Union meeting leave ?

[Tommase]

My colleague and union rep wishes to go to the meeting next week, however no one to cover his duty and has been told that the rest of the office must lapse his duty
RM have said that only 20% (or so) of the office are members so he really hasn't the numbers to warrant his attendance to meetings. Any way next topic is non-members suggest they have nothing to so with the union and only members should lapse the duty ! Any feedback would be great

[silly suffolk]

My colleague and union rep wishes to go to the meeting next week, however no one to cover his duty and has been told that the rest of the office must lapse his duty
RM have said that only 20% (or so) of the office are members so he really hasn't the numbers to warrant his attendance to meetings. Any way next topic is non-members suggest they have nothing to so with the union and only members should lapse the duty ! Any feedback would be great

pity all the non members wern't on minimum wage, then perhaps they wouldn't be such a bunch of tossers.

[Bernardson]

"RM have said that only 20% (or so) of the office are members so he really hasn't the numbers to warrant his attendance to meetings. "

irrespective of how many members there are in the office the rep has official recognition and is entitled to attend a union meeting. If they the rep are in any doubt they should contact the branch office immediately.


'non-members suggest they have nothing to so with the union and only members should lapse the duty
That's a good one!
Staffing should be discussed in the weekly joint resourcing meetings between the rep and the manager.
I should think that as we are getting busier on a daily basis no one will have time for lapsing anyway

[POSTMAN]

He needs to get onto his area rep,depending on the meeting he should get full paid release,especially if it's RM /revision related as such.
Going by my way and i may be slightly out here,RM claim the wages back off the union so your managers are talking bollox.
The above is something i heard my area rep mention when my rep was having trouble.

I can't rem the full details as it was a few years ago.

Double check with area asap.

As for your second bit,funny as feck.

[dvbuk55]

My colleague and union rep wishes to go to the meeting next week, however no one to cover his duty and has been told that the rest of the office must lapse his duty
RM have said that only 20% (or so) of the office are members so he really hasn't the numbers to warrant his attendance to meetings. Any way next topic is non-members suggest they have nothing to so with the union and only members should lapse the duty ! Any feedback would be great

Just as a matter of interest Tom, how many of your office are part time and how many full time and what's the split in membership. What has your branch done to engender interest in joining the union? How long have the non union members been with RM and have they ever been union members? I ask only as a matter of interest and to highlight to others what the problems of an office like yours produces.

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

My colleague and union rep wishes to go to the meeting next week, however no one to cover his duty and has been told that the rest of the office must lapse his duty
RM have said that only 20% (or so) of the office are members so he really hasn't the numbers to warrant his attendance to meetings. Any way next topic is non-members suggest they have nothing to so with the union and only members should lapse the duty ! Any feedback would be great

pity all the non members wern't on minimum wage, then perhaps they wouldn't be such a bunch of tossers.

think thats a little out of line there, why should they be on minimum wage? you dont know why some people are not members of the union, for you to brand them all as tossers is pretty harsh, you might not be aware some people might not be allowed to join the union.

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

Any way next topic is non-members suggest they have nothing to so with the union and only members should lapse the duty !

well going by that, then if one of the guys at work needs to take time off to deal with a death in the family and takes special leave which causes a duty to be lapsed then you would advocate suggesting that anyone who is not related to him shouldnt have to cover for him? lots of very valid reasons for people to take time off cant, pick and choose which ones you will cover for.

[silly suffolk]

My colleague and union rep wishes to go to the meeting next week, however no one to cover his duty and has been told that the rest of the office must lapse his duty
RM have said that only 20% (or so) of the office are members so he really hasn't the numbers to warrant his attendance to meetings. Any way next topic is non-members suggest they have nothing to so with the union and only members should lapse the duty ! Any feedback would be great

pity all the non members wern't on minimum wage, then perhaps they wouldn't be such a bunch of tossers.

think thats a little out of line there, why should they be on minimum wage? you dont know why some people are not members of the union, for you to brand them all as tossers is pretty harsh, you might not be aware some people might not be allowed to join the union.

why on earth wouldn't you be allowed to join a union? your dads a sun reader? its a well known fact unionised workers earn more. people who tag along on the coat tails of the majority of the workforce who are members and take the benifits without doing anything to support the union make me puke.

