LTB : national negotiation disclaimer

[The truth!]

Anyone can do a deal , the reason why its taking so long is the union is only going to do the right deal.

Everyone recognises that pay and mod was an half way deal which in all honesty was a fudge.

This time not only are the stakes higher in what is being discussed but the reason its taking so long is that the union is determind to get it right. Any agreement of course wont please everyone. No agreement ever does, but there are a number of hurdles to get through before the it goes out to the members. First the 5 officers have to be happy with what they have achieved in the negotations.

Secondly the PEC will have to endorse it. Thirdly it widely expected that some kind of mini conference (one day but not a briefing ) where Branch`s can vote for or against it will be carried out. Then the members will decide with recommednations from the PEC , Divisons and Branch`s.

Now Dvbuk of course no one wants Door to Door , no one wants longer spans , no one wants automation , no one wants longer Saturdays. Do you really think our negotatiors want that either ? However Royal Mail have invested in machines which will mean that they want them ulitised on a Saturday as well as Monday to Friday therefore the second wave of work wont be reaching your office till much later on everyday of the week but also on Saturday. Therefore Saturday is a big issue. Of course depending where your office is based to where your walk seqeuncing machines are will depend on whether you will really work to 3 but it is a possiblity.

Royal Mail are insisting that the walk seqeuencing machines have to run on Saturdays, in any case if revisons are introduced based on what happens with regards to walk seqeuencing then you would possibly not have the hours on saturdays to deal with the IPS and prep even if Royal Mail agreed not to run the walk seqeuencing machines after 0600 on Saturdays. ( which they incidentally are saying they will never agree to ) So the CWU are stating that they want everyone to work less saturdays then now ie one Saturday off in every 3.

So thats why Saturdays is such a big issue. Its the union not wiilling to agree later saturdays if it does not mean less saturdays.

[DirtyHarry]

Totally disagree with you , what we need is an agreement which is right and if it takes an extra week then I think the members will accept that

If after this ,all our negotatiors believe that no more can be achieved then , yes put it out to the membership with either a recommendation for acceptance or rejection.

Anyone who has been involved in high level negotations in the past know that one move from either side can sometimes result in a domino effect thereby an agreement can be realised.

What do the members get by us simply walking away from the talks now. Yes everyone wants a deal now , but we are in a strong positon in many ways unlike some previously thought that Royal Mail were just waiting to ger Christmas out of the way and then was going to tell the union to sod off , instead they have openly told Roger Poole that they want an agreement.

Hopefully an agreement will be reached this week which is acceptable to the membership. But dont be surprised if after all this that the union decide that the benefits on offer are not enough and therefore recommend rejection. Equally be in no doubt whatsoever if the deal is right they will recommend it to the membership and be willing to front up the deal including putting the arguement on why the issues should be resolved locally and why the option of longer spans need to decided by your own unit based on where your office is to the walk seqencing machine and based on whether you want to maximise full time jobs.

Equally as unpopular as door to door is to some , what other company or union for that matter turns down work ? The fact is that not all offices now recieve 3 items per week , but it is a growing market and whatever the noise is around traffic recording no-one can deny the fact due to down stream access the work in your mail bag is signifcantly less in value then it use to be. Our members are not to blame but its a fact all the same.

Door to Door into workload will mean that Royal Mail will not only have to recongise that it will assist in protecting jobs and will cost them, ( they are already working out a formula ) but it will also cost them twice as they will be paying a delivery supplement for delivering door to door work which means you will be paid twice for the delivery of that work.

Those who claim they are going to quit the CWU if longer spans are agreed or door to door into workload , where have you been !! Door to Door into workload with no loss of pay has been union policy for over 16 years. There can no longer be a fudge on this issue , can you imagine any ship yard , car plant or factory say no we dont want extra work. Once its in your workload it helps to protect your job , providing your not chasing time then why would you not want it. At the moment the belief that the most market share the union can win in the short terms is 5 items in some high profile areas but in the long term hopefully more.

