National Talks to Commence

[Martin Walsh]

Any one can make a decision , but it has to be the right decsion.

The BTA agreement has introduced 146 delivery method revisons out of 1500 offices in 15 months of what was meant to be a 3 year deal. Those revisions have been a mixed bag a lot have collasped and deals were then done , others have remained disasters and members become used to operating in chaos and some have been ok. Royal Mail know their plan is not working which is why they now want to concentrate on just indoor revisons where they are easily to control as you can always plug a gap inside whereas it becomes a failure outside.

The union needs to understand the impact of this , ie does it mean more part timers , does it mean less saturdays off. Does it mean even later starts.

I think the union is trying to understand what the best strategy for mantining jobs and ensuring better conditions for the members and to put a stop on bullying.

[fishtank]

The union had a chance to address bullying with the interim agreement and bottled it.

5. The interim agreement also includes commencement of a new project, which is committed to bring about positive workplace cultures in every office and improve long-term industrial relations to bring stability.
Again, this project will be supported by independent experts and will allow us to address the bullying culture that exists within the company.

[Martin Walsh]

Joke!!!!!

Whats a joke , this is not harry potter where you could make a spell and everything is resolved.

The issues under discussion on the postal services acts and pensions are probably the most serious issues we have dealt with. Privitsiation is not the immediate threat its the pension defcit and the european state aid and you know how the tories love europe.

Secondly the BTA issues need to resolve but what is the best tactic for that ? Everyone knows the problem no one knows the solutions.

[Martin Walsh]

Fishtank maybe the union did bottle it over the bullying issue but if the union is willing to try and stop it now , then that is better than not doing anything.

[Body Beyond Repair]

The problem dingo is the senior bods have left unit reps isolated for not having the balls to stand up to RM senior management and in turn any local negotiations are restricted to the point you've no choice but to accept a partial agreement or defeat when going through the infamous IR does not work framework.Three reps in our area quit in the last 3 months....why.....cause we're at the forefront of this mess on our own. The decision to allow local agreements instead of national agreements and don't tell me it dosen't suit everyone, was plain stupid it only let RM divide regions and cause infighting

[Cut Off King]

DINGO wrote

Everyone knows the problem no one knows the solutions.

The solution was NOT to go into talks with RM after only 2 days national strike days just before Xmas! when we had RM by the balls

The solution was to make a stand and to get a FAIR DEAL for both sides, not just give in to RM and their "were poor" sob story.

( RM- "we're so poor, we can't afford to give you anymore", " see the books, oh we can't show you them at the moment...")

RM are so poor that they can fund a new uniform for every employee
RM are so poor that they can fund the replacement of low cost bikes with expensive vans
RM are so poor ( they only have £1,000,000,000 ( 1 BILLION ) of the £1.8bn given by Labour ) still in an escarow account

The CWU needs to make DEMANDS....not just respond to RM's demands.

We need to set the pace in negotiations, not just play catch-up.

But I fear it is too little too late.

Most have lost faith that the CWU can deliver ENHANCED T&C's, they're just managing decline.

[BELIAL]

What do we get this time;19 hour walks;bring your own donkey;0 pension ,so you never have to worry about it ever again; in short the deal of the century part 11.
Been there ,heard it all before,same old corporate bullshit.
One thing this national union has failed to produce is practical results and tangible improvements for the workforce. "It could be worse" doesn't really swing it for me

[Martin Walsh]

cut off king . The CWU did not go into talks after 2 days , some of the UK had been out on 20 additional days by that time. What people do recognise but was true the National Action was weak in some areas and was not as united as the previous 2007 dispute. Now have you ever had a dispute at christmas ? where you say we are strong. Well I have and I can tell you that even if your from a strong office members think twice about taking strike action at christmas.

Now in terms of dancing to Royal Mail`s tune. Well the fact is the union endorsed at conference emergency motion 3 and Royal Mail have agreed talks on the unions agenda in line with that motion.

Now most of what you say Royal Mail can afford has come out of the commercial loan, under their new business plan they have told the government they cannot afford to repay that money and have not budgeted for it under the new business plan and therefore want the government to write it off.

