What the PEC should decide on Monday

[Martin Walsh]

It is now 3 weeks since the interim agreement was reached.

Very little progress has been made on the national negotations.

Some of the issues which the union are looking to achieve in these talks are :an agreement on no complusory redundancies , an agreed model which sustains full time jobs going forward with an agreed percentage including when vacancies arises, a new process to deal with mail centre closures which offers staff realistic and sustainable other work when a mail centre closes, standardises contracts of employment no more zero hour contracts, improved benefits including improved basic pay , shorter working hours, a system which allows for less saturdays working including maybe restoring a higher rate of pay for saturdays, a payment for change in your unit , better maternity / paternity leave and family friendly polices.

In operations we want a new delivery model agreements on geo route , standards, delivery span , door to door into workload with a delivery supplement being paid , delivery methods , revison process , protection of full time jobs , automation process.

On top of this we want an agreement on MTSF and several other issues.

Whilst there has been meetings nowhere near the amount of progress expected has been reached instead a few in comercial confidence documents have sprung up in Thames valley , Scotland and London which reveal Royal Mail !s hidden agenda which is rationalise delivery office estate and turn full time jobs into part time , have leave within groups of 4 what they call links and absorbtion.

With regards to the resolution of local dispute there has been some progress in some areas but very little in some parts of the country and in london despite acas involvement and countless in meetings we have not moved anywhere.

It has become clear that Royal Mail operation managers Tolhurst and the regional teams do not want the agreement to work and want to carry on attacking the members.

We have done everything possible to move the agreement forward and have not been able to because Royal Mail have their own plans which they know the union will not agree too.

Therefore in London "s opinion the PEC should annouce national action next week and further dates leading up to xmas.

[fishtank]

If the PEC decide to re-instate the strikes dingo,What is the MINIMUM concessions you would accept to call them off again?

[RoyalQuest]

What we need is a statement off acas telling the members/public that RM is stalling and have no real intention of getting an agreement. This could put things back in our favour. Otherwise this once again is going to be labelled a LONDON problem and support this time will be at an all time low.

[RoyalQuest]

Also some might say the list of demands are a little OTT, pay rise, shorter working week, one off payment for change, even more money for working a saturday etc etc. For us workers this sounds great but for the person on the outside(public) they would say these posties are having a laugh if they want all that. You will get no public support with statements like the one you just made.

[Cut Off King]

All this was predictable, even the weakest members in my unit who didn't want to go on strike at all said that we had called the strikes off too soon.

If these lowly OPG's( including myself ) could see this coming, why couldn't CWU HQ & the PEC see it too?

Now CWU reps are getting shot at from both the management & members!

RM setup a trap, and the CWU leadership fell into it ( just like 2007 ) RM are just sitting back and waiting until after xmas to re apply the pressure again.

[rhino49]

Howabout - removal of the "Corporation" status of Royal Mail and a return to it's previous Civil service status with government appointed officers instead of cowboy management. A guarantee of it's permanent position as a public service with all profits reinvested in it's future.

All so called competition to show ability to do end to end mail handling within two years or to pay whatever price Royal Mail requires for final mile delivery - otherwise withdraw their licences.

The equivalent amount to what was unpaid during the "pension holiday" to be reinvested for RM pensioners by the government - it was our money - you stole it so put it back!!!

If we have enough managers to fill backlogged offices with them, then we have too many managers so start pruning - and the first to go should be the ones who are flitting around the country all the time because they are obviously not needed in their home offices.

A no strike deal which allows for inflation linked pay rises and independent adjudication on disputes.

Bonus payments linked to whole business performance paid EQUALLY to everyone. No more bounty hunters bonuses for saving money and shedding jobs at the cost of business quality.

incremental rises for long service and quality of attendance - it's cheaper to reward loyalty than pay for covering absences.

[Night Tonic]

Most of that would mean coming out of the EU and theres no chance of that.

[Martin Walsh]

Fishtank that is not our call it the pecs. But quite clearly the current agreement is not working either nationallly or locally in the majority of places.

In addition now we have seen the Scottish Plan , the Thames Valley Plan and the London Plan we know Royal Mail have a plan for each region which is worst then the saving plans they had for this year and also includes wallk seqeucing.

Royal Quest its not just London it is whether you are going to allow Royal Mail to introduce all their hidden plans and drag out the talks or we put them under pressure.

Some of you might not know this, but their is within Royal Mail senior management a real split. On one hand you have the senior personel managers like HIgson and Hadon and on the other you have the senior operational managers like Tolhurst and Cameron who were not in the national negotations and do not like what was agreed by Higson adn Hadon and are undermining and sabatoging the progress. Further strike action would put those operational managers under the spot light and they would either front it up or cave in.

[baker boy]

If the PEC decide to re-instate the strikes dingo,What is the MINIMUM concessions you would accept to call them off again?

