August 2008 EC report

[Geezer]

Targeting the Autumn Conferences

August 2008 Executive Council Report

Pensions/Review on Liberalisation

The main focus this month for the CWU campaign on Pensions and the Government review will be the Labour Party and TUC Conferences. We have organised a march and rally in Manchester during the Labour Party Conference on Monday September 22, starting at 11.30. Although we expect large numbers to come from the North West, it’s vital that we get a good turnout from all over the country. This will be our chance to show the Labour Party and particularly the Government how strongly we feel about the threats to our jobs and the service and to tell them what we want them to do about it. We also want to put pressure on MP’s to sign our Early Day Motion on Pensions. The bigger the march, the more likely they are to listen and so anyone who can get to Manchester on the 22nd should try and make the effort. It may be our last chance to influence our future. We will also be holding two fringe meetings at the Conference but unfortunately, due to the security restrictions, these will be for delegates only.

The fringe meeting on the campaign at the TUC Conference in Brighton will be at lunchtime on Wednesday 10 September. This meeting will be open to all so if anyone can make it down they would be more than welcome.

The other event dealing with our campaign will be the National Briefing at Northampton on October 1st and 2nd. As well as discussing progress on Pensions and the Government Review, this will deal with the CWU Vision on how we think Royal Mail should operate taking into account competition and modernisation. The aim is for the Postal Executive to clear a document in the middle of September which would pose a limited number of options open to us. This will be sent out to branches at least a week before the Briefing to allow for discussion and to allow the Reps at the meeting to put forward the views of their branches. Following the Briefing, the Postal Executive will meet again to decide on a final document, taking into account the views expressed there.

Mail Centre Reviews

At Annual Conference this year we decided that we couldn’t deal with issues such as the future structure of the mail centre network on a piecemeal basis any more and that we were looking for a national approach covered by a national agreement. A meeting took place in August of all the Branches currently affected by the Mail Centre Review programme and this agreed that there would be no more local discussions and that no-one should take part in any management preference exercises at the moment. The meeting also agreed to ask the Branches involved to request industrial action ballots. This was especially necessary in the Thames Valley area as management were proposing to divert mail from Reading to Swindon.

Following this meeting, DGS(P) Dave Ward had a meeting with Senior Royal Mail managers. They were at pains to stress that they wanted to work with the Union and deal with this jointly. They also accepted that they had handled the review in the North West badly and that they would have to look again at the arguments put forward by the Union. Fine words, but they don’t seem to have affected what happens on the ground. Management keep issuing us with unrealistic and meaningless deadlines in the North West and have just publicly announced their final option. This is despite having no real reason to do so and saying that they are still looking at the possibility of keeping a mail centre in Liverpool. Some final option! They are also insisting on pushing ahead with the transfer of work in the Thames Valley. Either their words mean nothing or they’ve lost control of the managers below them. Whichever it is, unless there is a change soon we will be heading into very stormy waters.

Walk Sequencing

Further confirmation that Royal Mail isn’t interested in dealing with the Union nationally came in a meeting we had with them over walk sequencing. The manager there confirmed that they were opposed to negotiating around the draft deployment guidelines we’ve drawn up and only wanted to talk to the Union at local and area level. Our view is that national guidelines are vital if we are to avoid a massacre of full time jobs in delivery with each manager doing their own thing.

As far as the walk sequencing machines themselves are concerned, a further two have arrived at Bristol ECDO, making four in total, and these are now being tested. One is due in Southampton next week and seven at Gatwick the week after. Brighton and Worthing won’t get their machines until after Xmas, however. The machines due in the Bradford/Leeds area will start arriving at the rate of one per week from 1 October. Management have also revised their list of where they think the machines should go nationwide. Around 130 will go into mail centres and 400 into delivery offices. We have yet to see the new list but they have promised to send it to us. They also confirmed that the agreement they got from Postcomm to move the last letter time from 14.00 to 15.00 applies only in the existing trial sites and the area served by Gatwick and nowhere else. Other areas should still be maintaining the 14.00 last letter.

Pay & Conditions

It would seem that some managers have difficulty reading agreements, especially the one on Phase 3 Pay & Modernisation. This states clearly that staffing arrangements in delivery offices should be discussed by the Rep and DOM at pre-scheduled mandatory weekly resourcing meetings at least two weeks in advance and jointly agreed. It also states that any changes to normal staffing should be communicated to staff following the meeting. Joint consultation should also take place on daily changes to traffic or workload if this throws up the possibility of absorbing work. Apparently some managers think this gives them the green light to lapse duties whenever they see fit. It doesn’t and we’ve had to agree ballots in several cases where this has happened.

At the same time, our members have to realise that if, through cutting corners, they show they can do the job in less than their normal hours, then management will try and fill that time with something else. The days of early flirt are gone, so it’s about time everyone did the job as it’s supposed to be done.