Now in terms indivduals losing faith in the CWU , well I hear this every time but why is it when the chips are down the members support the union. Look at the London Mail Centre ballots all massive yes votes . Look in Nottingham since the suspension of the rep that the members want to be balloted.

The CWU is more than just headquarters , certainly a lot of branch`s dont wait for headquaters to do things to support members they do it themselves.

In terms of our demand on BTA , I can list a few but each area or indivdual will have a few more. The reality is that not all offices have had failed revsions as only 146 delivery method revsions have been introduced. Some offices have simply had intregrated revisons or self starter revisions. A significant amount of offices have had no revision at all. Royal Mail`s revision strategy ie delivery best praticse has not produced for them. Royal Mail want to remove some of the terms of the delivery part of the agreement as they believe it stops them introducing more revisons.

[Martin Walsh]

Belial intresting comments , so lets examine what you said , the agreement said that unless you had delivery methods you should not be doing longer spans , only 146 offices out of 1500 have introducted delivery methods. Not all of these will have significant longer spans it will depend on if they have walk seqeuencing and when there wave 2 mail arrives. Now the agreement gives the rep the abilty to argue about what the span is . There is no agreement to 100BSI indoor or outdoor , there is no agreement to upper decile as this still has not been bottomed out and is quite frankly becoming a disaster for Royal Mail as they have now ditched the benchmark pack.

CDVs , I fully realise these are unpopular but what was the union going to argue once Royal Mail had bought loads of these ? that members want to continue to drive their own cars ? The revison process has meant that cdvs which were parked in a field in Hampshire have now been moved to any spare parking in mail centres. For example in South London there are CDVs for carlisle. So Royal Mail`s plan is not working.

Right lets move onto pensions, the final salary ceased in 2008 but all members need to know that all years in Royal Mail prior to 2008 will still be calculated when they retire on the basis of final salary. It is only the years after which come into the care scheme. The care scheme is a good scheme in many ways but it is not as good as the final salary scheme. As someone who argued at the Northampton National Briefing for a ballot to defend the final salary , I have to say there was not the support across the branch`s for a fight. Now lets examine the other part of your debate is that you wont react to what if things got worse, well unless Royal Mail get european state aid or if the Europe deem that Royal Mail needs a rescue package it could get a hell of a lot worse especailly in regards to pensions.

Now in terms of what have the union done for you well at the risk of turning this into a what did the Romans ever do.

You just have to look at all the conditions you have from annual leave, to basic pay , pensions , conditons the lot. Not a bad package for what outside authorites class as an unskilled job.

[randompostman]

Quote. Now in terms of what have the union done for you well at the risk of turning this into a what did the Romans ever do.

Pay cuts year on year.
An extra five years working when we should be retired
Five more years of pension subs to get less when we do retire.
Longer deliveries.
Bulling and harrasment from management every day.
A devided Union.
Massive increases in Union subs over the years.
A Union that ignores its own members and Reps on the ground
Tens of thousands of job losses with barely a squeak from HQ.
Dozens of other issues too numerous to mention here.
Still most all of the CWU full time officials do very nicely of our backs so yeah you are right! We are ungrateful dogs.
MY BLOODY CUP IS RUNNING OVER but maybe it is because HQ are pissing in it!

[Martin Walsh]

Ok lets examine each of your claims

pay cuts simply not true pay went up more in 2001 to 2010 period than in any other decade. If your refering to Door to door and the early shift allowance then tell me how many OPGs are now starting at 5 or 5:30 in the morning ? or did you want the union to argue for a shift payment which no longer exists ? In terms of door to door a really worrying trend is that door to door has reduced by a third from the Swindon walk bundling centre. Now what people seem to miss is that the £20.60 has now increased by the pay rise and will increase by future pay rises . Why ? because it is a permanent additon to basic pay and the only reason it is not in the your total basic pay is that it is non pensionable and that the union did not want to have a basic pay for deliveries which would be higher than that of processing and distribution staff who all recieve just £8 supplement.

