Our office rolled over again :-(

[savo]

Story so far: Recently the majority vote in office was for a savings proposal involving most of our rural duties having frames re-alligned so that we could also prep and bag up portions of town walks ( to be delivered by 20 hr contract "bag carriers" )

Personally i voted against this, but the majority carried it so fair enough just got to grit teeth and get on with it ( due to start soon )

So today in WTL session, the DO tells us that as well as above we are also going to lapse a town walk permanently - so extra delivery approx 20 mins each..... ( this is the town walk we lapsed for summer savings last year ) so they will have to lapse a different walk this summer presumably.

After some discussion, everyone present voted not to accept this latest "add-on", so union rep passed this onto DO.

5 minutes later, DO calls another meeting, tells us that if we follow this path, the area manager will come down and basically rip hours out and he and us will not have any input into this, would then go to stage 3 disagreement, executive action etc.
After him repeating this scare story a couple of times we have another vote..... surprise surprise, the majority now vote for the proposal that we had unaminously (spelling ? ) rejected only 5 minutes before.

Have calmed down now, but cant put into words how hacked off i feel, both from the blatant scare tactics from DO and complete lack of backbone from some of my "colleagues" - i wouldnt want to be in the trenches with some of them

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Question is why has the rep asked for a vote as at present the National Policy is no discussions over savings. This Dingo is the essence of the problem.

I would suggest going above your rep to area, division and then HQ. Our DO went over the Area Reps head and lapsing was cancelled. No doubt it will come back in some form but at least we are getting an input.

[savo]

I have told a lot of people at work that we are not supposed to me making any savings, but i think it just gos in one ear and out the other with most of em. Our rep is new in job, our old rep has "crossed over to the other side"....

[TrueBlueTerrier]

"crossed over to the other side"....

Why do we get so many of these types of people at the moment. Anyone would think RM are picking off reps to try and weaken the Union.

TBH if I ever had a rep do this I would go back over all the agreements he made and see if there was a conflict of interest argument that could be used to negate such agreements.

[soltan]

I don't see what the big issue is with lapsing and taking hours out etc, I say let them you only need to work your hours and when the office is shambles, quality out of the window, mail piling up and an army of agency not making a dent in anything except the budget. Then those who thought this up will be and you be . People felt they could earn extra with job n knock ie time now that dead and buried, why try and make more work for yourself by rushing just work properly and watch it crumble.

[hairyjack]

Soltans right, just work your hours. Thats all you have to do.

[Martin Walsh]

Its not about working your hours its about whether you have a full time job in the future. Royal Mail have computer packages which detail league tables across the country for prep Ips and delivery time. They target savings based on that. Working your time will not defeat their plans as they will then say your working slower then you should do.

True blue I am not sure if your saying that I am the problem or your pointing out the problem to me. The way I see it is that we have always known that some offices hold the line whilst others becuase of a either a lack of leadership or a lack bone dont. However if the majority of offices hold the line across the country including in the major cities we will be in a position to force Royal Mail into the right agreement for us. Those who can remember in 2003 under SDD we had a number of offices who against the unions policy introduced one delivery. However in the end the majority of us got the SDD deal by not only holding the line but taking unoffical action to get the agreement which included the £26.28 rise and the 5 day week.

In my opinion those offices and branch`s who do not hold the line and cannot demonstate that they have held meetings with members within those offices and produced comms to members explaining what this is about should no longer be allowed to remain as a branch and should be complusory merged with a branch who is organised and will meet with the members and communicate with the members on the bigger picture.

We are playing for high stakes and it really annoys me to see offices and branch`s surrendering savings when the whole point of the policy on savings to make sure that we do not have a delivery strategy which will amount to a part time charter.

[dvbuk55]

Its not about working your hours its about whether you have a full time job in the future. Royal Mail have computer packages which detail league tables across the country for prep Ips and delivery time. They target savings based on that. Working your time will not defeat their plans as they will then say your working slower then you should do.

True blue I am not sure if your saying that I am the problem or your pointing out the problem to me. The way I see it is that we have always known that some offices hold the line whilst others becuase of a either a lack of leadership or a lack bone dont. However if the majority of offices hold the line across the country including in the major cities we will be in a position to force Royal Mail into the right agreement for us. Those who can remember in 2003 under SDD we had a number of offices who against the unions policy introduced one delivery. However in the end the majority of us got the SDD deal by not only holding the line but taking unoffical action to get the agreement which included the £26.28 rise and the 5 day week.

