Agreement to extend national talks

[snoddy]

dvbuk wrote
"It would be far easier to seperate the wheat from the chaff dealing with each issue as it is struck off the list, so to speak."



Yes dvb, but if you have something to hide better to have as much chaff as you can find.

absolutely, history always repeats itself, put the money on the front page and the shitty stick at the back.

[shimmyrule]

it doesnt really matter what any new national agreement says, RM will only make their own interpretation. anything of benefit to the rank and file members will be ignored.
issues sent up the line to the area reps (who are by and large lazy careerists) will be sent back to local level for discussion at "resource meetings", and we all know these are a total sham.

completely agree,the demise was after the sham 2007 p and mod agreement when individual areas were left to negotiate the best deals with union and managers, where the strong united branches got decent conditions and the rest were shat on.
I reckon the heirarchy need to take a good look at whats going on and put in the work, 52 weeks a year, not just when it matterss.
Best solution is to vote out those who you dont think are doing their bit when the elections come round.
Personally, im sick of the place,

[Cut Off King]

Remember the last agreement that said we would have weekly resourcing meetings between the dom / rep.

I have NEVER seem any of these take place, the DOM decides, the rep grummbles and it happens anyway.

Local Agreements leave the VAST MAJORITY of members at the mercy of RM !

Local agreements allow RM to DEVIDE & CONQUER office by office / area by area.

RM seek to reduce us to the lowest common denominator.

[MinisterofCucumber]

Dingo,

You said, "Fact is whether reps are paid by the CWU or Royal Mail is ilrevalant". I agree, but the one thing all reps of area level and above have in common is the fear that one day they will have to return to their duty. They are prepared to do anything to avoid this.

I think you are splitting hairs when you make a distinction between bringing in equipment and the implications of that equipment. Why would management introduce new equipment if it had no effect on earnings and jobs. Also, the union's support for the ban on private car use does not mean it has to support the use of car-derived vans. Incidently, what are the new products and services RM want to use these vans for?

Thanks for the updates.

[bogstandard]

I do not believe we will be given sufficient time to, read, digest and get all our questions answered.

This agreement is rumored to be the biggest in the businesses for at least the last 50 years. What we decide has the potential to impact on a generation or maybe more.
Call me a cynic or conspiracy theorist but i wouldn't be surprised if we were given 4 weeks to read and ask questions to give us the opportunity to formulate our opinion. Unfortunately we will get the agreement 2 weeks after it was agreed we would recieve it due to printing/distributor errors, and the reason we won't be able to get any joy from HQ will be taken up by birhts, deaths, marriages, hospital appointments, throat infections so they cant talk to you, power cuts so they cant open your e-mail, blunt letter opener so they cant open your letter, and when its sharpened a paper and ink shorrtage so they cant respond to your letter.

We can (and do) bitch and moan all we like but the reality is the silent majority have all the power

[Martin Walsh]

The talks are continiuing and progress is being made. The PEC are meeting on Tuesday for a report, even the PEC have not got all the information on the talks.

Royal Mail regional directors , DSMs , mail centre managers and DOMs and shift managers and line managers have not had an update either on the talks.

The reason being is that Roger Poole who was appointed by Brendan Barber who was authorised by the Government insisted that no comms went out. Acas also advised on that mater.

Yes its frustrating , of course CWU HQs would love to inform everyone of whats happening but the moment they do that then Roger Poole will see that as a fundremental breach of the process. Plus once we did that Royal Mail will then write out and do work time briefs spinning what they believe will be introdued and reasons for it plus their on going budget plans.

ACAS have great experience in resolving disputes which they get involved in and average 90% success. They know if you constantly communicate whats is going on in the talks you start getting pressure from both the members and activists and from Managers and that added pressure means ever the union or Royal Mail become reluctant to discuss certain issues.

Thats why both parties have been asked to obey the secrecy process. However if their is an agreement and i do believe there will be , then first and foremost it has to get through the 17 voting members of the Postal Excutive first then it will be decided whether it goes to a special conference first where it can be ammended. Or if it gets explained at a national briefing then time is allowed for Branch"s to communicate with its members and make their recommendation to the members of their branch . Then everyone will be given the opportunity to vote on it. I think thats a pretty fair opportunity to consider and make your mind up on any agreement.

