two tier pay deal?

[fishtank]

Rumours are the direct result of an information vacuum dingo, a lesson this union has failed to take on board for as long as I can remember, the problem with national briefings and branch meetings and local meetings is that it becomes a giant game of Chinese whispers, each rep listens, takes what they decide is the important message and then puts their personal spin on it....and so on down the chain until the members get a distorted picture of the situation.

It is long past time that HQ started communicating directly with its paying customers, the membership and stopped hiding behind a structure that clearly doesn't work in most areas of the country.

[daveyeff]

well said.

[daveyeff]

anyways....i'm glad these ''rumours'' have been cleared up!!

[bandit1157]

anyways....i'm glad these ''rumours'' have been cleared up!!

Pssst have you heard this one

[halfull]

All of this is absolute rubbish. No truth in any of this at all.

There is a National Briefing next weds as tensions are rising over Royal Mail's strategy , Unagreed VRs etc. The CWU are consulting our legal experts whether Royal Mail are breaking the legally binding Agenda for Growth Agreement.

In terms of Pay Talks these have not even started. The reason the union moved pay talks from October to April many years ago is RPI is normally higher in April. So the formal negotiations do not start in January.

There is going to be a pay , pension and new Royal Mail Strategy policy forum in March which will allow Branch's to set policy over what the pay claim will be. Equally what should not be included.

Now Royal Mail have not at anytime said they want to withdraw paid meal reliefs. Regardless of that the CWU has conference policy that paid meal reliefs must be maintained.

Now in terms of a Shorter working week well the unions aim has always been to get to a 35 hour gross working week , this would include your meal reliefs. We currently have a net working week of 35 hours 30 mins minus your meal relief.

Every hour off the working week is worth 2.2% on the pay bill as our pay remains the same and part timers increase.

It is high time we increased meal relief time but that it became mandatory obligation. With the introduction of production control and the clocking in system being introduced from later this year this could be possible as it will record all tasks performed.

Equally we should for the first time since the way forward increase individuals annual leave allocations. To ensure they have more time off work.

There is no possibility of a two tier deal one for processing , RDC ,MDEC , LGV. and another for Delivery Staff.

Delivery Staff already have with the delivery supplement being part of their basic pay an high basic than processing , RDC and MDEC staff and secondly there are 88 000 delivery workers and less than 20 thousand of the rest so delivery can always out vote the rest.

Equally in another thread someone has said the CWU have agreed 6 hour delivery spans. Again complete rubbish and untrue.
Equally Royal Mail do not require this at this stage it is only when there is no indoor work and is not linked to one wave introduction. It is part of Royal Mail strategy and it is not acceptable and the CWU are opposing it.

This is the position. No doubt we could all believe rumours and scare stories but the reality is don't negotiate Pay before you spend thousands of pounds having a pay policy forum to set policy.

royal mail have been breaking the Agenda for Growth Agreement since the day it was agreed! Example: not replacing like for like! if a full timer leaves or retires he/she should be replaced like for like! Instead the local rep gets told cant do nothing about it as its happening everywhere! The cwu should have been sorting this lot out years ago! Instead of being lazy & opting for a very well paid easy life at the expense of delivery staff!

[Deadly]

With the introduction of production control and the clocking in system being introduced from later this year this could be possible as it will record all tasks performed.

I'd be interested to hear more about this.

Oh and Dingo seems to come in for quite a bit of flack on here which I think is unfair. I can understand people taking out their frustrations with the union but If it wasn't for Dingo's posts then we would know even less than we do now.

[Martin Walsh]

Fish I agree with a lot you say. The problem is always with in timing , before social media most members would have not heard anything at all. Social media now means that some members hear it before it is even a formal proposal.

That is neither a good or bad thing. Royal Mail formally wrote to the union last week detailing their strategy in writing for the first time. The National Briefing is at the TUC on Wednesday where the two Royal Mail lead designers of the plan will take all Branch's through the strategy and take some questions , they then will leave and the officers will give their view and then Branch's and Divisions will have their say.

My say will be we take a strong line and pull out of all current discussions on everything or trails and say we not having certain things within the plan and then create policy at the policy forum. Any Office that gets a proposal to have one wave from April has to go to disagreement and if Royal Mail take executive action then we have a National Ballot for Strike Action.

Now Halful nowhere in the Agenda for Growth Agreement does it state someone will be replaced like for like. In fact the Agreement your referring is called the Filling of Vacancies Agreement sometimes known as the Stoke Agreement and it does not say that either. It says that both parties should review the need to fill the vacancy and whether the vacancy needs to be like for like taking into consideration a range of things including efficiency , traffic etc. There is no doubt that Royal Mail have broke this agreement on numerous times but equally I know in loads of cases where they have honoured it too.

By the way I get paid by Royal Mail !

[halfull]

Fish I agree with a lot you say. The problem is always with in timing , before social media most members would have not heard anything at all. Social media now means that some members hear it before it is even a formal proposal.

That is neither a good or bad thing. Royal Mail formally wrote to the union last week detailing their strategy in writing for the first time. The National Briefing is at the TUC on Wednesday where the two Royal Mail lead designers of the plan will take all Branch's through the strategy and take some questions , they then will leave and the officers will give their view and then Branch's and Divisions will have their say.

My say will be we take a strong line and pull out of all current discussions on everything or trails and say we not having certain things within the plan and then create policy at the policy forum. Any Office that gets a proposal to have one wave from April has to go to disagreement and if Royal Mail take executive action then we have a National Ballot for Strike Action.

