Royal Mail's Betrayal:London Divisional Committee

[POSTMAN]

A statement produced, written and agreed by all the London Divisional Committee

Royal Mail’s has disgracefully decided to let staff know of the closures of Rathbone Place, East London Mail centre and South London Mail Centre by way of the media.

Many of our members heard that they face redundancy whilst at home with their friends and family. Royal Mail may talk about caring and new relationships but they failed to even care enough to tell our members of their plans before informing the media.

The CWU have no hesitation in exposing the fact that Royal Mail’s plan for dealing with the people issues is a complete sham.

The purpose of this circular is to expose Royal Mail’s people plan and ensure that our members know that Royal Mail has no safeguards in their plans which will lead to compulsory redundancies.

Royal Mail’s decision to announce the London closures on a day when the news was being dominated by serious situations in Libya and Japan was in our view deliberately done in order to bury bad news.

Royal Mail’s Regional Management have been saying for weeks that they need to tell staff in the Mount, Rathbone, East London and South London about their decision, yet they choose to do it via the media and that is simply unacceptable.

Royal Mail’s peoples plan for London deals with peoples issue differently than any other Mail Centre closure in history.

Many staff in London have already moved Mail Centres due to other closures and would have moved with the work as is the norm with all other Mail Centre closures.

The fundamental difference with Royal Mail’s plan for London is that there are not enough jobs on offer for the staff currently employed in the 3 London Mail Centres.

For the record, there are currently 3,325 OPGs who work at the Mount, East London MC and South London. Under Royal Mail’s new plan there are only 2,189 jobs.

Therefore there are 1,136 less jobs. That equates to a third less than the people in post, therefore one in every 3 jobs will go under Royal Mail’s plans.

However, when you get underneath those numbers the figures become even starker.

Mount Pleasant

The new Mount will have 1,421 jobs made up of:

410 Full processing

526 Part time processing

474 Collections and network full time

11 Part time collections and network

However, some of the collections numbers are simply a budget change to capture the collection hubs from SW1 and E1 collection hubs.

The truth is that the new Royal Mail plan for the Mount reduces full time processing jobs from the current 944 duties down to 410. That means there will be 57% less jobs in the Mount.

THAT MEANS despite some of South London and East London’s work going to the Mount, no one who is full time will be allowed to follow the work. THAT IS TOTALLY DIFFERENT TO ANY OTHER MAIL CENTRE CLOSURE.

South London Full Time Processing Jobs

In South London there are currently 543 full time processing jobs.

There are only 104 jobs in Croydon and 118 in Jubilee.

That means there are 321 staff in South London that will not have a job. That is 59% of the total full time processing work force.

East London Full Time Processing Jobs

No East London full time processing staff can move with the work to the Mount.

There are only 69 full time processing duties in Romford. There are currently 351 full time processing staff in East London Mail Centre. Under Royal Mail’s plans 80% of East London’s full time staff will have no jobs under Royal Mail’s plans.

Part Time Staff

There is currently 797 part time processing staff employed at the Mount, South and East London. (The breakdown is 406 in the Mount, 272 in South London and 119 in East London).

Under Royal Mail’s plan there are 701 part time jobs. (These are the numbers they require; 526 at the Mount, 49 at Jubilee, 57 at Croydon, 43 at Romford and 26 at Greenford).

This means that 96 part time workers will not have a job under the plan. Whilst there is an opportunity to transfer to the Mount, there will still be a surplus of part timers in South and East London.

In addition, the travelling to work distances to Jubilee, Croydon, Romford and Greenford may mean that some part timers cannot either afford to travel that far or are unable to travel the increased distances to work.

Royal Mail has stated there will be no voluntary redundancies on offer to part time workers.

Collections and Network

Whilst it is fair to say that if you perform collections and network duties these will largely be there under the new plan.

However, whilst there will be collection hubs in SW1 and E1, the work witch is currently performed by drivers, especially inward arrivals, will be performed at Jubilee and Romford.

Royal Mail has been very vague on the impact of their plans on drivers and in particular the fact that those who are tagged to collections and network but perform non driving duties, such as keys and tabs, book room and platform will not have a job under the new plan as Royal Mail will not duplicate jobs in the new plan.