Now with regards to this tiresome arguement about whether the union should allow local offices to have flexibility or not at local level to represent the members within a unit on what they want.

The two options are listed here :

If you want CWU Headquaters to refuse your local office any chance to negotate on the effects of the agreement ( which a lot on here are seem to be ) then are you willing to accept all of the following being agreed nationally for your office :

Start times , finish times , the same attendace patterns ,levels of part timers , length of delivery span , the equipment you will use to deliver the mail , the earnings in your office , the performance your office will work at , the levels of savings your office will work at , the way you will select leave in the future due to the way car derived vans will be used , lengths of saturdays , the way door to door will introduced into workload , the levels of absorbtion . This list is not exhaustive. Remember if you do want this option this will be non negotatiabel within your unit and will not consult your members on any of those issues.

Or do you want the opprotunity for the members within your unit to determine all of the
above becasue each office membership have different views on the way their office should be designed on.

In the past the second option has been supported by over 90% of the membership. No Branch has pushed for the first option to be supported.

I know if you put that to a vote in my division then the first one would be heavily rejected at it takes away the right for the local membership within a unit to design the workings within
their own office.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

The two options are listed here :

If you want CWU Headquarters to refuse your local office any chance to negotiate on the effects of the agreement ( which a lot on here are seem to be ) then are you willing to accept all of the following being agreed nationally for your office :

Start times , finish times , the same attendance patterns ,levels of part timers , length of delivery span , the equipment you will use to deliver the mail , the earnings in your office , the performance your office will work at , the levels of savings your office will work at , the way you will select leave in the future due to the way car derived vans will be used , lengths of saturdays , the way door to door will introduced into workload , the levels of absorption . This list is not exhaustive. Remember if you do want this option this will be non negotiable within your unit and will not consult your members on any of those issues.

Or do you want the opportunity for the members within your unit to determine all of the
above because each office membership have different views on the way their office should be designed on.

In the past the second option has been supported by over 90% of the membership. No Branch has pushed for the first option to be supported.

I know if you put that to a vote in my division then the first one would be heavily rejected at it takes away the right for the local membership within a unit to design the workings within
their own office.

I think you have fundamentally misunderstood at least my position. I think the Union should allow local consultation and agreements because every office is in a different situation and has different demographics. However nationally the Union I believe should have fundamental principles that MUST be tested, applied and met before local agreements can be put to the membership. The biggest problem with the 2007 P&M agreement was that it was too vague and left far too many loopholes for management to use as they saw fit.

For instance their is no agreement on banking hours, or claw back in adverse weather conditions, yet managers up and down the country are using the P&M agreement to do just that. Why - well because the agreement was so vague that RM push it to its limit waiting for the CWU to jump in and stop it, or hoping that it will sneak under the radar. The CWU believe that if there is no agreement to claw back or bank hours then it should not happen end of.

Well I tend to agree with the CWU it should not happen, but it is and its because of a vague document that they agreed.

So in essence - Yes allow local agreements, but have a binding national agreement that the local ones have to meet before implementation. For example.

1. No deliveries over 3.5 hours unless weight is taken off the shoulder. (even if there is a forced break)
2. No deliveries over 3.5 hours when using manual trolleys.
3. No bolting 2 walking deliveries together to make 1 CDV (2 posties) delivery. Every delivery should be assessed for its suitability before implementation.
4. No deliveries over 4 hours for electric trolleys and plans must be in place for recoveries and breakdowns.
5. There should be a national standard/agreement over 2 drivers or 1 driver/1 walker in CDVs.
6. Allowances for driver in CDVs
7. Work split should be formally agreed in both types of CDVs.
8. How and when absorption should happen - although with CDVs I can't see the point.


I could add more but thats all I can think off at the moment.

[dvbuk55]

I can understand Londons reluctance to accept a binding agreement on many of the issues that have caused division in the union ranks.

I agree with TBT that there must be a detailed framework within the agreement that is an absolute for any local agreements to abide by before local work patterns can be agreed. We should not fall into the same trap twice whereby the agreement is far too ambiguous and there should be a closer look at areas whose union representation is poor of even non-existent and senior officers appointed to assist and guide the workforce into what is and is not acceptable. There should not be a free for all and the union should be involved in local agreements to ensure that there is not going to be problems in the future - after all this agreement has lasted just two years - which speaks volumes about the standard of negotiations last time.