Now Halful nowhere in the Agenda for Growth Agreement does it state someone will be replaced like for like. In fact the Agreement your referring is called the Filling of Vacancies Agreement sometimes known as the Stoke Agreement and it does not say that either. It says that both parties should review the need to fill the vacancy and whether the vacancy needs to be like for like taking into consideration a range of things including efficiency , traffic etc. There is no doubt that Royal Mail have broke this agreement on numerous times but equally I know in loads of cases where they have honoured it too.

By the way I get paid by Royal Mail !

whatever agreement its from does not matter,if it was agreed & has & still is being broken as you just agreed why have the cwu done nothing about it?
And i didnt say who you were paid by, im talking about the top boys in the cwu who earn big bucks from my hard earned subs & do nothing to sort out the current state in many delivery offices.
Im sure they will understand in the future as already many are & many will leave the cwu if things dont change regarding workload. Time for the cwu to step it up or fizzle out into something that was.

[fishtank]

The Stoke Agreement protects hours when there are hours there to protect, It isn't a magic wand that can keep full-time jobs in an office that doesn't have the indoor work to sustain them. It was designed to promote dialogue between management and rep to stop management simply taking out unjustified hours just to meet savings plans but there isn't much you can do with it as a rep if you have a diminishing pot of indoor workload.

If there is a fault it lies with BT2010 and the acceptance of a huge amount of over-complicated workload "tools" and the lack of real training given to reps to understand them. A lot of reps when faced with a mountain of facts and figures that "show" a reduction in workload will just fold without understanding just how much work isn't properly recognized on paper.

[Martin Walsh]

Fish I would agree with you fully. Too many in the union thought we could outsmart Royal Mail's experts on IWT , Geo Route , and Duty Builder. The reality is that for every amendment we did they did 5 more which worked in their favour.

One of the reason why we in London did our own agreement last year based on Weighted Items Per Work Hour rather than EP or BSi. WIPWH suited us better because it gives you a rating for both the indoor and outdoor element. It suited us and is a lot less scientific.

Halfull you have a weird sense of what a union is about. The top of the union does not fight every local battle and no union does that. We have an industrial relations agreement a legal one at that which allows for a local rep to be recognised for negotiation purposes and has a legal right to disagree on issues impacting the members in his workplace including when filling vacancies , there is an Area Rep and Branch structure to support the Local offices and then there is a Divisional Structure.

Nationally in line with the Agenda Growth Disagreements are reviewed and I have to say there not hundreds of disagreements out in offices over some of the issues often quoted on here. Remember management cannot even say we don't recognise your disagreement , there are no longer unilateral disagreements , if one side has an issue it becomes a disagreement.

I get some local reps may not have the support of either their members , area rep , or branch but you can always raise it to the Division or National HQs and there has to be an investigation.

Now you seem to think members are leaving by the bucket full that is simply not true. Of course some will always blame the union for agreeing to any change but being a union does not give you a right of veto. Equally where we do have strikes there are strongholds and in some areas weak areas.

If anyone thinks your be better off without anyone being in the CWU then you really will kiss all your terms and conditions away. Remember members of the union carry non members who are happy to pick up all the benefits without the cost.

[Spedley]

Still, this is all getting off topic. The topic was discussion of a rumour that has rightly or wrongly being circulating.

The union may have put negotiations off until April but the plans are being drawn up now in preparation.

We just have to be careful that the tactic of spreading scare stories so we agree to what they really want and think we have a winning deal isn't in progress. (or is that my paranoia kicking in? :-) )

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Rumours are the direct result of an information vacuum dingo, a lesson this union has failed to take on board for as long as I can remember, the problem with national briefings and branch meetings and local meetings is that it becomes a giant game of Chinese whispers, each rep listens, takes what they decide is the important message and then puts their personal spin on it....and so on down the chain until the members get a distorted picture of the situation.

It is long past time that HQ started communicating directly with its paying customers, the membership and stopped hiding behind a structure that clearly doesn't work in most areas of the country.

Here is a case in point. http://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/communit ... ead#unread" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

1/ 3 delivery offices in our area amalgamating into 1
2/6 hour deliveries
3/ 20% Fulltime and 80% Part time
4/one person vans , no P/L van pairings
5/ motorised HCT's
6/ no Tuesday delivery
7/ 10am start time and 6 pm finish
All to be implemented in the next 12 months ,

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Information Control can be a noble task, but you also need to know when and how to release the information, and sometimes that's quicker then an organisation is comfortable with.

[daveyeff]

where are these ''rumours'' originating from though. the poster who put that up says it was a meeting with the union today. and those were what the meeting was about!! as I said in that post dingo reckons its all nonsense and untrue.....IS IT? we shall see.

[Martin Walsh]

Some of what is posted in there is true , sure there will be further delivery amalgamations . Royal Mail do see just one person in a van rather that paired vans under the strategy. Some will no doubt have an attendance as 10-6. Equally Royal Mail plan includes longer spans and they have said 6 hours.

What is not true is Tuesday will not be cut from the USO. Equally there has not been any set proposals for 20% full time and 80% part time. Equally it is a 5 year strategy and some of the plan is central to purchasing and deploying 20 large letter machines which they have yet to buy.

So of course it is understandable that when you relay a message or report a proposal it often gets things added to it the further the message is communicated.

The National Briefing will have Royal Mail there too explain the proposal and strategy.