In my opinion those offices and branch`s who do not hold the line and cannot demonstate that they have held meetings with members within those offices and produced comms to members explaining what this is about should no longer be allowed to remain as a branch and should be complusory merged with a branch who is organised and will meet with the members and communicate with the members on the bigger picture.

We are playing for high stakes and it really annoys me to see offices and branch`s surrendering savings when the whole point of the policy on savings to make sure that we do not have a delivery strategy which will amount to a part time charter.

I find your post a little disingenuous with regard to part time hours. Buying down of hours is still on the table TODAY - has that method been disagreed by HQ? During the 50/50 savings regime countless hours were lost to part time duties replacing full time ones, all with union agreement because the hours had to be signed off by BOTH parties. All new starters in my office for at least 3 years have been part time with hours between 20 to 30 hours a week.

I couldn't agree more that the workings of local branches need to be looked at very carefully and minutes of meetings be available to all branch members - a recent discussion with a member of the local branch suggested that RM will do whatever they want and that it is better to just go along with it so that there is some semblance of input and to me that is capitulation not representation. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to justify support when I find that there is very little altruism in representing the members these days.

[Martin Walsh]

Dvbuk the policy is no agreement to any savings and that means buy down of hours. With regards to Royal Mail only recuiting less than full time duties that is exactly why we need to make the stand now. This union has part time members a signifcant number who want a full time job. Royal Mail`s automation stategy which is based on 40% of work not arriving in delivery offices until after 10 00 and with a last letter will mean that part timers will be target to reduce their hours as much as full time duties.

Remember Royal Mails delivery model is based on the Dutch delivery model which has 84% part timers who have a maximum contract of 16 hours.

[POSTMAN]

Remember Royal Mails delivery model is based on the Dutch delivery model which has 84% part timers who have a maximum contract of 16 hours.

We that doesn't make sence then,with peggy the walks are all being put up to 3-30+,how will part timers deliver them?

[Martin Walsh]

Postman automation is not yet in apart from Gatwick Bristol and the preivous trial sites. So the 60 /40 split will not be introduced until your area has walk sequencing. Remember Royal Mail has a 5 phase strategy and has walk sequencing at phase 3 , phase 1 is geo route and the indoor workload tool. Which your area along with most areas have Royal Mail have targeted their high impact offices.

In Gatwick the trial office for walk sequence then the 60 /40 split is being proposed now and will increase part timers by a signifcant number.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

True blue I am not sure if your saying that I am the problem or your pointing out the problem to me.

The 2nd - You by the act of posting your comments and stating the CWUs official line are actually helping strengthen local units that are not being as well served as those in London apparently are.

For one you may have read the Huddersfield report, well me remembering one of your posts on here and informing my sub rep, enabled him to knock back the enforced lapsing and, despite incorrect information from the Area Rep, (corrected by the Div Rep) it strengthened our position and ultimately led to a good outcome.

So a personal and big thank you from me, and from Huddersfields posties.

[ronpetetrevchris]

Savo the line about your area getting involved and then ripping your office to shreds, they tried the same line with me 2 months ago. I still am refusing the lapsing and savings. They also tried the lets have an office vote route, i said you can have a vote if you want but seeing as im the rep, i wont sign it and therefore it dosent stand.

Standar4d lines dont fall for them, you have every right to feel let down my advice - you sound like you have your head on right go for rep.

[savo]

might be a development on this as apparently the rep asked those who were not present at the meeting for their verdict, dont want to speak too soon, but the count is a lot closer and the good guys may even be winning now

DOM not in today so its a bit hush hush as they dont want to pre-warn him.

[dvbuk55]

Dvbuk the policy is no agreement to any savings and that means buy down of hours. With regards to Royal Mail only recuiting less than full time duties that is exactly why we need to make the stand now. This union has part time members a signifcant number who want a full time job. Royal Mail`s automation stategy which is based on 40% of work not arriving in delivery offices until after 10 00 and with a last letter will mean that part timers will be target to reduce their hours as much as full time duties.

Remember Royal Mails delivery model is based on the Dutch delivery model which has 84% part timers who have a maximum contract of 16 hours.

That is the line now dingo. But we cannot ignore the complicity with RM over savings, buy down of hours and short hour contracts. It's a little 11th hour to start saying no savings when the die has already been cast from previous experience. Just as a matter of interest has the no Buy Down been publicised as part of the no savings because either the branch haven't been informed or are ignoring it.