[fishtank]

Totally agree with TBT.
dingo wrote
"If you want CWU Headquaters to refuse your local office any chance to negotate on the effects of the agreement ( which a lot on here are seem to be ) "

I haven't seen anyone on here asking for this.

dingo wrote
"Start times , finish times , the same attendace patterns ,levels of part timers , length of delivery span , the equipment you will use to deliver the mail , the earnings in your office , the performance your office will work at , the levels of savings your office will work at , the way you will select leave in the future due to the way car derived vans will be used , lengths of saturdays , the way door to door will introduced into workload , the levels of absorbtion . This list is not exhaustive. Remember if you do want this option this will be non negotatiabel within your unit and will not consult your members on any of those issues."

How much release time do you think reps will have to negotiate this little bundle of joy at local level.In my opinion there must be about 2 or 3 months work there to do this properly and that is the crux of the problem.We do not have the manpower to negotiate using "several different strands" and the pressure will be on local reps from day 1 to get this implemented.
In an ideal world every local agreement is a good agreement and everyone is happy.
But this is not an ideal world and due to lack of representation,bad representation,genuine mistakes and time constraints there will be i fear as many bad agrreements as good.
That,in essence dingo is all we are looking for.Something that was sadly missing after 2007.
Protection at national level against bad agreements.

[Big Daz]

TBT

There was a LTB last year, spring time I think it was on CDV's, some of your concerns/desires are CWU policy.

It might be on site somewhere.

[Cut Off King]

Now with regards to this tiresome arguement about whether the union should allow local offices to have flexibility or not at local level to represent the members within a unit on what they want.

The two options are listed here :

If you want CWU Headquaters to refuse your local office any chance to negotate on the effects of the agreement ( which a lot on here are seem to be ) then are you willing to accept all of the following being agreed nationally for your office :

Start times , finish times , the same attendace patterns ,levels of part timers , length of delivery span , the equipment you will use to deliver the mail , the earnings in your office , the performance your office will work at , the levels of savings your office will work at , the way you will select leave in the future due to the way car derived vans will be used , lengths of saturdays , the way door to door will introduced into workload , the levels of absorbtion . This list is not exhaustive. Remember if you do want this option this will be non negotatiabel within your unit and will not consult your members on any of those issues.

Or do you want the opprotunity for the members within your unit to determine all of the
above becasue each office membership have different views on the way their office should be designed on.

Personaly I would prefer a national agreement rather that a local one.
That way we are all being treated EQUALY, no office has better conditions that another.
Why should someone work a longer Saturday than a postie 20 miles away?
Why should earnings in my office be less than that in another office ?
We are a national company and I should have the same T&C as anyone else , after all we all have the same basic pay.

I expect the National CWU DON'T want a BINDING national agreement on these issues as that would require them to work a LOT harder to SELL any agreement to the members.

As it is agreements are vague and most members only vote YES to end hostilitys / get the £££ sweetner - THEN LATER they find out what the deal REALLY means to them and they're T&C, then they start bitching about what a SH*T agreement is ( even though they voted yes to accept it )

WE WANT TO VOTE ON A 100% CRYSTAL CLEAR AGREEMENT - NOT A 50% OF DETAILS NOW, THE REST LATER AFTER YOU'VE AGREED

Q- IF local agreements are so good then why don't we raise union subs locally and spend it locally, cut out the top tier and save money
A- Because that would lead to caos - NATIONAL agreements work and LOCAL agreements DON'T

[Martin Walsh]

I feel like some pantomine villian but here we go again.

TBT I was not aiming the comments at you to be fair. There are other posters on here who seem to be opposed to every thing but dont offer any suggustion of what should be agreed.

Every national agreement provides a framework for local negotations. Some of that framework is mandatory ie phase 2 of pay and mod but allows for local negotaions on how those mandatory parts are introduced to take into account the views of the people who work in the office. Surely that is right in a demorcatic union.

Now you mention the banking of hours. But that was not in the pay and mod agreement , indeed the union insisted that the 30 mins flexibility was only once per week and had to be payed back within that week. Banking of hours came about because some offices and areas decided to go further than the national agreement and agree banking of hours over a longer period. I have no real axe to grind over that but of course it depends how tight the local agreement was or whether it allowed management to apply what they have done with regards to the servere weather. But you cant blame headquaters as they didt agree for areas to bank hours.

