Royal Mail spying on members

[Martin Walsh]

Royal Mail have been exposed in spying on our members on their deliveries and on picket lines.

We have an email in which a senior manager offers managers video cameras and cameras for following indivuduals on walks and for filming pickets lines. This is how low Royal Mail are stooping in their determination to bully and harrass our members who are having to cope with not only unreasonable job cuts and outdoor absorbtion.

Royal Mail have taken numerous indivduals off their walks because they could not complete within their duty spans and are now facing conduct code charges ranging from wilful delay to unexcused delay of the mail. In fact an indivdual with 30 years service who was only wined and dined and given his long service award two weeks ago has been taken off the walk he has down for almost 20 years when he couldt complete his delivery last monday and is now facing protential wilful delay charges.

In other cases Royal Mail are removing people from pay for simply not being able to compelete their revised walk and absorbtion.

Royal Mail are treating us like scum and they have the nerve to call us " our people " we will never be their people whilst they continue to attack us and want to destroy us.

[bexhil palace]

Sadly Dingo, i don't think anyone here will be at all suprised.

[dudleylicious]

They've been spying on me for ages with the feckin tracker in my van .

[DGP1]

They can spy on me all they want, all they'll get is me doing the job properly

[andy2007]

Sadly Dingo, i don't think anyone here will be at all suprised.

Yes, we've all known about it for a long time. And not just in Deliveries either. But it's nice to have it acknowledged officially.

[HootyMacBoob]

A GREAT COMPANY TO WORK FOR. In the east of Scotland they have stopped some members pay and have threatened to stop other members pay when they have been on sick with a Dr's line, quoting they dont believe their absence is genuine.Now whilst this is illegal RM know that by the time it gets to an employee tribunal the person will have been been starved back to work or have handed in their notice. RM have decided that as well as being a GREAT COMPANY TO WORK FOR and treat their PEOPLE with DIGNITY AND RESPECT management have now got more qualifications and degrees in medicine and health care that they think they can now decide when you are ill or when you are not. A union is only as strong as management is weak, a union is only as strong as management is bad, a union is only as strong as management is unjust, a union is only as strong as management is corrupt, a union is only as strong as long as we all stick together against one of the biggest and vengefull attacts on a workforce ever known in my time in RM. They say a national ballot is on its way when the ballot paper arrives vote YES for strike action, vote no for strike action and it will be the last ballot paper you will recieve from the CWU.
A GREAT COMPANY TO WORK FOR my arse. DIGNITY AND RESPECT AT WORK my arse.

[pickaname]

Only Police can use video tape to incriminate you. But only if they think you have, are, or are about to commit an offence.

Royal Mail do not have the powers of P.A.C.E so cant lawfully capture your image to incriminate you. Of course if you gave permission or agreed to an image rights payment then Im guessing they could do this.

[stokes11eg]

Yes, It seems royal mail may be breaking the law. in recent weeks in Scotland, a company used cameras to spy on rail workers,theiractions have now been deemed illegal. Still no news as to wether the footage could be used against them at tribunal--but shouldn;t think so. does any one have updates on this?

[norbert]

Sadly Dingo, i don't think anyone here will be at all suprised.

Yes, we've all known about it for a long time. And not just in Deliveries either. But it's nice to have it acknowledged officially.

they tried this on in 2003 , RM believed though the CWU were repudiating UIA , the CWU were actually encouraging it so they decided to gather evidence for a union busting lawyer firm .The secret battle plan was leaked to the Guardian and was all over the front page .

AG's on revision / specific event contracts were told their contracts would be terminated if they went on strike which was illegal - no surprise there , Dave Ward condemmed this disgraceful bullying .

AFAIK this mania for filming was deemed to be illegal , the managers could only turn the cameras on themselves . Idiots !

http://www.rmt.org.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Some information on filming on " Uncle Bob's happy clappy " union site .
that's the industry message board http://www.railchat.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The problem is grey areas so RM will move the goalposts of course as it's always regarded itself as above the law .

I'll be doing some " research " in the pub tonight , I have heard stories of a railway manager on A/L in the 90's using a camcorder and the NUR / RMT had the disciplinary stopped as the tape was deemed to be inadmissible evidence but they got the guy again and sacked him for the same offence - some people never learn ! ,

nice to see RM have gone forward to that era , not quite 2009 yet but it's a start . I'm told they'd too many chiefs and not enough indians then with all the empire building of the worst kind , all trying to justify their jobs - just like RM now .

[brothermagrew]

Shocking and terrible but nothing new, don't suppose there is any chance of the full contents of the Email appearing on RMC is there? Naturally anonymity of sender etc will be guaranteed.

[jcjd]

Only Police can use video tape to incriminate you. But only if they think you have, are, or are about to commit an offence.

Royal Mail do not have the powers of P.A.C.E so cant lawfully capture your image to incriminate you. Of course if you gave permission or agreed to an image rights payment then Im guessing they could do this.

could rm use cctv camera evidence to show a person returning to an office before his due finishing time or would that be unlawfull

[norbert]

Shocking and terrible but nothing new, don't suppose there is any chance of the full contents of the Email appearing on RMC is there? Naturally anonymity of sender etc will be guaranteed.

the links from the last time - RM decided to be The Stasis or as their own union said - a bunch of 70's civil servants running car factories

http://www.geocities.com/socialistparty ... thyism.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/mar/12/politics.post" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A mate of mine who now works for the TUC rang me up and told me to buy the Guardian that saturday - he said that firm is rotten from top to bottom . Some of RM's parroted off quotes would be hilarious if they were not so serious .

[brothermagrew]

Monitoring and security of staff

The laws and penalties for improper monitoring
Monitoring of staff is governed by the Data Protection Act 1998, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, the Lawful Business Practice Regulations 2000 and the Human Rights Act 1998.

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 provides protection from unauthorised use or downloading of publications including electronic publications. The Computer Misuse Act 1990 protects against hacking into computer systems.