Keighley post workers ballot for action

[johnnyp]

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=15874
Keighley post workers ballot for action
Some 140 post workers at Keighley delivery office in West Yorkshire are being balloted on industrial action over Royal Mail failing to stick to the terms of the recently signed Phase 3 of the Pay and Modernisation Agreement.

The terms of phase 3 commit Royal Mail and the CWU to jointly identify and agree local efficiencies through more flexible working.

However, Royal Mail managers in the Keighley delivery office are trying to impose efficiencies without any agreement with the CWU.

The local delivery office manager has simply announced that his office will lapse some delivery duties, and have other posties absorb the work, claiming they only need to “consult” – they mean tell – the CWU about what they are going to do, and not negotiate a local agreement.

Simon Midgley, Area Delivery Sub Rep for Bradford and District CWU said, “The members at Keighley are determined to not be dictated to.

“The feeling is if they get away with this, then what will be next?”

[piranha]

Exactly the same thing has happened at my DO over the last six weeks,
there is no union rep, he left earlier in the year. The so called 'agreement'
has only been signed by the DOM. Good luck to them, I wish my DO had
the guts to do this...

[flimes]

The same things happened in our DO. Few weeks ago managers announced that they are going to lapse one walk in the office and it would be split between the entire DO (Works out at about 20-25 drops each). We're supposed to this while we wait for the mis-sorts van to come in.

So you now have up to 6 posties doing the same road. Some of the posties leave it till the end of the day before doing their bit which means one side of the road gets their mail about 8.30 while the other gets it around 1.30 (This takes some explaining to the public).

We don't have a union rep in our office as no one wants the job after the last 3 reps being bullied out.

[Broxi51]

If you are able to lapse a duty and get it delivered by the rest of the office, who should be doing the job properly, WITHIN your time then no one should complain. If our office lapsed a duty permanently then apart from a really quiet summers day the manager would have to deliver it as we do not have the time to take extra.
I am past caring what RM want to do. I will come in on my time, do my duty properly & finish on my time. If they want to give me extra like they tried during the summer then thats fine but so long as they remember that this will be paid back in the winter. DO THE JOB PROPERLY GUYS. Phase 3 coming to you soon.................

[flimes]

When this was introduced we were told by the DOM that on busy days they would get the lapsed walk covered on O/T but a few days later electoral register letters came which had to be delivered to every house. The DOM still insisted we had to cover the lapsed walk even though the entire office said they couldn't do that and their own walk.

Their were threats of cutting-off but in the end their were only 3 of us that actually did bring back our mail. Unfortunately without a proper union rep, there's no one to organise the workforce and everyone seems afraid of sticking up for themselves.

[dvbuk55]

When this was introduced we were told by the DOM that on busy days they would get the lapsed walk covered on O/T but a few days later electoral register letters came which had to be delivered to every house. The DOM still insisted we had to cover the lapsed walk even though the entire office said they couldn't do that and their own walk.

Their were threats of cutting-off but in the end their were only 3 of us that actually did bring back our mail. Unfortunately without a proper union rep, there's no one to organise the workforce and everyone seems afraid of sticking up for themselves.

We get back to the old old story of the headless chicken. With the lack of leadership and the absence of local representation exactly how were local agreements supposed to take place? There has been a total lack of commitment by the CWU to recognize local difficulty and seem in no rush to rectify the problem. Many on this forum more than a year ago expressed the concern that weak and small offices would be picked off and unacceptable working practices would be instituted and hey presto.