Have to vote No

[taurus88]

I’ve voted no.

I can understand why people will vote otherwise, they believe this is the best deal we’ll get. They may very well be right.

My vote is as much a vote of no confidence in the CWU, who have not only gambled away our terms & conditions, they have thrown delivery staff to the wolves.

With the trial of new indoor methods, we’re looking at longer and longer deliveries - 5+ hours will be the norm rather than the exception.

And RM has managed to set us all up for the inevitable raft of injuries and IHRs that will ensue - your sick pay and pay off has been ravaged in anticipation.

If we had kept the sick pay and old IHR terms, with the same lump sum and everything with it, I might have voted yes. As it is, I think our short-term mentality will be our downfall, and RM have stitched us up for the years ahead.

[guardianangel]

I’ve voted no.

I can understand why people will vote otherwise, they believe this is the best deal we’ll get. They may very well be right.

My vote is as much a vote of no confidence in the CWU, who have not only gambled away our terms & conditions, they have thrown delivery staff to the wolves.

With the trial of new indoor methods, we’re looking at longer and longer deliveries - 5+ hours will be the norm rather than the exception.

And RM has managed to set us all up for the inevitable raft of injuries and IHRs that will ensue - your sick pay and pay off has been ravaged in anticipation.

If we had kept the sick pay and old IHR terms, with the same lump sum and everything with it, I might have voted yes. As it is, I think our short-term mentality will be our downfall, and RM have stitched us up for the years ahead.

Spot on the exact reason i voted NO,but i'd go further and if they wanted to bring in seasonal hours i'd rather see more innovative shift patterns with maybe a longer shift with more days off,maybe mail in the morning come back take a break and parcels in afternoon,maybe 3 days on 4 off or 4 on 3 off with maybe only working 1 in 2 weekends ,why are we still working 1980's shifts,the world has moved on in the 24 hour sector but royal mail have some dinosaurs at the top as does the CWU.

[LouBarlow]

I’ve voted no.

I can understand why people will vote otherwise, they believe this is the best deal we’ll get. They may very well be right.

My vote is as much a vote of no confidence in the CWU, who have not only gambled away our terms & conditions, they have thrown delivery staff to the wolves.

With the trial of new indoor methods, we’re looking at longer and longer deliveries - 5+ hours will be the norm rather than the exception.

And RM has managed to set us all up for the inevitable raft of injuries and IHRs that will ensue - your sick pay and pay off has been ravaged in anticipation.

If we had kept the sick pay and old IHR terms, with the same lump sum and everything with it, I might have voted yes. As it is, I think our short-term mentality will be our downfall, and RM have stitched us up for the years ahead.

The union are trying to safeguard your job. Voting against them has possibly hurt them, but also potentially yourself too. Nobody wins. Having no confidence in a union representing a job that no longer exists is the very definition of futile.

[thefox]

Yeah sounds a bit like ours we have agency in ours at moment but a few have packed it in already,pretty reliant on people working their days off but we are still failing dutys on a daily basis in what is meant to be quiet period we are a few months into our revision,we don't have many extending right enough think people just can't wait to get out of the place at finish time lots of loops getting brought back.

Do you think that in an ideal world Royal Mail and management would like us all to complete daily, whether in time or not?

Do they not realise how exhausting walking 10 miles+ a day is. Pushing people to rush round or go over time in this type of work is ridiculous. We aren't olympians.

They only think about their bonus they don't give a s**t about any of us.

[taurus88]

I’ve voted no.

I can understand why people will vote otherwise, they believe this is the best deal we’ll get. They may very well be right.

My vote is as much a vote of no confidence in the CWU, who have not only gambled away our terms & conditions, they have thrown delivery staff to the wolves.

With the trial of new indoor methods, we’re looking at longer and longer deliveries - 5+ hours will be the norm rather than the exception.

And RM has managed to set us all up for the inevitable raft of injuries and IHRs that will ensue - your sick pay and pay off has been ravaged in anticipation.

If we had kept the sick pay and old IHR terms, with the same lump sum and everything with it, I might have voted yes. As it is, I think our short-term mentality will be our downfall, and RM have stitched us up for the years ahead.

The union are trying to safeguard your job. Voting against them has possibly hurt them, but also potentially yourself too. Nobody wins. Having no confidence in a union representing a job that no longer exists is the very definition of futile.