Worldwide Advanced Network Distribution (otherwise known as W.A.N.D)

Royal Mail has, by executive action removed work from the Mount Pleasant office to HWDC in Langley, Slough.

Their plan is reliant on getting 355 full time employees from the Mount initially but also from South and East London Mail Centres.

Langley is not the easiest place to get to, you have to get an over ground train from Paddington and then local bus services.

In addition, it is 17 miles from central London and travels through very congested areas.

Unsurprisingly, Royal Mail has achieved less than 15% of the total percentage of volunteers they need to get to travel to HWDC.

The Mount currently has a surplus of almost 200 full time staff due to the fact that Royal Mail have transferred work from the Mount to HWDC but have not had enough volunteers to transfer to HWDC.

The WAND surplus adds to the very real peoples problems under Royal Mail’s plans.

There is real fear that Royal Mail will at some stage compulsory transfer staff to HWDC.

Managing The Surplus Framework 2 (otherwise known as M.T.S.F. 2)

Royal Mail are withholding the criteria they will use in deciding who gets a job under the new Mail Centre plan and who remains in the Mount.

Royal Mail will not be using seniority!

They Will Use M.T.S.F. 2

The criteria will be that those in receipt of a shift allowance will have first pick for a duty attracting a similar allowance (it will not be based on seniority).

The tie breaker will not be based on seniority but how long you have been in receipt of the allowance.

Remember, the vast majority of duties will be on lates and nights in the new Mail Centres.

Therefore it is highly doubtful that anyone on earlies in South or East London will have an opportunity to move to a new Mail Centre.

Royal Mail has decided to remain silent on this and therefore have kept the members in the dark.

Rathbone Place

Royal Mail’s decision to relocate W1, WC delivery offices and distribution hub to the Mount Pleasant office will also have an impact on jobs and conditions.

Royal Mail are still proposing cuts in jobs at both WC and W1 delivery offices despite the fact that they are intending to relocate the office to the Mount.

In addition, there will be a reduction in non-driving duties attached to the collection hub when moved to the Mount.

There are also a number of issues which need to be tackled, including transport to deliveries, walk sequencing and MTSF.

Royal Mail Spin (Lies Damn Lies And Statistics)

Royal Mail’s peoples plan is a sham.

Royal Mail have stated that the percentage of people who will be surplus as a result of the plan will be 22%.

However, percentages can be spun and that’s exactly what Royal Mail have done. Their figures include numbers of individuals which will not be affected by the closure.

In the main there are 1,421 individuals who choose to stay in the Mount.

Royal Mail’s plans do not take into account the massive surplus of staff that will exist in South and East London.

In addition, Royal Mail’s plans rely on achieving 355 individuals voluntarily transferring to HWDC.

There are 584 VRs in Royal Mail’s people’s plans. There are no VRs for collection staff or part timers.

Therefore for Royal Mail’s “People Plan” to be successful they will have to “persuade” one in every three OPGs to take voluntary redundancy.

This will be again the background that we are in the worst recession since the 1930s, and that the independent consultants report states:

“That London has some of the highest unemployment rates in the UK, in particular amongst women and people of ethnic backgrounds”.

If further evidence was needed to suggest that Royal Mail’s peoples plan is optimistic then it is the fact that in recent VRs, trawls at both Nine Elms and East London there were insufficient volunteers for redundancy.

Royal Mail’s plan does not add up. It is in the CWU’s opinion a recipe that can lead to one thing, and one thing only; compulsory redundancies and compulsory transfers.

Conclusion

The union has offered Royal Mail alternative propositions which, making the business savings and protects people from compulsory redundancies. Our counter proposals are also within the terms of the Agreement.

If they choose to reject the CWU’s offer then all members need to fight Royal Mail’s plans, including supporting the call for an industrial action ballot.

Remember, there is no time to lose! Under Royal Mail’s phasing programme work from the Mount will go to Greenford in a few weeks, East London collections to Romford, South London’s collections will move to both Jubilee and Croydon.

