linkinpark wrote:Big Daz wrote:Some good stuff posted here, well done people!!!!
Linkin Park, how do we get our collective brain working again?
Mandy says he wants us to have rewarding employment, so geting the collective brain in gear is going to be essential to make sure we get what we want across to him.
You know what brother i am at a loss about the collective brain thing. To work well collectively we should be singing from the same hyme sheet, and alls that seems to happen is we were stuck with local aggreements that RM have exploited to the fullest in some offices in the past and are now comming for those offices that have not signed up for the shoddy type of deals imposed on poorly or unrepresented offices and beating them with those same deals. I am enough of a realist that i see there must be some local play one way or another to make the system work in any given area but the major part of the working framework should come from above from both the CWU and RM with a small ammount of tinkering at office level not a small amount of imput from above and wholesale change at office level on an ad hoc basis. Our own leaders do their best to diswade us from being collective by not engaging the membership properly or even communicating about national stuff. When was the last time we had a questionair from HQ asking what we want. They (HQ) have always claimed to be looking after mine and my mates aspirations and yet have never asked us what they are! Why is that? Why are we still affiliated to "New Labour" They aint my party but i wouldnt mind so much if the workers party cared about US but they dont! I wouldnt mind so much if they cared about the Trade Union Movement but they dont! Are we asked about these kind of things? No we are not.
So maybe we should start by finding out what the membership want and expect not what HQ want us to have. After all if my Sisters and Brothers all wanted pay and job cuts and an extra 5 years of work i would not like it but it would be democratic wouldnt it so then i would just have to shut up. So maybe a wide ranging questionair with simple questions not the loaded and confusing ones that come from HQ about all the issues would be a start.
Personally, I think they've gone from one extreme to another. At one time, we had to have "one size fits all" agreements. Now that's great for the majority of agreements. But sometimes it can cause unneccessary problems, when there are operational differrences. For example: The needs of Delivery Posties, aren't identical to those in MCs, RDCs, etc.. The fundamentals are the same. But it's important to be able to "fine tune" things, to make them more effective in different environments.
However: All these Local Agreements, are taking things much too far the other way. The disparity between different Offices, are growing already. Just look at some of the discussions on here, to see what I mean. What we should (in my opinion) have, is the ability to make MINOR changes for different sections, to get the best working conditions and service, possible. But most importantly, keep the fundamentals. Like Wages, Job security, Attendance Procedure, etc.. The same, across the board.
All these Local Agreements, are undermining our position terribly. I may be being overly pessamistic. But I feel that we are getting much too fragmented, to have much control over our own future.
