sustainable trust and collaborative decision making.
  
  The External Mediator will produce recommendations within two weeks of having received all relevant papers and having met the representatives of each party. Although the recommendations from the mediator are nonbinding the expectation is that both parties will use the mediator’s recommendations to resolve their differences. The parties will meet within one week of the mediator’s recommendations to review the outcome and confirm their response.
  If they both agree, the resolution arising from the recommendations will be implemented without further delay.
  If one or both parties are unable to agree in whole or in part with the recommendations, they will advise the other of the reasons for this, indicate what they are prepared to agree instead and there will then be a further two weeks during which there is a final opportunity to reach agreement before the process is concluded.
  In the event that the process concludes without agreement, the parties will write to each other to notify their intentions.
  The parties may agree to extend any of the timescales above by agreement.

[fishtank]

Every part of the process from start to finish can be stalled and the union can't do anything about it, If they unilaterally withdraw from the process before it's complete they'll have to convince a judge that Royal Mail are deliberately stalling and not just taking their time to get things right. How do you do that?

The changes proposed to the pension, the pipeline and all the other bits and bobs will produce reams and reams of "relevant documents" for the mediator to digest and there will be the same from the union, the first delay mightl be in agreeing a mediator but the biggest request for more time may come from the mediator him/herself. What does the union do if the mediator asks for more time to come up with recommendations?

[mark.cup]

The only serious leverage is straight out the window great planning by the union...

Why wasn't it them in the driving seat and this process started as soon as Royal Mail announced the closure of the pension plan?

[goddard7]

Why did we not take legal action against RM for their breaches and why were we so naive to persist with the court case despite the inevitable judgement which has cost us over £100.000 in legal costs.........political posturing?