They’re not safeguarding your job by making it viable for 12 months, but terrible and unachievable thereafter. The CWU has given us a short-term stay of execution. And the worst thing to consider, given how bad this deal is, is what RM will do in 12 months time when the CWU has lost 40% of its membership.

[Duesouth]

The CWU can only do so much by safeguarding our jobs, but in the end it's all about costs. For e.g if they think the callers office serves no purpose now, because the customer has the technology at there finger tips by rescheduling parcels, sending parcels away then convenience will takeover leaving staff redundant with no work to do within the office. It's a waste of money by employing staff in a callers office that are no longer required as the business has found a way for the customer to get there parcel by other means.

If you look at how many employees royal mail had 20 years ago to what we have now, you can see the staff is shrinking, every agreement the union have made they want you to believe that they are safeguarding our jobs but if royal mail can find a way by slashing hours which is happening now in every office they will slash jobs. Every week, every month all I hear is we have surplus amount of hours so we as a business will have to cut even more duties out of the office. Even though walks are still failing, even though the union said they will put a stop to this but the USO is still failing. I have no confidence in the business keeping to there word and adhering to the new agreement and I certainly don't believe the union can do anything about it.

[LouBarlow]

I’ve voted no.

I can understand why people will vote otherwise, they believe this is the best deal we’ll get. They may very well be right.

My vote is as much a vote of no confidence in the CWU, who have not only gambled away our terms & conditions, they have thrown delivery staff to the wolves.

With the trial of new indoor methods, we’re looking at longer and longer deliveries - 5+ hours will be the norm rather than the exception.

And RM has managed to set us all up for the inevitable raft of injuries and IHRs that will ensue - your sick pay and pay off has been ravaged in anticipation.

If we had kept the sick pay and old IHR terms, with the same lump sum and everything with it, I might have voted yes. As it is, I think our short-term mentality will be our downfall, and RM have stitched us up for the years ahead.

The union are trying to safeguard your job. Voting against them has possibly hurt them, but also potentially yourself too. Nobody wins. Having no confidence in a union representing a job that no longer exists is the very definition of futile.

They’re not safeguarding your job by making it viable for 12 months, but terrible and unachievable thereafter. The CWU has given us a short-term stay of execution. And the worst thing to consider, given how bad this deal is, is what RM will do in 12 months time when the CWU has lost 40% of its membership.

And what do you think the future is with no deal in place and no union involvement in our jobs going forward?

[Woody Guthrie]

And the worst thing to consider, given how bad this deal is, is what RM will do in 12 months time when the CWU has lost 40% of its membership.

Have you considered that the CWU could lose as many members if the agreement is rejected?

If it is someone will have to put themselves in the firing line to negotiate a new agreement, to be honest given the level of personal abuse they've taken on social media if I were Dave and Andy I would be saying thanks but no thanks. Given that they believe this is the best we can get they would carry no weight in the negotiations anyway, they are both fatally undermined by their own position on the deal

So it's going to be interesting to see who wasn't brave enough to come out against this deal but suddenly has a change of heart.

Personally I would have very little faith in a recently converted no campaigner, a kind of CWU Boris Johnson.

The question if this deal goes south is can the CWU actually produce a deal that the members will accept.

If strikes are called there will be a mountain to climb to convince those who have accepted this deal that they should now fight again for something they don't fundamentally believe in.

If you think we would be in a mess with this deal and 40% less members imagine being in dispute with no deal or payrise and 40% fewer members...

What will RM do then?

[Foxel]

And the worst thing to consider, given how bad this deal is, is what RM will do in 12 months time when the CWU has lost 40% of its membership.

Have you considered that the CWU could lose as many members if the agreement is rejected?

The union is already set to lose a sizable amount of members whatever the outcome, if we use this site as a barometer.

I think it is fair to expect in the case of a yes vote there will be more members aggrieved with the union than that of a no vote.

As there are already people in the union who worked during the strikes and voted against industrial action. For the first time, they would be in agreement with the union.

But either way the future membership numbers look bleak.

[Tman]

The union is already set to lose a sizable amount of members whatever the outcome, if we use this site as a barometer.

I think it is fair to expect in the case of a yes vote there will be more members aggrieved with the union than that of a no vote.

