No payment for polling cards!!

[jessthecat]

Spent the last 2 days delivering poll cards for the referendum in wales due in march. First we were told to count them as we might get paid extra ( like we used to), then boss comes out of his little cupboard and says ' 2 days to deliver and no extra payment!'.
It's the way forward don't you know!!

[pickaname]

Use your loaf and claim extended to get them done or cut off.

HOW MANY MORE TIMES DO YOU PEOPLE HAVE TO BE TOLD THIS!!!!!

[AnotherLimey]

I'm sure i saw RM tried to buy the polling payment off us for £1 on our basic during the last round of talks and the union said no as they thought there may be another round of elections due to the hung parliment we have now.

So in other words you should be paid for them.

[eian687]

we were told today we would get paid for them ???? next weeks wages will tell us if the DOM is true to his word

[POSTMAN]

Hold tight for a copy/paste....................actually i'll keep sthum.

[redneck]

The cards are crap, they are on really cheap quality paper rather than what I would call 'card' and they stick together like glue

[whatamess!!]

if they come with postage on them then you don't get extra, but if they have no postage (like a d2d) then you get 3.5p for each one, been told not able to book overtime if you go over due to the 3.5p, so I said to the DOM , keep your 3.5p and you deliver them.he's not excepting that and am in the process of questioning it.

[fishtank]

Dear Dale

DELIVERY OF ELECTION MATERIAL

Thank you for your letter dated 10th April 2008 regarding the delivery of poll cards received via downstream access (DSA).

I have to say I am amazed at your interpretation of the national agreement. The paragraph is quite clear in that it covers poll cards and excludes proxy poll cards; nowhere in the agreement is there any reference to DSA being excluded or any other type of poll card for that matter.

The truth is that Royal Mail issued unagreed guidelines to its managers without any prior consultation with the CWU, after we had reached an agreement that included very clear words covering poll cards.

You refer to discussions in 2005. Once again the truth is that in the main those discussions took place after you had agreed the wording of the national agreement and after you had issued your unagreed guidelines. I wrote to John Powell on the 12th April 2005 to make that point.

The discussion around poll cards prior to finalising the national agreement on the 6th April was specifically about the proxy poll cards and about the volumes. It was here that it was confirmed that they would arrive in the general post and the volumes would be minimal, hence our acceptance that they would be excluded.
We never discussed DSA items, and I have to say it is not something that has been raised by Royal Mail since bearing in mind the increasing volumes of mail being handled by DSA.

Putting all that to one side there is no reason why Royal Mail should refuse to make a payment for the delivery of poll cards; they still have to be prepped and delivered regardless of how they arrive in the delivery office, which is exactly the point we made in the discussions and why that is reflected in the wording of pargagraph 2 of the national agreement which I have reproduced below for ease of reference.

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.