Vehicle Telemetry

We had a further meeting with Royal Mail over telemetry on 28 August. Present for the CWU were Davie Robertson, Bill Steel and myself The main item discussed was the draft revamp of the Road Traffic Accident procedure, re-titled the Driving Safely Procedure, which we presented to them. There was some discussion on what constitutes blameworthiness, representation and the right of appeal on blameworthiness but it didn’t seem that management had any great objections to the draft and they committed to giving a response at the next meeting, due in mid-September. What did emerge was that management saw the need for an overarching document that placed the documents already agreed plus the new RTA procedure in a context of improving drivers’ performance and safety and avoiding accidents and which also spelt out when and how interventions with individuals would take place. It was agreed that this would be discussed further at the next meeting.

We were given a presentation on the parameters for speeding and harsh breaking. Telemetry gathers information every second and reports every five minutes. The reports will be made by office and not by individual driver. The equipment will send out a buzzer warning when the speed of the vehicle goes over 71 mph (actual) and a report will be registered if the vehicle exceeds 74mph. Harsh breaking is defined as a deceleration rate of 12 mph per second and very harsh breaking at 15 mph per sec. The equipment logged 10 million miles in July in the vehicles fitted and there were ½ million very harsh breaking events and 209,000 speeding events.

We had a further presentation from another manager on what should happen if drivers forgot or lost their Dallas keys. This leant heavily on the conduct code and also involved sending drivers home without pay to retrieve forgotten keys. To be fair, this received little support even from the other managers present and we made it plain that if this ever saw the light of day it would jeopardise the whole project.

Romec Attendance Patterns

The Postal Executive authorised an industrial action ballot of the engineering membership in Romec over attempts by management to impose an unagreed attendance pattern. This resulted in a magnificent 95.8% Yes vote. Management have now asked for a further meeting with the Union and it’s our intention to present them with a set of counter-proposals. It’s a wonder what a show of solidarity can achieve.

Xmas Arrangements

At Annual Conference this year a proposition was passed calling for the Union to achieve an Xmas Agreement with Saturday 27 December as a non-service day. Meetings have been held with the business over this but up till now they have shown little inclination to support this. This is despite a signal from Postcomm that they would have no real problem with it. Management argue that their forecasts show there would be 17 million items of mail available for delivery on that day. But most of that is downstream access mail which could well wait until the Monday. We are seeking a further meeting with management to try and resolve this and following that meeting the Postal Executive will meet and decide what our next steps should be.

At the same time as turning a deaf ear to our demands on 27 December, management have asked for our agreement to our members delivering door to door in the week beginning 15 December. We’ve told them that there’s no prospect of us agreeing that whilst they refuse to move on the 27th.

Delivery Equipment

PDA’s Management seem most reluctant to get involved in a deployment agreement over these. It’s vital for us that we do get one as, otherwise, how to deal with issues such as what happens if anyone loses or damages one or if staff can take them home or must return them to the office each day won’t be agreed in advance. This would allow management to do what they want on an office by office basis. We’ve written to management pressing for such an agreement but if we don’t get a positive response we may have to withdraw cooperation on these.

Shared Vans In contrasts, discussions around deployment guidelines for shared vans are quite well advanced. Again, one of the issues is should staff be allowed to take these vans home. Our feeling is that they shouldn’t as it exposes them to all sorts of potential dangers. For instance, what happens if you get caught using the van for private purposes or if it’s stolen because you failed to lock it at night? At the moment, the only offices these vans should be used are where there are agreed trials taking place. We have heard of some instances where local managers have tried to bring them in outside of the trials but this seems to be purely on their own initiative. At the moment the Royal Mail board has yet to have the business case for the vans put to them.

Training for Delivery Reps

Following the pilot training courses for Delivery Reps held in July, the Pec training and education sub-committee met to discuss where to go next with this. The meeting was very positive in that all present recognised the need for additional training. A document will now be drawn up detailing course content, length of course and how this could be funded for our next meeting in late September and, hopefully, put to the Postal Executive in October. In the meantime, we are looking to put on a further pilot course although the location has yet to be fixed.

Enquiry Offices

I’ve starting compiling the information that’s coming through on the state of the enquiry offices. We’ve got info from about 200 at the moment and thanks to the branches and Area Reps who’ve sent it in. We’re going to need more than that, though, to get a clear picture and go to management with positive proposals for improving the service we provide, so if you haven’t sent yours in yet, can I ask you to get them in as soon as possible.


Postal Executive
4 September 2008

[johnnyp]

At the same time, our members have to realise that if, through cutting corners, they show they can do the job in less than their normal hours, then management will try and fill that time with something else. The days of early flirt are gone, so it’s about time everyone did the job as it’s supposed to be done.