Like so many of my CWU colleagues I do not believe the Royal Mail Management should have been trusted with an ’interim agreement’ which removes our negotiating credibility by removing the threat of strike action.

Royal Mail is, and always should primarily remain a public service.
Many people of the UK support our present cause for job security, to save our pensions, and to continue providing them a service that is dependable and safe.

So if for any reason, striking becomes a action difficult to enforce, or a liability with its detrimental financial effect upon our own members, an alternative way to inflict industrial action should be sought in order to provide a service to our public (without strikes) and to fight any changes for the worse by confronting the bad working policies of Royal Mail that need change.

I believe one very effective way of inflicting alternative industrial action would be a national (open-ended) boycott of ‘competitors mail’.
In other words, CWU members would agree to work, but only process, sort or deliver mail that was genuine fully paid to Royal Mail.
All DSA mail is an abuse that restrains the operational, and profit making capability of a public owned company, and a practise that is presidented by unfair and unscrupulous EU and corporate policy which seriously needs to be re-examined, and terminated.

An official open-ended boycott of competitor mail would bring this scandalous practise of back-door privatisation into the spotlight of the media, and this would in turn force the Government to explain how they justify allowing other businesses abuse the efficiency of Royal Mail infrastructure and staff.

It is also a disgrace that DSA mail is presented to our Mail Centres in need of processing and sorting with much of this labour intensive.
They say we only deliver on the final mile, but this is very untrue. Due to the nature of how the mail arrives at sorting offices, it is very unlikely we have accurate accountability, or receive payment for every item.
Royal Mail is getting well and truly ripped off with this DSA fiddle, and these competitor companies are making a lot of money out of it.

However, a ‘National Open-ended Boycott’ of DSA would expose how incapable of providing a service these other couriers really are, how they take the easy money and give us the hard work, and most importantly it would show how Royal Mail is the only universal service that can work, and how the general public of the UK would actually benefit by Royal Mail retaining a monopoly and the universal service.

Such action of boycotting competitor mail would also be very popular with Royal Mail staff who would find it easy to exclude DSA from the fully paid up Royal Mail correspondence, and the general public would receive the mail that is far more important to them, while the DSA corporate mail, the bulk of which is not so important to the pubic, would fail.

A DSA boycott would be easy to effect, and very agreeable with CWU members and non members too.

It would highlight this unfair system to the media so the Government would need to explain why the public should be subsidising rich corporate people and competitor mail couriers.

It would cause many of these corporate customers to quickly switch back to Royal Mail service, if their DSA fiddle deal was threatened with failure.

It would bring the general public on our side.

It would be Mr. Croziers friends who control the Corporate money pinching companies who would be complaining, and it is these, and not the general public, who are the people we should seek our disputes over.

[RoyalQuest]

Fishtank that is not our call it the pecs. But quite clearly the current agreement is not working either nationallly or locally in the majority of places.

In addition now we have seen the Scottish Plan , the Thames Valley Plan and the London Plan we know Royal Mail have a plan for each region which is worst then the saving plans they had for this year and also includes wallk seqeucing.

Royal Quest its not just London it is whether you are going to allow Royal Mail to introduce all their hidden plans and drag out the talks or we put them under pressure.

Some of you might not know this, but their is within Royal Mail senior management a real split. On one hand you have the senior personel managers like HIgson and Hadon and on the other you have the senior operational managers like Tolhurst and Cameron who were not in the national negotations and do not like what was agreed by Higson adn Hadon and are undermining and sabatoging the progress. Further strike action would put those operational managers under the spot light and they would either front it up or cave in.

Is not Mr Crozier the boss of these 4 senior managers, he has to step in and sort Tolhurst and cameron out, or is he happy that these 2 are causing problems, because he's not happy with the agreement.

[POSTMAN]

baker boy,great post and it is one idea we have talked about on here,and no doubt HQ would not have the bottle to sanction it even unofficially.
I am prepared to go back to my DO and no doubt many others on here would as well and tell our colleagues to not touch anything not RM.
But alas unless we get massive publicity through the grapevine,and at least our area reps giving us the nod,it aint gonna happen.

[BELIAL]

I think thats a very good post. But one bit could be better,and it gives even more weight to your view.

All DSA mail is an abuse that restrains the operational, and profit making capability of a public owned company, and a practise that is presidented by unfair and unscrupulous EU and corporate policy which seriously needs to be re-examined, and terminated The corrupt and obscene practice of DSA is purely the brainchild of this liebour govt. Postconn were given a brief and in collusion with govt ,private carriers and RM they designed a system that suited many purposes.
Private profit up; wages checked and driven down; Union weakened;and public service primed for privatisation.
The EU just set out the general liberalisation requirement, the nuts and bolts were all home grown and with particular calculated results in mind . Ask yourself why the unseemly haste in the rush to early adoption long before the required date. Someone saw the chance of a quick buck and we are going to pay for it

[wardroom]

If the PEC decide to re-instate the strikes dingo,What is the MINIMUM concessions you would accept to call them off again?