Equally when you lose time on your prep by walk seqencing then putting in door to door into workload will then assist.

Now with regards to longer spans , well under any agreement it wont say any office has to do longer spans . Instead it will say that delivery spans will be down to your office to determine based on local knowledge, the effects of delivery methods , standards, workload., the effects of walk seqencing and most importantly the members opinions in your office.

The impact of the workplan change once you see it will shock you and may then change your opinion. Who knows !!

It's all very well you banging on about, "who else turns down extra work/more work?", but, you fellas are going to have to accept that postal worker numbers are diminishing, and we that are left in this shytehole of a company have to continually take up the slack, and there's only so much we can feckin' do in a day. The sooner people like you, realise that people like us are not pack mules, but human beings deserving of some feckin' semblance of dignity in our work, the feckin' better.
Morale is at an all-time low in my DO, tired, aching, workers, hear nothing but how the next deal is almost surely going to result in them being more tired, having more aches, and could lead them to being thrown on the scrapheap much sooner than they had previously thought.
The last paragraph of your post about longer delivery spans, great news for those DOs with strong willed members/reps, and the equivalent of a death sentence for those that aren't/haven't.

[fishtank]

Who is The Truth?

Thats obvious, Dingo is no more but being a timelord has regenerated into The Truth

I think you may be right.
BTW "the truth"
I don't want 1 in 3 saturdays off.
Many members in my unit have 1 week of in 6,they don't want 1 in 3 saturdays off.
None of us are willing to extend our saturdays and lose even more of our "weekend" for the other 2 out of 3 saturdays.

[mr deeds]

well said dirty harry....the union are telling us nothing...the managers are doing what ever they want(just like before)....it looks like a unconditional surrender not an agreement...the old sort it out localy crap will come out were the weak offices get wasted and the strong are not so bad..the old case of divide and conquer.....there should be an agreement set in stone for everyone equal what ever your office location.

manager should try putting a fe*kin bag on there back not just one day but a month ...see what it's like going home sitting down for five minutes and dropping into a f*ckin coma cos's your that knackered been at rm for a lot of years now shame a job i once loved has become a joke

if the foot soldiers lose d2d payment or forced to take more by another "deal" i think the pec and high level reps should worry when they need our votes..thats if anyone is still in the union!.

listen to the warning boys up at the top f*ck this one up and it's asta la vista

[robd]

the truth,
i think most members recognise that historical problems are going to prove difficult,and with so many functions/areas of the business to address,it's unrealistic to expect a quick resolution.
the goal for both parties is not just about rebuilding trust,but restoring consumer confidence,the fact that RM adopted a policy of non-negotiation with the CWU was the catalyst for loss in revenue/contracts,effectively they have lost business through there own arrogance and bloody-mindedness.
is this attitude still evident in negotiations ?
one of the main issues within deliveries is,DOMs are simply tasked with removing hours from the office,with no consideration to the workplan,and what is reasonably achieveable,this will actually be far worse in the coming months,as the proposed budgets are staggering.
D2D's....yes they are universally despised,and i realise we may not be in a position to turn work down,but are we actually in it for a profit,or just to stop other carriers from establishing an E2E foothold?

[spilie]

i have said it before on here the deal for d2d is done, absorbed the cap lifted and you will be lucky if you see more than £10 after tax extra in your pay, , as for saying we are turning down work and no other company would, well thats sh*t no other company would do all the work we do to line the pockets of thier competitors, and before T MAN`s gang jump in with the regulator says so thats sh*t too nobody at RM HQ has ever tried to publicise the subject because it suits the agenda not to

[woofwoof]

go to 6 door 2 door a week 100% call rate in geo route a weekly payment for delivery staff only problem solved and guess what 100%call rate means no collapsed ,absorbed walks problem solved on door 2 door

[ldsposti]

TRUEBLUETERRIER i like your comments, these whispers are all over and people have had enough, oh the truth reading between lines the after these talks its seems that its going to be local offices to sort any changes out so why the hell are we having national talks, i get a sickley feeling that it is going to be everyman for himself nothing new there then.

