CWU BT 2010 State of play

[ldsposti]

it's ok to issue this now what about the offices that have completed the revision hq need to get out and see grown men with 30yrs service close to tears when the dom calls him in and says he is useless, And another one who i had stop from walking away from the job, If just by any chance anyone from hq has the time to read any posts on here you should hold your head in shame, two days of talks and what have we got nothing it's a case of last one out turn the lights off because the way i read it it is everyman for himself, My vision for the future within 2yrs there will be no such thing as the CWU.

[mr deeds]

f*ck me i was just about to list billy and dave on the missing persons list!.

[Martin Walsh]

CWU HQs wrote the document and this has come from information supplied by the divisional reps and branch`s. It will form the basis of talks and will provide a reference point for reps and Branch`s.

However whilst CWU have a responsibility to raise this nationally and they have been over the last couple of days. All offices and Branch`s / Divisions have equally got to force Royal Mail to pull back from unreasonable and unagreed changes.

I really do not understand how people can come on here and say that they have agreed revisons which have been disasters and then had managers bullying people but have not requested a ballot for strike action.

If an office cannot stand up for itself against bullying then what hope has the national union got stopping Royal Mail if the membership in those offices have let Royal Mail get away with disgraceful bullying.

As a rep I know we would not allow that kind of treatment without a fight.

If offices expect CWU HQs to resolve every offices problems by remote control without that offices membership resisting than they better wake up !! CWU HQs have not got a magical wand and there are plenty of mavrick bullying managers out there and the sad thing which has always been true is that offices will get rolled over if their members do not stand up and fight and therefore request a ballot in which case CWU HQs are then made aware of the problems and can get involved to resolve them.

So I am all for slagging off CWU HQs when they deserve it but as a rep I would feel I have let the members down if bullying was taking place in an I office I covered and I did not attempt to get the members united and organised against the manager/s who was carrying out the bullying.

[hans solo]

make sure everything in the agreement is applied not just the option of 1-4 or 1-6 sats
they are trying to divide up and pit against one another
ie paisley signed up for this so has motherwell you dont want to be left out
just make sure you know and understand what you will give away
rem 200 quid less tax for a lifetime of s**t doesn,t sound great does it
best of luck ml area you going to need it

[fishtank]

Fair enough dingo and i agree up to a point but the fact remains a large proportion of the membership blame HQ in particular and the Union in general for the "State of Play".
Whether they are right to do so is neither here nor there,the only important fact is that they do.
Some Branches have acted appallingly over the BTA,firstly in their overeagerness to sell it to the membership,secondly in their desperation to implement it and thirdly in their shameful attempts to hide it's failure.

Unit reps in most areas are now dealing with a very different landscape to the one you imagine with little support from either a demoralised membership or an impotent Branch.
I wish i had your troubles or your support to call upon but that's not the case and we must each work with what we have.
To blame individual members or worse still individual reps working in circumstances you do not understand is unfair and...rather pointless to be honest.

[Martin Walsh]

Fish I fully understand that members dont like the agreement , lets face it there has been very few agreements which involved change that members do like.

I understand some reps and Branch`s have not done what they should do. Equally I dont doubt there are a lot of good local reps doing their best in very differcult circumstances and my contribution was not intended to have a go at them.

However I always say this is you want to come on a board like this and slag off the CWU HQs for what is happening in your office than I think it is perfectly reasonable and fair to say exactly what is your office doing about it first and foremost. Now if the rep or members have tried to organise and stop whats happening than fair enough but if nothing has been done then I think it is fair to say that they should attempt to stop it up to and including industrial action.

Fish there are plenty of strong offices in the UK , but they are not stong just like that , it takes work and organisation.

Yes I realise that some members may be pissed off over things but why would you accept things like bullying without standing up for yourselves and your colleagues within the office after all they could be next.