Like so many of my CWU colleagues I do not believe the Royal Mail Management should have been trusted with an ’interim agreement’ which removes our negotiating credibility by removing the threat of strike action.

Royal Mail is, and always should primarily remain a public service.
Many people of the UK support our present cause for job security, to save our pensions, and to continue providing them a service that is dependable and safe.

So if for any reason, striking becomes a action difficult to enforce, or a liability with its detrimental financial effect upon our own members, an alternative way to inflict industrial action should be sought in order to provide a service to our public (without strikes) and to fight any changes for the worse by confronting the bad working policies of Royal Mail that need change.

I believe one very effective way of inflicting alternative industrial action would be a national (open-ended) boycott of ‘competitors mail’.
In other words, CWU members would agree to work, but only process, sort or deliver mail that was genuine fully paid to Royal Mail.
All DSA mail is an abuse that restrains the operational, and profit making capability of a public owned company, and a practise that is presidented by unfair and unscrupulous EU and corporate policy which seriously needs to be re-examined, and terminated.

An official open-ended boycott of competitor mail would bring this scandalous practise of back-door privatisation into the spotlight of the media, and this would in turn force the Government to explain how they justify allowing other businesses abuse the efficiency of Royal Mail infrastructure and staff.

It is also a disgrace that DSA mail is presented to our Mail Centres in need of processing and sorting with much of this labour intensive.
They say we only deliver on the final mile, but this is very untrue. Due to the nature of how the mail arrives at sorting offices, it is very unlikely we have accurate accountability, or receive payment for every item.
Royal Mail is getting well and truly ripped off with this DSA fiddle, and these competitor companies are making a lot of money out of it.

However, a ‘National Open-ended Boycott’ of DSA would expose how incapable of providing a service these other couriers really are, how they take the easy money and give us the hard work, and most importantly it would show how Royal Mail is the only universal service that can work, and how the general public of the UK would actually benefit by Royal Mail retaining a monopoly and the universal service.

Such action of boycotting competitor mail would also be very popular with Royal Mail staff who would find it easy to exclude DSA from the fully paid up Royal Mail correspondence, and the general public would receive the mail that is far more important to them, while the DSA corporate mail, the bulk of which is not so important to the pubic, would fail.

A DSA boycott would be easy to effect, and very agreeable with CWU members and non members too.

It would highlight this unfair system to the media so the Government would need to explain why the public should be subsidising rich corporate people and competitor mail couriers.

It would cause many of these corporate customers to quickly switch back to Royal Mail service, if their DSA fiddle deal was threatened with failure.

It would bring the general public on our side.

It would be Mr. Croziers friends who control the Corporate money pinching companies who would be complaining, and it is these, and not the general public, who are the people we should seek our disputes over.

Bakerboy
posted this back in oct and still feel it would be one way to go

: dsa mail, STOP! um
by wardroom » Sat Oct 10, 2009 1:06,pm

Not sure if I am way off the mark here but why can we not refuse to handle any of this downstream access mail, as I see it this is one of the main problems with the financial side of the bussiness.
Let tnt,dhl,uk post and all the other companies deliver there own mail, we all know crozier was responsible for this comming in.
I would be very interested if any one has any ideas why we cannot only deliver our own stamped, ppi mail.
Am i way off the mark, shoot me down if you have to, by the way I have been out every day with my fellow london staff.

[baker boy]

baker boy,great post and it is one idea we have talked about on here,and no doubt HQ would not have the bottle to sanction it even unofficially.
I am prepared to go back to my DO and no doubt many others on here would as well and tell our colleagues to not touch anything not RM.
But alas unless we get massive publicity through the grapevine,and at least our area reps giving us the nod,it aint gonna happen.

I am not asking the area reps to make this decision I am saying that the National union should have one days strike then do no DSA mail until the strike ends.

[norbert]

I think thats a very good post. But one bit could be better,and it gives even more weight to your view.

All DSA mail is an abuse that restrains the operational, and profit making capability of a public owned company, and a practise that is presidented by unfair and unscrupulous EU and corporate policy which seriously needs to be re-examined, and terminated The corrupt and obscene practice of DSA is purely the brainchild of this liebour govt. Postconn were given a brief and in collusion with govt ,private carriers and RM they designed a system that suited many purposes.
Private profit up; wages checked and driven down; Union weakened;and public service primed for privatisation.
The EU just set out the general liberalisation requirement, the nuts and bolts were all home grown and with particular calculated results in mind . Ask yourself why the unseemly haste in the rush to early adoption long before the required date. Someone saw the chance of a quick buck and we are going to pay for it

Exactly - Mandy's fudge - that's how he operates if he doesn't get his own way . His RM privatization was defeated on the floor at the 1998 New Labour Conference - he just finds other attack dogs to do his bidding .