Using this site as a "barometer" isn't wise.
Previous campaigns have shown that vocal blowhards on here don't numerically represent the much greater silent majority, and that same silent majority almost certainly have more sense than to ditch union representation.

[postslippete]

Spot on the exact reason i voted NO,but i'd go further and if they wanted to bring in seasonal hours i'd rather see more innovative shift patterns with maybe a longer shift with more days off,maybe mail in the morning come back take a break and parcels in afternoon,maybe 3 days on 4 off or 4 on 3 off with maybe only working 1 in 2 weekends ,why are we still working 1980's shifts,the world has moved on in the 24 hour sector but royal mail have some dinosaurs at the top as does the CWU.

Whilst I agree with the sentiment of breaking up the day so that we are not on deliveries non-stop for 5 or 6 hours; the company don't want us to have innovative shift patterns where we deliver the mail in the mornings and parcels in the afternoon/evening simply as its not cost effective. Some of our duties are rural and takes 40 minutes plus to get from the office to the first delivery point. If they were to do a shift that you've mentioned then they would spend over 2 hours a day just driving a van from A to B, than doing any meaningful delivery work.

I have mentioned that on this forum that there could be 4 day weeks but that would involve a larger outdoor delivery span due to the reduction of indoor work. 37 divided by 4 days = 9.25 hours a day. That's a lot of hours to be doing delivery work and would also mean that the company would need to have more staff at a time when the company are looking to reduce staff.

[scotchy1962]

And the worst thing to consider, given how bad this deal is, is what RM will do in 12 months time when the CWU has lost 40% of its membership.

Have you considered that the CWU could lose as many members if the agreement is rejected?

If it is someone will have to put themselves in the firing line to negotiate a new agreement, to be honest given the level of personal abuse they've taken on social media if I were Dave and Andy I would be saying thanks but no thanks. Given that they believe this is the best we can get they would carry no weight in the negotiations anyway, they are both fatally undermined by their own position on the deal

So it's going to be interesting to see who wasn't brave enough to come out against this deal but suddenly has a change of heart.

Personally I would have very little faith in a recently converted no campaigner, a kind of CWU Boris Johnson.

The question if this deal goes south is can the CWU actually produce a deal that the members will accept.

If strikes are called there will be a mountain to climb to convince those who have accepted this deal that they should now fight again for something they don't fundamentally believe in.

If you think we would be in a mess with this deal and 40% less members imagine being in dispute with no deal or payrise and 40% fewer members...

What will RM do then?

There's still the fixation on what else we can do if there's a no vote.
Why bother having a democratic vote, sure why don't we just sweep it through without consulting the members.
You all know why, it would be carnage for the union.
All of us know what/why we are voting for.
Its in writing on a whole lot of pages available for all to see and digest.
Speculating on the outcome and any possible action either way is just that, speculation.
If you want to know your future either way perhaps the latest news about massive USO failures lets you know what RM think. Its parcels, parcels and more parcels.
Purposely failing to try to rid themselves of the dreaded letter.
Maybe that's the future.

[LouBarlow]

The union is already set to lose a sizable amount of members whatever the outcome, if we use this site as a barometer.

I think it is fair to expect in the case of a yes vote there will be more members aggrieved with the union than that of a no vote.

As there are already people in the union who worked during the strikes and voted against industrial action. For the first time, they would be in agreement with the union.

But either way the future membership numbers look bleak.

Lol this site has 2500 members. The union is 100,000+ strong. Trying to find trends on here, where the vocal minority offer extremist views, is beyond unscientific.

[Foxel]

Using this site as a "barometer" isn't wise.
Previous campaigns have shown that vocal blowhards on here don't numerically represent the much greater silent majority, and that same silent majority almost certainly have more sense than to ditch union representation.

If even a small percentage of those that claim they are leaving leave, it'll probably be the biggest hit to the union on record. And it appears many already have. Add to that the unnatural turnover of staff, I think the picture looks bleak. If the no vote is successful the only way forward I can see is a change at the top. A yes vote looks like the end of the union holding any power.

[Foxel]

Lol this site has 2500 members. The union is 100,000+ strong. Trying to find trends on here, where the vocal minority offer extremist views, is beyond unscientific.

Yeah, I wasn't submitting a paper for peer review thanks. But it is obvious that a yes vote is more detrimental to the union numbers than a no and a no vote is more detrimental to the union leadership than a yes. And we can base that on historical observations if you like.