LTB 379/18 Royal Mail: Four Pillars Agreement - 40 Minute Reduction in the Working Week for Manual Data Entry Centres (MDEC's)

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LTB 379/18 Royal Mail: Four Pillars Agreement - 40 Minute Reduction in the Working Week for Manual Data Entry Centres (MDEC's)

No. 379/2018

29th June 2018



Dear Colleagues

ROYAL MAIL: FOUR PILLARS AGREEMENT – 40 MINUTE REDUCTION IN THE WORKING WEEK FOR MANUAL DATA ENTRY CENTRES (MDEC’s)

Branches will be aware that paragraph 16.2.4 of the Four Pillars of Security National Agreement related to achieving a reduction in the working week for the MDEC function of 40 minutes from 2nd July 2018.

In particular the agreement stated “In recognition of the pay differential between the MDEC grade and other grades, there is a commitment to advance a 40 minute reduction of the SWW to be deployed from 2nd July 2018 subject to achieving jointly agreed efficiency of 950 Gross Tasks Per Hour (GTPH) with a further one hour reduction being implemented in line with national agreements from 1st October 2018”.

The three MDEC sites (Farnworth, Plymouth and Stoke) now process an average of circa 8.6 million items per week as opposed to an average of 27.5 million in 2013. As a result and given the stretching timescale for the introduction of the first 40 minute reduction, it was obvious that major revision work was needed across the network. It was therefore important that both parties worked jointly at pace whilst ensuring there was full involvement at all levels.

This work commenced with a joint national briefing at CWU HQ on 8th March for the local parties from each of the three sites, followed by briefings of members at Plymouth on 22nd March, Farnworth on 26th March and Stoke on 30th April 2018. The latter was delayed due to annual leave.

Negotiations were then held at a local level with assistance from David Wilshire, Postal Executive member. Jayne Crolla led talks at Farnworth, Paul Taylor in Plymouth, and Becky Brookes at Stoke.

Following the conclusion of negotiations, the new agreed duty patterns were deployed on 18th June in Farnworth and 25th June in both Plymouth and Stoke. There are still some local issues to resolve in relation to the MTSF, bumping exercises and redeployment which are being progressed. The end result is that there are now a total of 314 keyers across the MDEC operation.

To support this negotiation, the enclosed Joint Statement was endorsed by the Postal Executive earlier this week. This confirms that the first 40 minute reduction in the working week for MDEC keyers will be implemented on Monday 2nd July 2018 as per the National Agreement. It should be noted this means a commensurate increase in the hourly rate from £10.31 to £10.51. For our part-time members this equates to a c.1.9% increase in basic pay.

Branches will note that the terms of the Joint Statement recognise that joint work is already underway to implement the additional first full one hour reduction by 1st October 2018. This further reduction will take the hourly rate from £10.51to £10.82, which equates to a further increase of 2.95%.

The “Guiding principles” agreement contains the following clause “The second full hour of the SWW will be triggered in October 2019 at the latest in line with the national agreement or earlier by achieving efficiency of 1000 GTPH. The exact timing will be dependent on the date of achievement.” The Joint Statement acknowledges that joint work is ongoing in order to achieve the second full hour reduction as early as possible.

Members in the MDEC function have accepted many changes over the past few years; consequently the 40 minute reduction and the commensurate c.1.9% increase in hourly pay rates is clearly welcomed. It is worth highlighting that both the Union and Royal Mail have now delivered the first shorter working week milestone in the Four Pillars of Security national agreement.

In closing I wish to thank David Wilshire and our MDEC Representatives for their efforts in making this happen.

Further developments will be reported as appropriate. Any enquiries in relation to this LTB should be directed to Lea Sheridan on 020 8971 7361 or lsheridan@cwu.org.

Yours sincerely

Andy Furey

Assistant Secretary

18LTB379 – Royal Mail – Four Pillars Agreement – 40 Minute Reduction in the Working Week for Manual Data Entry Centres (MDEC’s)Attachment 1 to LTB379-18 – Joint Statement http://emails.cwu.org/t/d-l-btiukuk-ztkjiuyil-d/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

View Online http://emails.cwu.org/t/d-l-btiukuk-ztkjiuyil-k/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;