In addition, W2-W14 inward work will move to Greenford and N1-N22 inward work to the Mount. This will affect almost 300 full timers and 191 part timers.

All this within the next 3 months!

Remember, if you don’t fight the CWU expect Royal Mail to make compulsory redundancies and compulsory transfers.

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A statement produced, written and agreed by all the London Divisional Committee

[Swinder]

I knew the London situation was bad but this has quite honestly left a bad taste in my mouth.

The union seriously need to pick this up and get it sent out nationally, only then will the staff see what is actually going on and see the need to stand up against Royal Mail and the Government for obviously inciting such actions.

Is it also wrong to wish for industrial action on a national scale just to see the whole country revolt against this Government and their big money corporations?

[dazzlin72]

The union are as much to blame as RM, they sold us this agreement knowing full well the implications of rationalisation.

[Stampy]

EVERYBODY OUT!!!!

[swoosta]

This has been going on all over the country - didn't hear London say much then.

[POSTMAN]

This has been going on all over the country - didn't hear London say much then.

What this...

Therefore for Royal Mail’s “People Plan” to be successful they will have to “persuade” one in every three OPGs to take voluntary redundancy.

[fishtank]

This has been going on all over the country - didn't hear London say much then.

What this...

Therefore for Royal Mail’s “People Plan” to be successful they will have to “persuade” one in every three OPGs to take voluntary redundancy.

It's funny though...offer VR in a mailcentre...no takers.
Offer VR in a delivery office...plenty takers,not as many as first say they will but...never a shortfall..even in the worst recession since etc...
Maybe that's the truth behind the "People Plan"...make some space in the D.O.s for the overspill.
It's one thing wanting to "follow the work" but the "work" has to be there to follow and it plainly isn't,not in the quantities required anyway.
Sometimes you need to just follow a job,no matter what the work is.

For the benefit of some members of the site this is neither an anti-London post nor an anti-union post

[baldrick]

The reason that there are few takers at London MCs for EVR/VR is that there have been VR/EVR trawls almost every year for the last few years, at my MC anyway, and hundreds of people have already gone. So the remaining staff are those that mostly want to stay for different reasons - and the difficulty now of finding another job in the present economic situation.

[fishtank]

The reason that there are few takers at London MCs for EVR/VR is that there have been VR/EVR trawls almost every year for the last few years, at my MC anyway, and hundreds of people have already gone.

That's not a specific London issue though baldrick...there have been VR/EVR trawls in every MC in the country since 2003...most MC's are down to the "don't want to leave" members.
It's not the same in the D.O.'s though...

[baldrick]

ft there are people who would like to transfer to a DO, preferably one near where they live, but it is not possible to get a transfer. Perhaps RM are keeping the vacancies up their sleeve, and will announce that MC workers who want to transfer to a DO will be able to do so. But it doesn't seem likely.

[fishtank]

ft there are people who would like to transfer to a DO, preferably one near where they live, but it is not possible to get a transfer. Perhaps RM are keeping the vacancies up their sleeve, and will announce that MC workers who want to transfer to a DO will be able to do so. But it doesn't seem likely.

I have no idea what the situation is with D.O. vacancies in London but i do know that there is an hold on members transferring to D.O.'s that haven't had a revision in our area.
We have two members who have had their transfers accepted since last November but are still waiting to move.
No matter what the situation,the truth will have to come out soon and if it does contain compulsory redundancies without an option to transfer then London will have my full support...for what it's worth.

[vila465]

There will definitly be people who want to transfer from the london mail centres to a local delivery office if at all possible.This may piss some postman off as some mail centre workers will bring seniority with them, but given the opportunity ,what are they supposed to do.With families and mortgages to pay for, some mail centre workers would be grateful to have any sort of job.

[hubbahubba]

The reason that there are few takers at London MCs for EVR/VR is that there have been VR/EVR trawls almost every year for the last few years, at my MC anyway, and hundreds of people have already gone.

That's not a specific London issue though baldrick...there have been VR/EVR trawls in every MC in the country since 2003...most MC's are down to the "don't want to leave" members.
It's not the same in the D.O.'s though...

Not at ours mate,and ive been there a lot longer than 2003?