[DirtyHarry]

Who is The Truth?

Thats obvious, Dingo is no more but being a timelord has regenerated into The Truth

I think you may be right.
BTW "the truth"
I don't want 1 in 3 saturdays off.
Many members in my unit have 1 week of in 6,they don't want 1 in 3 saturdays off.
None of us are willing to extend our saturdays and lose even more of our "weekend" for the other 2 out of 3 saturdays.

Those silly buggers negotiating even worse conditions for us, will be perplexed by your statement, fishtank. The same silly buggers whom wild horses wouldn't be able to drag their lazy asses out of bed, on any given saturday.

[dpb]

wierdly, and despite the sentiments of the LTB, P K s report could be just the catylist the talks need to move things on.
If people are screaming at Managers up and down the country about some of the things mentioned in this thread, it may jolt some at RM HQ and CWU Towers in to action.

[dvbuk55]

All the leaked news seems to involve deliveries, has anyone else noticed? More D2Ds, longer deliveries, longer Saturdays, park and loop with additional duties attached - is anyone else in RM actually doing anything to create a profitable company?

[DirtyHarry]

well said dirty harry....the union are telling us nothing...the managers are doing what ever they want(just like before)....it looks like a unconditional surrender not an agreement...the old sort it out localy crap will come out were the weak offices get wasted and the strong are not so bad..the old case of divide and conquer.....there should be an agreement set in stone for everyone equal what ever your office location.

manager should try putting a fe*kin bag on there back not just one day but a month ...see what it's like going home sitting down for five minutes and dropping into a f*ckin coma cos's your that knackered been at rm for a lot of years now shame a job i once loved has become a joke

if the foot soldiers lose d2d payment or forced to take more by another "deal" i think the pec and high level reps should worry when they need our votes..thats if anyone is still in the union!.

listen to the warning boys up at the top f*ck this one up and it's asta la vista

I'm in no doubt that the CWU is at a watershed, deal after deal, after deal, after deal, has seen postal workers lose so much, and in comparison, gained so very little. We are now at a point where a hell of a lot of postal workers hate the thought of going into work of a morning, where once we all loved our jobs, and going into work wasn't the chore it is now.
Postal workers doing deliveries have seen their health plummet since that crappy SDD deal was done by our inept negotiators. In my office, we lost 20 walks, feckin' 20 walks in 2003, absorbed into the remaining 30 odd. People are a very pale shadow of what they were pre-2003. There are days when the walking wounded outnumber those lucky enough to avoid the pitfalls the punishing schedules our walks now provide.
If there are senior twonks/managers looking at this, take note, you may think that yet another crappy deal for us, means yet another victory for you, but every dog has it's day, and the more impossible you make our job, the sooner your days will be numbered.

[fishtank]

All the leaked news seems to involve deliveries, has anyone else noticed? More D2Ds, longer deliveries, longer Saturdays, park and loop with additional duties attached - is anyone else in RM actually doing anything to create a profitable company?

Maybe it's only a "half-truth".

[DirtyHarry]

All the leaked news seems to involve deliveries, has anyone else noticed? More D2Ds, longer deliveries, longer Saturdays, park and loop with additional duties attached - is anyone else in RM actually doing anything to create a profitable company?

Deliveries is the more public face of Royal Mail, completely feck-up deliveries, and you have a gullible British public wanting to hand over to the sharks of the private sector.
I believe this has been Crozier's and the government's strategy from the beginning.
As you quite rightly pointed out, there appears to be very little in the way of "modernisation" outside of deliveries.

[Ahebban]

Anyone can do a deal , the reason why its taking so long is the union is only going to do the right deal.

Ah, I see, that would explain why HQ did not challenge RM more forcefully on Phase 4 back in Jan-April 2008 ... they were waiting for Jan-April 2010!

No rush, no rush at all!