National Guidelines for the Planned Industrial Action 2009

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National Guidelines for the Planned Industrial Action 2009

The following Guidelines have been produced to assist Branch Representatives and provide more detailed guidance on the Action that has been planned on a Functional/Site specific basis.

Functional/Site Specific

The clarification of the above is - all Royal Mail Employees/CWU members (regardless of grade e.g. OPG, LA, Mail Screener, Engineer, MT members etc) employed on the Site irrespective of their function.

Example 1:
Mail Centre/Network Action Day

A Mail Centre may have a Delivery, Distribution and Network function on the same Site. In these instances all of the members from these four functions would be involved in the Industrial Action on the days scheduled for the Mail Centres/Network Strike but will not be expected to take Action on the days scheduled for Delivery, MDECs, Collection Hubs and MTWs on separate sites.

Example 2:
Delivery, MDECs, Collection Hubs and MTWs on Separate Sites Action Day

A Delivery Office may also have a Distribution function, Collection Hub or MTW on site. In this instance again the members from all of these functions would be scheduled to take Action on the days scheduled for Deliveries.

Example 3:
Mail Centres/Network Action Day

Airports, International (HWDC) and Walk Bundling Centres on separate Sites would be due to take Action on the days scheduled for Mail Centres/Network.

Example 4:
Walk Bundling Centres which are Co-located

Where a Walk Bundling Centre is on the same Site as a Delivery Office, Mail Centre or Network Unit the members would be scheduled to take Action on the days scheduled for Delivery/MDECs or Mail Centre/Network Units as appropriate i.e. the same principle applies as outlined in Example 1 and 2.


Rotations

Where members rotate weekly between functions for example Mail Centres and Delivery they will be due to be involved in the Action scheduled for the offices they are working in on that particular week.

Example:
Week 1 working in a Delivery office, Week 2 working on a Mail Centre Site for Distribution. The Action taken would be in line with Deliveries in the first week and Mail Centres in the second week.

Total Action

The planned Action is scheduled to ensure that no individual is required to be on strike for more than 24 hours in a week.

Programme of Action

We have detailed below the initial Programme of scheduled Function/Site Action.


Mail Centres/Network

All duties, Scheduled Attendance and overtime commencing at or after 04.00 Thursday 22nd October 2009 and before 04.00 Friday 23rd October 2009.

Delivery, MDECs, Collection Hubs and MTWs on Separate Sites

All duties, Scheduled Attendance and overtime commencing at or after 21.00 Thursday 22nd October 2009 and before 21.00 Friday 23rd October 2009.


Disciplined Approach/Difficulties of Unofficial Action

This planned Action has been designed to have the maximum impact on the business whilst limiting the loss of pay to our members. If carried out as planned it should cause major disruption to the service and put pressure on the business for meaningful negotiations with the Union.

There are however clearly many issues that will arise that could, if not managed in a disciplined way, lead to unnecessary difficulties. We have listed below a number of examples that immediately spring to mind:

• Representatives will already be aware from previous strikes that members have been finishing their shifts while other members are still on strike due to the varied shifts not all commencing at the same time. This will still be the case and it is imperative that we continue to avoid this leading to Unofficial Action because picket lines have put undue pressure on members who are actually due to be at work in line with the strike scheduled by the Union.


• Picket lines must also be organised to ensure that they do not put pressure on drivers who are not due to be taking Action when they visit a site that is on strike in the course of their duty i.e. the picket line should be stood down as appropriate.

• With the Functional/Site Specific Strikes planned, it must be recognised that members of the same Branch in the same area may be due to work while others are on strike e.g. the Mail Centre and attached Delivery Unit may be on strike while the neighbouring separate Delivery Offices are due to be at work. This could lead to management asking our members to go and work in the office that is on strike which, although we appreciate will be very contentious, Union discipline again must be maintained to prevent unnecessary problems.

• Transfers of traffic from one office to another office will also clearly be an avenue that may be explored by the business without any consultation or agreement in an attempt to disrupt our disciplined Action.

• The illegal use of agency staff will of course be challenged but clearly the business will seek to use agency staff before and after each strike and throughout the period in offices that are still due to be operationally working.

• Management will also continue to use casuals wherever they can so that they can keep overtime at minimum levels to wind our members up further but again we need to avoid Unofficial Action over these issues at this point in time.

We fully appreciate that the above may be difficult for everyone to manage but it is essential that we do if we want the Action to work and hit Royal Mail where it hurts.

Additional Enquiries

If Branch Representatives still need further clarification on any points they should in the first instance contact their Divisional Representative or Regional Secretary who should be able to provide the appropriate advice.
National Postal Executive