Maybe I been in Royal Mail for too long but when I joined the union was your office first , your Branch second , your divison third and CWU HQs was last. Now most seem to want CWU HQs to resolve all the problems and not to do anything themselves. Well the union has always been a federal union , the power was in the Branch`s and maybe now some people have forgotten that.

[ldsposti]

Dingo & Fishtank both good views, I think there maybe some confusion over this CWU BT 2010 State of play what has been posted are we expecting a reply from rm from these statements if not where do we stand now ?. As for the bullying of staff our managers started on monday but with non union members only a matter of time now before they start on members but i have the know how to defend them without any action taken against them, Now is the time we need strong reps and yes members need to stand up and be counted, We have got to get rid of this fear factor that the doms are putting on the staff then hopefully those at the top in rm may just may think what the hell is going on.

[slave]

As for the bullying of staff our managers started on monday

They usually start on a Monday in our office, continues through the week and finishes sometime on Saturday, it would seem they may be religious as they don't seem to bully on a Sunday...
Of course all this depends on who they try bullying, some are stronger than others, others need the overtime (part-timers) and are bullied into doing it (and yes I've even heard the line "if they don't do it today it might not be available for them tomorrow or the day after etc...")

We have got to get rid of this fear factor that the doms are putting on the staff then hopefully those at the top in rm may just may think what the hell is going on.

I wouldn't hold your breath, Moya and Co. couldn't give a s**t about us, we are the s**t on the shoes of the management.

[ronpetetrevchris]

Fish I fully understand that members dont like the agreement , lets face it there has been very few agreements which involved change that members do like.

I understand some reps and Branch`s have not done what they should do. Equally I dont doubt there are a lot of good local reps doing their best in very differcult circumstances and my contribution was not intended to have a go at them.

Yes I realise that some members may be pissed off over things but why would you accept things like bullying without standing up for yourselves and your colleagues within the office after all they could be next.

Of course we dont accept bullying, thats just silly to say. i fight managers bullying on a daily basis and so do the staff. But its a very complicated situation and managers are calculated and selective. To go to a whole DO at any point and say are we ready to go to ballot is a loser (my area rep is unfortunately correct on this issue). I have exshausted the IR process as i wrote further on in the thread and gotten nowhere. To try and fight and put a stop to a vindictive DOM and his 4 subordinates is exhaustive in itself but to try and get the victimised and scared to fight is even harder.

I think you underestimate the problem in its complexity. I know i try tirelessy with members and the IR system and am on the phone several times a day to my area rep about what is going on, to the point that i feel the poor chap must hate looking at his phone and seeing my number, the point being that we have in reality achieved little and what we have achieved in IR quickly gets forgotten by managers working on a very different agenda.

[hatetheboss]

I understand some reps and Branch`s have not done what they should do. Equally I dont doubt there are a lot of good local reps doing their best in very differcult circumstances and my contribution was not intended to have a go at them.

Yes I realise that some members may be pissed off over things but why would you accept things like bullying without standing up for yourselves and your colleagues within the office after all they could be next.

Of course we dont accept bullying, thats just silly to say. i fight managers bullying on a daily basis and so do the staff. But its a very complicated situation and managers are calculated and selective. To go to a whole DO at any point and say are we ready to go to ballot is a loser (my area rep is unfortunately correct on this issue). I have exshausted the IR process as i wrote further on in the thread and gotten nowhere. To try and fight and put a stop to a vindictive DOM and his 4 subordinates is exhaustive in itself but to try and get the victimised and scared to fight is even harder.

I think you underestimate the problem in its complexity. I know i try tirelessy with members and the IR system and am on the phone several times a day to my area rep about what is going on, to the point that i feel the poor chap must hate looking at his phone and seeing my number, the point being that we have in reality achieved little and what we have achieved in IR quickly gets forgotten by managers working on a very different agenda.

