MAIL CENTRE CLOSURES INDUSTRIAL ACTION/RM MODERNISATION PLAN

[lovejoy]

Dear Colleague,

RE: MAIL CENTRE CLOSURES INDUSTRIAL ACTION/ROYAL MAIL MODERNISATION PLANS

Following direct consultation with the Branches facing Mail Centre closures the PEC have unanimously agreed a programme of strike action during the Christmas period.

The programme covers the following offices:

- Bolton, Coventry, Crewe
- Liverpool, Milton Keynes, Oxford, Stockport

We have already notified Royal Mail of a 24 hour strike due to take place over the 15/16th December at Oxford, further notifications will be issued to Royal Mail in due course.

We have also written to Royal Mail urging them to step back, engage in meaningful negotiations and honour last year’s Pay and Modernisation deal which committed the company to introducing change by agreement.

We have offered to meet Royal Mail over the remainder of this week to resolve the dispute and avoid any need for strike action.

The PEC has also agreed to meet Divisional Representatives next week to discuss a policy of non-cooperation with Royal Mail’s latest round of budget cuts which places unreasonable pressure on CWU members in all functions.

Furthermore, in light of Royal Mail’s continuing disregard for National Agreements, the PEC is instructing branches not to support any further changes which are not covered by existing National Agreements. Any proposals from Royal Mail should be referred through the Industrial Relations Framework.

Further information will be sent out in due course.

Any enquiries on the content of this LTB should be directed to the relevant Operational Officers – Martin Collins, Bob Gibson and Terry Pullinger.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Ward Martin Collins
Deputy General Secretary (P) Assistant Secretary

Ray Ellis Bob Gibson
Assistant Secretary Assistant Secretary

Terry Pullinger
Assistant Secretary

[Big Daz]

Fighting spirit from CWU HQ

Rember everyone the bit about introducing change by aggreement, lets not get all defeatist and upity and start beliving what RML belive that the aggrement from last year allows them to do what they want when they want because it dosent and if all us mbrs and officers and reps stick to our motto of unity is strength we will see off the RML bully boys!!!!!!! :lfo :cfo

We have also written to Royal Mail urging them to step back, engage in meaningful negotiations and honour last year’s Pay and Modernisation deal which committed the company to introducing change by agreement.

We have offered to meet Royal Mail over the remainder of this week to resolve the dispute and avoid any need for strike action.

The PEC has also agreed to meet Divisional Representatives next week to discuss a policy of non-cooperation with Royal Mail’s latest round of budget cuts which places unreasonable pressure on CWU members in all functions.

Furthermore, in light of Royal Mail’s continuing disregard for National Agreements, the PEC is instructing branches not to support any further changes which are not covered by existing National Agreements. Any proposals from Royal Mail should be referred through the Industrial Relations Framework.

[k979aaa]

Now that the ball has been set in motion CWU H/Q should announce a different office each day this week and next!. It now is down to us all to keep the fight alight and our faith in a just and fair out come for all these office's!. LET'S GIVE THEM A BLOODY NOSE!. :cfo & :lfo

[weetrogg]

unfortunatly rm is picking us off region by region,function by function. when they have closed the mcs in the north west,they will move onto the next region and close more mcs say the ne for example, the union their will try to mount a campaign against this but will lose because they will be isolated and left to fight on their own. after they have done with the mcs i believe that they will roll out the same exercise with the do's. unless and until this union begins to act and think as one, covering every member from delivery to processing and everybody inbetween the attacks on our terms and conditions will only worsen, how long will it be until rm come up with the idea of not paying you for your first 3 days sick? or taking away your allowance if your sick? regional pay bargaining? etc etc

[DGP1]

unfortunatly rm is picking us off region by region,function by function. when they have closed the mcs in the north west,they will move onto the next region and close more mcs say the ne for example, the union their will try to mount a campaign against this but will lose because they will be isolated and left to fight on their own. after they have done with the mcs i believe that they will roll out the same exercise with the do's. unless and until this union begins to act and think as one, covering every member from delivery to processing and everybody inbetween the attacks on our terms and conditions will only worsen, how long will it be until rm come up with the idea of not paying you for your first 3 days sick? or taking away your allowance if your sick? regional pay bargaining? etc etc

I agree We've a national union so we should be talking about having a national strike not little regional ones because RM can deal with those but they had real trouble whenever we were all out (to the point that they resorted to legal action to prevent anymore strikes).

