latest argus bulletin

[evilc]

ARGUS
2007 pay bulletin number 92
No Quarter Given

Following Yesterdays decision to postpone any strike action until the 4th September at least we are writing to assure members that this move is in no way, shape or form a climb down from YOUR UNION and it is Royal Mailwho are now quite blatantly on the back foot.

We can all be very proud that the action we have taken has brought Royal Mail back to the negotiating table. Many people thought this would never happen. How many times have we been told by management that ‘the deal is the deal’?!

We have proven all the doubters to be wrong and we have also exposed managements weaknesses when faced with united action. The decision to call off the action was not taken lightly by the PEC. We have to look at the key factors behind this decision.
Royal Mails Attitude
From April we have had letter after letter from Royal Mail stating ‘there is simply no more money’ and there will be no negotiations. From this position they have back pedalled and signed up to a statement that was written word for word by YOUR UNION. This clearly demonstrates who now has control of this dispute.
The Public
The CWU website is now receiving millions of visits per day and the general public are right behind our campaign to save postal services. If we had turned down the offer of talks and taken strike action then this would have put our public support in severe jeopardy.
The Membership
Whilst a large number of members can cope with the financial strains of a rolling dispute, others cannot. This gives us all a chance of some respite financially.

This dispute is by no means over. We now have 3 weeks of in confidence, intensive negotiations. If by that time an agreement has been made that can be voted on by the membership then that is fine. If not we will simply rise to the challenge once again and take action just as mail volumes start to climb into the autumn period.
Keep the Faith
To join our email update system please contact us at chriswebbcwu@yahoo.co.uk
Royal Mail Section
Plymouth and East Cornwall & Cornwall Amal

[pissedoffpostie]

You're also into party conference season and there are the unison and civil service ballots at the moment, the slump in markets and credit crunch mean Leightons continual attempts to launch take over bids for his numerous private equity interests will have stalled as manyof these takeovers are debt driven, we could..and its by no means sure be in a reasonably strong position.

on the otherhand L&C will just use it as a stalling technique..but hey autumn elections mean parties need money for campaigns

I dunno its a start

[mylegshurt]

by stalling as you put it to september doesnt that mean we will have to have another ballot on strike action again.[if thats what it comes to.]just something i had heard,not a prob for me as i would vote for a strike again if nothing gets sorted by then but there are people who might vote the other way this time.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

As far as I know we have 28 days from when strikes were suspended. That was Thursday 9 August - 28 days is 6 September so the CWU should have an idea if enough progress is being made, or they will be thinking about calling a strike for 5 September from about a week before the deadline, giving them the 7 days they need to give RM notice of impending action.

[lovejoy]

there is no set date. After the first action (which must be within 28days of ballot result) the following strikes must take place 'within a reasonable time period' - We have no problems with the legal side. Even if we did things such as Area reps striking for 10mins can validate the ballot, or naming action at 10pm on a saturday night. Loads of ways around it

[mylegshurt]

thanks for clearing that up.