London starts to make progress

[Martin Walsh]

Following on from this weeks joint statment and with the assistance of ACAS London have started to make some progress.

We have now two agreements SE1 and N1, one more of which is subject to members ratiification. On top of that the London Regional Director met all members at Wimbledon yesterday and apologised for the impostion of the GEO Route revison and admitted they got it wrong and wanted now to reach agreement on both clearing the backlog and attendances and workload.

In Wimbledon they have over 100 casuals , walks are not going out on a daily basis , packets date back to october. Car derived vans walks only complete 1 walk per van. Royal Mail have put in double sloted walk frames which make preping a nightmare. Some walks are over 4 and half hours.

There has been progress in some other units. In addition talks should be going on locally. everywhere.

There is a review with acas on Monday and further meetings due throughout the week.

So after 6 months of impostion and after 20 weeks of strike London has taken its first steps in attempting to resolve things. I have to say that Royal Mail"s postion has changed significantly since last week , however there are still a long way to go to resolve all the offices which had executive action imposed.

[The FraudSquad]

obviously just a number of loose cannon colonel kurtz jumped up little general types acting on their own beliefs, that had to be forced into line!!!!!!!!!!

[TrueBlueTerrier]

obviously just a number of loose cannon colonel kurtz jumped up little general types acting on their own beliefs, that had to be forced into line!!!!!!!!!!

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end

[EDDIE 666]

Progress...is that what its called!!!....As a postman at an office where we have been out on the streets since the very first strike i have seen no change at all. All i hear is false promises still no overtime or a return to our old duty structure and now no xmas deal!!!!...what a great agreement!!

[Big Daz]

Yes, that is what it is called.

Progress has begun according to Dingo, but he made it very clear the progress is not complete.

The question is when the progress is finished, will it meet the aspirations of the vast vast majority of affected members?

[Martin Walsh]

Daz that is the million dollar question.

Eddie if your from London PM me your office and we will raise things on Monday. Royal Mail "s comms to doms were not really complete till late Thursday so not all units have had the chance to engage as they have done in the offices which had geo route imposed.

But if you email me I will take it up.

[POSTMAN]

Not happy Dingo,we have to jump through hoops to try to get our 4 day week back,the deal the f***ing scum signed less than 18 months ago.And they want hrs out as well.

And i know what you're going to say,but at the end of the day the deals were signed off,they are taking the piss out of us.

[POSTMAN]

No one can email you Dingo,they will have to PM and go from there.

[dvbuk55]

Not happy Dingo,we have to jump through hoops to try to get our 4 day week back,the deal the f***ing scum signed less than 18 months ago.And they want hrs out as well.

And i know what you're going to say,but at the end of the day the deals were signed off,they are taking the piss out of us.

That will be Royal Mail London doing that

[Martin Walsh]

Postman remember when they took them out they said we would never get them back well we have achieved that. Do we have to enusure workload aliegnment yes we do.

There were 28 4 day week offices in London. 8 still remain as they never took execuitive action in those offices. Of the remaining 20 we have achieved 3 commitments for them to return in January.

However in some of the offices where management removed them by simply taking the rest days as savings and moving walks from an 10 hour day to an 8 hour day we have to ensure when returning them we aleign the work hours to traffic. All 4 day week offices local reps and managers will be called to a meeting next week to explain this process.

Equally we can lose sight of the fact that the majority of other offices in London dont have less than 5 day attendances they supported the strikes too and we have to ensure their concerns are addressed.

[POSTMAN]

What about the local earnings package that is in the P&M deal.

Also my point is,it's about time we started ripping up and ignoring agreements that don't suit us,if RM can do it.......

[dvbuk55]

I think that means you can in the wind.

Of course the whole of the CWU membership supported the strike and the concerns of those people should also be taken into consideration.

It is more a question of aligning the spin according to what Royal Mail (London) are prepared to offer, as always.

[Martin Walsh]

Local earnings should be also be contained in the review every office is having.

I share your frustration and anger at Royal Mail"s breaking all the local pay and mod agreements. However the managers we are dealing with have changed their positon dramatically and that should filter down to every DOM and we have moved more things forward over the last 72 hours then we have in the last 11 months.

This time last week I really did think we were looking at further strike action but with acas involvement we have moved forward in a major way. Still a mountain to climb but intial signs are good.

Unfortnately however the national talks are on a knife edge. Acas will be in the delivery talks on Monday and it will be an important call on Tuesday. Watch this space.

[k979aaa]

Agreements are rules both sides abide by but for how long will that be the case? Royalmail have a record of breaking such agreements such as the 2007 pay and MOD agreement!. While i am not from london it concerns me deeply that national agreements can only secure local agreements and as such national agreements can ONLY SECURE LONDONS AGREEMENT for this has been ROYALMAIL'S policy of devide and rule!.

[dvbuk55]

Here's a snippet for "this space"


"After due consideration the PEC have decided there has been sufficient progress to continue with negotiations which will be reviewed on Monday" - oh "and it was unanimous"