[dvbuk55]

The bottom line is the Pay and Modernisation agreement, which many of us on this forum was totally against and which the CWU recommended we accept, was a major disaster. It has opened the door for Royal Mail to assume that everything is in the pot and in truth nothing in the last 20 months has dissuaded them that that is the case. Deliveries have had probably the worst period, certainly in my time, of change, change and change - more work, poorer working conditions and systematic attack by Royal Mail and nothing has been done to alleviate the pressure. When the MCs come under pressure there is suddenly an awakening and a call for Royal Mail to recognise and abide by agreements. Well you know what they say about it being a cold day in hell...................

[Martin Walsh]

Disgrunteled it would be great if it was so easy.

Lets be honest those mail centres and divisions wanted to balloted and the results were a mixed bag to say the least. Some offices didt deliver some did and some very narrowly did. Imagine we had balloted the country as some wanted purely on the issue of mail centres it would have been a disaster.

Now where i do agree with you is that we now need to bring everything back together. The pension issue , the mail centre stategy , the future Royal Mail delivery strategy , Royal Mail`s ingnoring national agreements and they now want to change the attendance agreement and conduct code without renogoitation.

We have to start a campaign which will eventually lead to the achievement of a national yes vote. Part of that campaign must be to turn off all savings to Royal mail who have on average a 10% budget cut in all areas from next april and in some areas as much as 20 %. This revison proposal will be hitting offices in Janauary which is why Royal Mail sent out a prefernce exercise in some areas at the weekend which again breaks the MTSF agreement.

The fact is that it is no good criticising CWU Headquaters when offices and areas dont hold their ends up to the policy of no savings. In fact this union and conference in particluar has argued for years that we didt want to be a centralised union as the power was and should always be in the branch`s.

However it would seem of late to many branch`s have stood by and allowed Royal Mail to get away with what they want and then blame CWU Headquaters for not doing anything. The fact is and its always been the same Royal Mail will bully their changes in unless an area is willing to fight and if your not then they are hardly going to listen to our Headquaters if your area has surrendered.

The fight which is coming and is coming in one form or the other official or unoffical will have to be supported up and down the country.

I have seen and been involved in some big debates at conference and at the northampton briefings and some branch`s dont seem up for the row which is pretty
worring. But I am sure if a campaign is launch and not just by Headquaters but by regions/divisions, by Branch`s, units and assisted by sites like this then we can turn the situration around and get a yes vote but we must all pull in the right direction.

I know that there a few things which will happen in the next few weeks that will assist us as well

[k979aaa]

The fact is the fight is coming to us all not just the mail center's it is now the time we all stood our ground and fight with all our might or lie down and take it up the ass!. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH LET THE FIGHT BEGIN.

[dvbuk55]

Well Dingo, I wouldn't disagree with many of the things you say BUT the truth of the matter is we had a successful strike action last year which, in my opinion, was prematurely curtailed by HQ on the promises made by RM of consultation and involvement - well they do consult, they don't pay any attention to disagreement of course and the involvement comes when they impose the changes. It has taken far too long for HQ to wake up to the fact that RM have no intention whatsoever of recognising any input from union sources either local or national.

[weetrogg]

dingo, i think the national union leadership have to take some the blame because they recommended a deal last year that was quite frankly shite and a complete sell out to all the members who supported the union fantastically, but it is also the members who must take responsibility for voting for it(or not voting at all ) whats done is done but things need to change quickly.

on the nw review the results were as expected, liverpool was close because they had to include four or so delivery offices who work from there in the ballot, the review has no impact on them. rdc are only moving a mile down the road, preston are a receiving office and oldham seem to have accepted their fate long ago.perhaps the most surprising result was manchester mc, which also includes a delivery section and is also a receiving office only just missed out on a yes vote by 3 votes

bolton,crewe,liverpool and stockport will be taking some i/a before christmas unless rm change their stance. im directly affected by this and at our office we have basically been told our jobs are going in june, we have not been given any idea about what jobs will be avaliable to us, how these jobs will be allocated(seniority ?) for 9 months they have been telling us there will be no evrs/vr because everybody will have a job at "their" new office, now the mc manager is telling everybody if the want a vr they can have one. and of course the rm propaganda machine has been working overtime, even going so far as to put a photographic display of our new office up on the notice board, and the area manager wrote us all a letter telling us how good the gym and canteen were

this union needs re-organising from top to bottom, i agree dingo that if members dont start to organize at a grassroots level tihngs wont change, but things need to change rapidly otherwise i fear for the long term future off our union






my caps locks fooked!!!

