ELECTION MATERIAL AGREEMENTS AND LTBS

[TrueBlueTerrier]

No. 257/’09
Ref: LR/DGN
Date: 19th March 2009




To: All Branches




Dear Colleague


Conscience Clause


The Race Advisory Committee has recently been discussing the issue of the BNP and their likely efforts to increase their votes before the European elections. As a consequence of these discussions the issue of the ‘conscience clause’ was raised and the need to make all postal workers, particularly those who work on delivery, aware of the ‘conscience clause’ which allows a delivery person the right to refuse to deliver election material, if the material they are delivering, is considered to be offensive due to personal circumstances or beliefs or where an individual believes that delivery of a particular item may incur personal risk. However the CWU fully recognises the legal obligation placed upon the business to deliver all mail, including election material and that we will do all we can to ensure that the legal obligations are met whilst at the same time enabling those individuals who have a genuine problem to retain their dignity and for the issue to be dealt with in a fair and sensible manner.


The European elections are due to take place in early June so we can expect campaign material to begin circulating well in advance of this period.


The CWU are very keen to ensure that our members know their rights in this respect and any queries in relation to this matter should be raised with Bob Gibson’s department. We would refer you to LTB 172/05, which was sent out previously on this issue and this covers in details the agreements struck with the business in this regard. As a reminder to our members, it should be noted that the objective of the agreement is to avoid flashpoints and to ensure that there is a continuity of all services.

Yours sincerely




Billy Hayes Bob Gibson Linda Roy
General Secretary Assistant Secretary Assistant Secretary

[Midge]

Searched on the CWU site,but i cant find LTB 172/05

No worries. I'm a confirmed kleptomaniac.

05LTB172_National Agreement_Election Material.doc

[Midge]

Oh, and maybe you CWU Reps out there might find these little items quite useful:

CWU Poster - Election Material - 2009.pdf

CWU Special Briefing - Election Material - 2009.pdf

Perhaps we can make this a sticky now?

[johnnyp]

Cheers for that info Midge

[postghost]

Does this apply polling cars also?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Does this apply polling cars also?

Being paid for them - yess - see the agreement earlier in this same thread

[dinnerbun]

National Agreement covering the Delivery of Election Material
1) Introduction
This agreement between Royal Mail and the CWU is in line with the commitment made in
the Pay and Major Change Agreement dated 19 December 2003. It introduces a new
national standard payment and procedure for the delivery of election material as required
by that agreement (see Appendix B section 4 sub Para d).
2) Scope of this Agreement
This agreement covers all addressed and un-addressed free election communications
marked “ELECTION COMMUNICATION” and Poll Cards (excluding Proxy Poll Cards). It
replaces all previous national and / or local agreements covering the delivery of election
materials and poll cards from the date of this agreement.
3) Delivery Specification
Addressed items: delivery to take place within 3 working days from receipt (including
Saturdays). (Except certain elections relating to Europe where it may be extended to 7
days from receipt.)
Un-addressed items: delivery to take place within 7 working days from receipt (including
Saturdays).
The impact of delivering this letter traffic will be excluded from normal workload
calculations.
All other operational issues will be dealt with at local level in line with the IR Framework.
4) Payments
All existing local payments covering the delivery of election material as stated in
paragraph 2 above will remain in place, and in accordance with this agreement, with the
following exceptions.
1. The minimum payment for delivering election material will be 3p per item.
2. The maximum payment for delivering election material will be 6.6p per item.
3. All hours based schemes will be converted to pence per item schemes and then the
criteria in 1 and 2 above will be applied. Where delivery offices have introduced a SDD
revision since the last delivery of election material then the following formula will be
applied prior to the criteria in 1 and 2 above being applied.
Previous no. Walks X O/T hours per walk e.g. 35 X 2 hrs hours = 3.5hrs
Current no. of Walks 20
4. In those Units where there are two payments e.g. 4.5p for the first three parties and
1.67p for additional parties the minimum payment will become 3p with any payments over
this amount being retained.
5. In those Units where there is a mixture of hours and pence per item based payments
the process in 4) 3. above will be followed for the hours based element, with the process
in 4) 4. above then being applied.
Where election material items exceed 20g in weight a further 0.5p will be payable.
These revised payments apply from the date of this agreement and cover all election
material as identified above. They are payable on an individual basis, and are not affected
by any collective criteria/responsibility.
5) Quality Commitment
The payments are based on the requirement that all election material will be delivered in
accordance with the delivery specification set out in paragraph 3. Where the specification
is not achieved for any party/candidate then the payment for that party/candidates
material will not be due.
6) Special Circumstances
It is jointly recognised that Royal Mail has a legal obligation to secure the delivery of
election material for all nominated candidates and parties.
Whilst it is expected that delivery will be made by the individual due to undertake the
particular delivery, local management will deal sensitively and sympathetically with
genuine requests to deviate from this arrangement.
Such cases may arise as a result of personal circumstances or beliefs or where an
individual believes that delivery of a particular item may incur personal risk.
If such instances arise alternative measures will be used to secure delivery. These may
include the use of volunteers from within the office or neighbouring offices to cover more
than one delivery or, as a last resort, the use of supplementary resource.
Both parties undertake to co-operate fully in the application of these principles and in
resolving any difficulties that may arise surrounding the delivery of election material.
Signed ………………………… Signed………………………………
On behalf of Royal Mail On behalf of Communication Workers Union
Signed………………………….. Signed………………………………
On behalf of Royal Mail On behalf of Communication Workers Union
Date ………………………… Date………………………….

[Pinky 1]

Searched on the CWU site,but i cant find LTB 172/05

No worries. I'm a confirmed kleptomaniac.

05LTB172_National Agreement_Election Material.doc

Thanks Midge, you're a star

[banni]

Does this apply polling cars also?

Being paid for them - yess - see the agreement earlier in this same thread

wrong,our office hasn,t got paid for polling cards we were told by union we would get paid,but guess what!!!!!!! we havn,t,

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Does this apply polling cars also?

Being paid for them - yess - see the agreement earlier in this same thread

wrong,our office hasn,t got paid for polling cards we were told by union we would get paid,but guess what!!!!!!! we havn,t,

You should be paid and our rep is fighting the same decision as we got paid for 1 lot but not a 2nd lot

Apparently its being "talked over" by HQ on both levels.

[music4essex]

We are still in dispute over the first Lot of Poll cards. but the dom said this morning that we had to count them,
He was waiting for confirmation of the agreement if it was agreed by post code area Ie us being SS area

Even though area rep has been involved I have wrote to union HQ it still beggars belief that we are fighting over it,
the worse being my dom actually said that the goverment pay RM to deliver them so it is not coming out of RM pockets

and this is the way fwd for the 2010 agreement Nothing changes

Essex mum

[meercat]

There is nothing there about not being able to claim OT if you are also delivering election material that day yet people are being told this in our office and many are believing it.

[Big Daz]

So long as you dont do more than the minium daily amount, then you can book.

[wingmanchillian]

anybody got an update on this?

we're still being told its a no no atm.

[Pinky 1]

anybody got an update on this?

we're still being told its a no no atm.

Well we've been paid for all polling cards, wether they came through DSA or not. We were just told to strip them from any walksorted bundles, and count them. Our rep showed the dom the agreement (thanks Midge), and we were duly paid.