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

My colleague and union rep wishes to go to the meeting next week, however no one to cover his duty and has been told that the rest of the office must lapse his duty
RM have said that only 20% (or so) of the office are members so he really hasn't the numbers to warrant his attendance to meetings. Any way next topic is non-members suggest they have nothing to so with the union and only members should lapse the duty ! Any feedback would be great

pity all the non members wern't on minimum wage, then perhaps they wouldn't be such a bunch of tossers.

think thats a little out of line there, why should they be on minimum wage? you dont know why some people are not members of the union, for you to brand them all as tossers is pretty harsh, you might not be aware some people might not be allowed to join the union.

why on earth wouldn't you be allowed to join a union? your dads a sun reader? its a well known fact unionised workers earn more. people who tag along on the coat tails of the majority of the workforce who are members and take the benifits without doing anything to support the union make me puke.

erm members of the armed force are not allowed to join a union which supports a political party for a start, your branding them all the same, so your saying that on members do nothing to support the union? well tell that to the 5 guys at my office who lost 40 days wages between them supporting the last strike

[twobags]

i cant get over the fact you got a union rep that actually delivers

[fishtank]

I know plenty people who do nothing to support the union...unless you count paying their subs.
Being a union member or not shouldn't lead you to judge people suffolk.
It's actions that count...our non-members have always supported our IA 100%,the fact that they choose not to join is up to them.

[Martin Walsh]

Regardless of whether there are only 20% of members in the unit , Royal Mail recognise the CWU in that unit as the body which they deal with on a collective basis. Obviously my concern would be has your branch attempted to increase that percentage of membership in the unit as nationally the figure of membership is around 80% rising in urban cities to 90%.

Now if your delivery office manager is attempting to make your office absorb that your walk for you to go to a meeting than I think that is unacceptable. Management did try and do that in both South East and South West London recently. Both Branch`s simply said that if management did that they would not hold the meeting and there would be no further revison talks taking place. Guess what management gave in.

Now the other angle especially in your office I would use , is under the IR framework Royal Mail are meant to encourage union membership and support this intiative , what your DOM is doing is almost making the union to be the ones responsible for making them absorb which is not on. Cerntainly flag this up.

Now whilst I totally support your duty not being absorbed I would on principle argue with the non members that they take the pay rises , the lump sums , the shorter working week , the attendances and all the other benefits which the union achieve which flow through to them that absorption of the union duty is their contribution to all the benefits they have recieved including the fact that they still work in a public company despite 3 seperate governents attempts to privitise Royal Mail.

[Martin Walsh]

Cut of King you make some fair comments.

But I dont believe you can speak for all staff as if under the old agreement the average door to door number was 2.2 and now under the new system is 2.9 then it is hardly a massive increase. Certainly not what Royal Mail believe they would have by now.

Certainly some of the Thames Valley hot spots are getting 6 almost weekly but less than a million addresses are getting 6 out of 27.5 million.

Now when people look at what their basic pay is compared to what their average pay is , it would depend on what basis you compare things. Do you think that you count an early morning shift payment but now you start at 06;30 as fair , do you count the fact that door to door was not delivered in many areas during Christmas and that the average sick leave / special leave for postman and women is 10 days and that the leave periods are between 4 and 6 weeks plus others purchase leave.

Wheras the supplement is paid 52 weeks per year and does not change whether you start at 7 or delivery no door to door other than when pay rises increase it.

I have had lots of discussion with postmen and women over the issues and yes some dont see the benefits but most understand it was always going to change and yes I have spoken to some who never use to do it and moan that they have to now and those who use to do a mates walk as well for extra. But overall the deal I think was the right one and door to door going into workload and the unit payment ceasing was never going to be stopped as Royal Mail have wanted it since the 2006.

[Tommase]

My colleague and union rep wishes to go to the meeting next week, however no one to cover his duty and has been told that the rest of the office must lapse his duty
RM have said that only 20% (or so) of the office are members so he really hasn't the numbers to warrant his attendance to meetings. Any way next topic is non-members suggest they have nothing to so with the union and only members should lapse the duty ! Any feedback would be great

Just as a matter of interest Tom, how many of your office are part time and how many full time and what's the split in membership. What has your branch done to engender interest in joining the union? How long have the non union members been with RM and have they ever been union members? I ask only as a matter of interest and to highlight to others what the problems of an office like yours produces.

Thanks for all your responses

All have been part of the union at one time. The office has some 20 + year vets down to 5-10 years. The biggest issue was on the last round of industrial action the regional area rep came (1st and last time ever saw him) threatened us that if we didn't strike we would get no support in the future. This has disenfranchised our unit and as such no support. Usual arguments persist ’what has the union done for us, negotiated pay decreases’ usual spiel.

He prob wont go to the meeting now as the duty will fail and he will be left to deal with the failures all week, he is interested to see what response I got from the forum

[silly suffolk]

I know plenty people who do nothing to support the union...unless you count paying their subs.
Being a union member or not shouldn't lead you to judge people suffolk.
It's actions that count...our non-members have always supported our IA 100%,the fact that they choose not to join is up to them.

ive never understood this point of view. if we were all free spirits where would we be? bring back the closed shop i say. ps i know its illegal so you don't have to tell me.