[k979aaa]

The thing is all the delivery postmen in our office don't think anything will happen to them how wrong they are!. We will all be screwed after the mail center's have been our fight starts now or never. I support you "weetrogg" and all the mail center staff all over the country!.

[dvbuk55]

In order for the grass roots to be organised they need leadership of the highest quality. We haven't seen that. What we have seen is the persistent support for a Government that has in no way helped our cause, a recommendation to accept proposals that have proved to be totally unacceptable and in addition an agreement to Phase 3 which was without justification. It has been an unending period of compromise and appeasement which does nothing to instil confidence in me, at least, that we can rely on this leadership.

[Martin Walsh]

Debuvk I disagree for the grassroots to organise they do not need strong leaders at National Level.

History in this union tell us that. Alan Johnson supported the employee agenda but activists within this union held a unofficial meeting at the TUC and led to the start of the opposition and the evenutral industrial action which defeated Royal Mail`s Teamworking and other plans at that time in 1996.

Activists and Branch`s defeated John Keggies first attempt at bringing in the way forward and when he eventurally did get it through he was finished he got defeated by Billy in the GS election and then by Dave Ward in the DGSP election.

So its not neccessairy to have strong leaders but its essential branchs and divisions put pressure on the national elected offices and PEC and not the other way round as we are the closest to the members .

Now I can assure you that an open document is coming out signed by branch`s and indivduals asking for emergency motion 6 to be activated which states that all members should be balloted on whether we fund the labour party at the next election by march which basically means disaffilaton.

The open document will highlight the reasons why and will have a model motion for branch`s to adopt and it will also be asking for branch`s to suppot and open meeting in January to start the fightback both against Royal Mail and the Government.

This is our the grass roots can be organised and how we have done it before.

[norbert]

unfortunatly rm is picking us off region by region,function by function. when they have closed the mcs in the north west,they will move onto the next region and close more mcs say the ne for example, the union their will try to mount a campaign against this but will lose because they will be isolated and left to fight on their own. after they have done with the mcs i believe that they will roll out the same exercise with the do's. unless and until this union begins to act and think as one, covering every member from delivery to processing and everybody inbetween the attacks on our terms and conditions will only worsen, how long will it be until rm come up with the idea of not paying you for your first 3 days sick? or taking away your allowance if your sick? regional pay bargaining? etc etc

I've seen managers threaten regional market pay in another industry - e.g. there's a lot of unemployment in Newcastle - let's pay them £2 ph - fortunately another Union stopped that - it was a totally ideological and botched privatization - it back - fired in a way as people just used companies as stepping stones for better pay - so ironically the Tories screwed up there - it was all intended to weaken the unions though ( we'd three )

RM's senior management have already tried picking off tough areas - Bristol , Burslem , parts of London , Liverpool - skinhead management go for the hardest scalp first .

[dvbuk55]

Debuvk I disagree for the grassroots to organise they do not need strong leaders at National Level.

History in this union tell us that. Alan Johnson supported the employee agenda but activists within this union held a unofficial meeting at the TUC and led to the start of the opposition and the evenutral industrial action which defeated Royal Mail`s Teamworking and other plans at that time in 1996.

Activists and Branch`s defeated John Keggies first attempt at bringing in the way forward and when he eventurally did get it through he was finished he got defeated by Billy in the GS election and then by Dave Ward in the DGSP election.

So its not neccessairy to have strong leaders but its essential branchs and divisions put pressure on the national elected offices and PEC and not the other way round as we are the closest to the members .

Now I can assure you that an open document is coming out signed by branch`s and indivduals asking for emergency motion 6 to be activated which states that all members should be balloted on whether we fund the labour party at the next election by march which basically means disaffilaton.

The open document will highlight the reasons why and will have a model motion for branch`s to adopt and it will also be asking for branch`s to suppot and open meeting in January to start the fightback both against Royal Mail and the Government.

This is our the grass roots can be organised and how we have done it before.

Good Luck!