Nor did headquaters agree for offices to have geo route revisons , indoor workload revisions , longer spans , car derived vans , or a whole range of other new ideas. These were done by the local offices or in some cases by areas regardless of the national policy.

I do agree that the strength of some offices mean that terms and conditions can be better in some offices than others. But surely that is an encouragement for others to take a hard postion. My experiecnce in Royal Mail is that you may not get everything you want when you fight Royal Mail but one thing which is abouslute certain is if you dont fight then you will get walked all over.

Thats why in every area you have offices with better conditions then others. The ones with the better conditions are normally the ones who either know how to do the right deal or management know they wont be able to just roll them over.

Now TBT with regards to you 7 points.

I think 1,2,3 will be covered by any future agreement with agreed guidelines on how car derived vans are introdued, the problem will be that some offices will move to a longer span prior to the vans being introduced as it will suit their protection of full time jobs and the making up to full time of some part timers. Is the union going to be able to stop that if an office decides they are going to do that ?

With regards to point 4 I would agree 4 hours is the limit for HCT which are unpowered but what about repishment time and travelling time ? Would you accept both of that over and above 4 hours ? If you did then protenitally that walk would be 5 hours but with 4 hours from first point to last point. Then 30 mins travelling time and 30 mins plus replishment time. That then would go a long way to protecting full time jobs,. Of course this duty would be schduled a break back at the office in between.

Point 5 I dont agree with , yes there should be a guidelines on all possiblities two drivers , one driver one non driver etc but why should we restirict local offices on how they want to do things. For instance if we say that all car derived vans should be two drivers than what we are really saying is that all non drivers have to do the walks within 1 mile from the office. Now that would in my opinion cause a lot more complaints then the union agreeing guidelines for all possibliites and then allowing a local office to choose what works best for them.

Point 6 - Again I dont agree with this for a number of reasons, firstly how do you think all of those drivers who are not in reciept of the reserved rights payment under the way forward (£6 ) they have been driving bigger vans for almost 10 years without any driving allowance now the moment delvery staff are asked to drive vans an allowance is demanded. I think that any savings from car derived vans ie removal of replishment vechiles , packet vechiles etc should be moved to an increase in basic pay for everyone. Remember the union is looking a simplifing the pay package and improving basic pay by removing some of the more abstact allowances and converting it into basic pay for everyone.

Point 7 that is not something a national agreement could ensure , but it may be something a local agreement could cover.

Point 8 Absorbtion , again I am not convinced this will apply when car derived vans are in place espeicially outdoor. Now guidelines should be introduced on that but there again guidelines were introduce on absorbition last time annex a and annex b but when Headquaters surveyed branch"s most were not using these guidelines and in some management were getting away with murder. Thats why the interim agreement insisted that annex a and b applied in regards to absorbtion. I wonder if units are still using them ?

Cut of king the union gives Branch"s a sizeable sum of money to ensure that members get representation and that is audited.

Now believe me if the CWU wanted to get a no vote then all they needed to do is to say that every office would have to have the same working conditons , the same start and finishing times and the same attendances and they would have no local flexibility. The way forwarded attempted that and there was for a time so much in fighting in the union it was open warfare at times believe me.

It is not the way to go that everyone has to work the same, why would you want to ingnore the members opinions in an office ? Thats dictatorship and is wrong.

[clashcityrocker]

.

Thats why the interim agreement insisted that annex a and b applied in regards to absorbtion

What exactly are these?

[dvbuk55]

Local agreement hasn't worked and no amount of flannel will change that if it had then we would not be in this position two years down the line from the last local agreement scheme.

Get real dingo, local agreement suits the large and militant offices from which you originate but does not suit anyone else.

We went out on strike to get better conditions for us all not to get a better deal for some.

vlcsnap-2009-11-08-19h04m13s11.png

This statement treats us all equally, not by division, not by office and not by area.

[axeman]

They might not have agreed to some of dingo's points but however they sat on it till it burned much like 'nero' our subs pay them they are our servants they must listen to concerns raised by the members and not pay scant regerd to issues throughout the country. It's because of the p&m agreement royal fail forged ahead with sanctions from crazier and our union did nothing now is the time they must listen or they will find them selves out of the nice little earner they are on. A national agreement with some lesser issues to be done at local level but must be rattified at national level ......we work for the same outfit so should be all equal