[fishtank]

If we blame HQ we are constantly challenged to do something about it which is maybe fair enough.
If HQ want to blame the membership in any way for landing us in this mess i would like to reciprocate that challenge.
Let's see some leadership,some organisation,some guts and hopefully some glory.
Let's see them take on the challenge of an apathetic membership and turn that around rather than use it as a reason or excuse to do nothing.
It's all very well saying that a union starts from the bottom but we are not a brand new union organising from grass roots level..we are supposed to be a fully functioning Industrial Union with leaders and multiple departments supposedly filled with the best talent the union can find..and a wage bill to match.
Their job is not to bitch about the membership's mediocrity.
Their job is to give the membership reasons to shrug off that mediocrity.

I like this document.
It should,however have come directly from HQ...about 12 months ago.

[music4essex]

Having read the replies to this, I wonder where I am going to go with the bullying harrassment I was dealt with by my dom this morning, Been on this stupid NCI procedure, and basically was not up to his expectations, ( even though I am not last out of the office about 10th from last, then yesterday I cut off at 1.25 should have been 1.15 to take back packets specials back to do , and was still in the wrong even though i said in the morning I am getting out late, rang in at 12.35 and left message on answer phone, today was basically told I am not good enough and he will look to have me moved out of the office after an atos report.

I was in tears to my area rep this morning and next week I am going over to see my union in my own time(while on holiday) to sort this out, but having read reports about higher up managment am I doing the right thing.

My dom even had the cheek to try and turn my partial disability against me.

But what made me so annoyed that part of our conversation was about how to band up I could not belive that a manager on 30 grand can get so sad about trying to save seconds on how to band a bundle up

I am going to try and be a bit quite on hear and put nothing else on until I have some hopefully good news.

TOWIE Mum

[Martin Walsh]

Ronpeter , no one is suggusting that you or any other reps are not doing all they can and yes it is bloody differcult to get results but that is the same at every level in fact it gets worse the higher you go up the ladder to senior management.

Now what you said there sums up the whole issues , you on one hand recognise that where members in an office who have seen what has been going on in their own office wont support a ballot to force management to change and maybe where bullying is taking place force an independent Industrial and employee relations review than what chance has CWU HQs asking 130 ,000 members in 1600 different offices to vote for industrail action to stop bullying .

Now Fish I am not from CWU HQs , I am a representaive below CWU HQs and therefore what I can say , is yes by all means blame CWU HQs for certain things and that is fair enough , but why have so many revisons been introduce with agreement and have been disasters and have increased bullying. I would expect to have seen a lot more unofficial action or requests from offices from ballots.

I do not buy the mantra that people feel let down and angry by the union but will stand by and not do anything when Royal Mail are bullying them due to failed revisons and excessive lasping .

Now I do praticise what I preach and I would not stand by and allow management to do some of things which are reported on here.

I admit their is a balance betwee those two things but I do believe that an office has a duty to react if they think that their is bullying by managers , HR1s etc , and if you believe the revison is going to fail than you should vote against it. However if your voting for the lump sums and the revison you know that the revison will fail than you have to question their logic.

Now this was produced by Bob Gibson as a result of divisonal reports. The talks this week on Wednesday and Thursday were stormy at times but some progress has been made , the Postal Executive will be updated on Tuesday and on Wednesday there will be a briefing of the senior field officials.

Some intresting things have come out with regards to world class mail`s , incentives , MTSF and some progress on the delivery issues. More will be revealed in due course.

[jessicarabbit]

Oh incentives........I smell an offer of £1000 if we roll over and take it like a beach....again

[Martin Walsh]

So if colleague share is dead in the water , than the CWU should be looking to get more money and benefits.

Now I dont say this to scare people but some people do need a realitiy check. Unless Royal Mail get European State Aid by next March than Royal Mail could go into administration as the pension fund deficit demands another 300 million pound payment next April and guess what Royal Mail do not have it.

Now the Union is talking to Royal Mail about incentives including increasing the christmas bonus , other fringe benefits but the reality of the situation is it highly doubtful that Royal Mail will increase any benefits until they know what is happening with regards to the European State Aid.