The reason that people have to work longer is not down to the Union it is the law. Indivduals can still take their final salary pension scheme at 60 and continue to contribute to the care pension scheme and take that at 65. Ie two pension pots. Now the reality is that most staff when they reached 60 wanted to stay on in any case and most worked on till 65. You seem to have forgotten that point.

Longer deliveries , well that is an option , but tell me if your indoor workload is changing casue of sequencing even if it is 6 minutes per hour the fact that there are now two waves of work to an office rather than all the work into the office for the start means that you have to put hours somewhere to mantain full time jobs. However no one should be doing any extra hourage over 4 hours unless they have introduced delivery methods. Remember only 146 offices have at this moment introduced methods.

Bullying and harrassment , well it does exist , but the CWU do at local , area , divisonal and national try and stop it when it knows about it. Could it do more , yes and hopefully this will be done under this review. A divided union , well I have been in the job for 27 years and the union has been divided for all that time. How do you change it ? Most unions are divided some on policy some on other issues. But tell me any other national union who ballots the whole of their union as much as us and takes action. Sure the RMT are strong in London with regards to Transport for London but that is one region.

Massive increase in subs , well I disagree , subs have gone up like every thing else in the UK but you can still pay less than a pint of larger for belonging to a trade union per week.

A union that ingnores its members and reps , now I cant go along with that. The union sets up a structure which means that a Branch gets a rebate of union money to organise and communicate with their reps and members. If your Branch is not doing that then shame on them and they need to be held to account. CWU nationally should communicate more but they do support reps and members in loads of ways including meetings and assistance.

Tens of thousands of job losses. Of course there has been , when we went to one delivery we were meant to lost 30 thousand job losses and each office got £26.28 pence pay increase , yet Royal Mail only managed to get 5000 job reductions due to the fact offices negotitated better deals.

Now the reality is that we now have 59 mail centres rather than 73 . DSA traffic now bypasses the outward operation which now account for 51% of outward work. So jobs will go unless you want the CWU to argue that we should have jobs that sort thin air. Or give the union ballons on sticks to walk around with.

Now it always makes me laugh when people say all the reps on full time release are living the dream. What a load of rubbish. If you want to take a weeks leave I take you around with me and your see so called dream I live last week on Monday - I had meetings in the Mount , then a membership meeting with the mount members , then I had to go to Romford to discuss new duties then I had a meeting on the mail centre consultation back in the Mount. Tuesday I had to go to Greenford to meet on North West deliveries , then back to meet on mail centre issues and then meetings with the late part timers in Nine Elms till 9 at night. Then on weds I had walk seqeuncing deployment group meetings then a stage 3 disagreement then a meeting on fixed term contracts , late wednesday night had to travel to bournemouth for the delivery reference group meeting and the divisonal reps meeting , got to Bournemouth just after 10 at night. Got back home after the divisonal meeting at 1800 friday and still had emails etc to do.

So its easy to throw stones but lets put some facts into it for god sake. Sometimes I do believe that some on here live in some kind of bubble which shuts out real life and what is really happening. Yes we would all love to be back to the 80s when the job was so much better but the world and Royal Mail has turned. You can shout from the sidelines but those in the talks cant ingnore the change in the industry and if everyone is truthful most of our members know that outside things have changed this industrial for the worse like pension regulation changes , like de regulation and the digital revoulation in e mail substution and the Union has had to deal with those real problems.

[DGP1]

Dingo - I find it very difficult to stomach your staunch defence of RM/union leadership, you keep saying about only 146 revisions have been put in - maybe that true but only because RM WONT implement any revision that doesn't cut hours (my office for example needed about 100 hours put in plus all the vacant positions filled) but RM threw that out and now our revision has been put on the never never. RM have seriously f***** up because they only want yes men and the union is going the same way, the only alternative is RM failing completely and the union becoming just something that represents London and the few MCs left.

You may come back with a spirited defence of the union and explaining how RM need to modernise or it'll fail but that doesn't matter when many members feel like myself.

It's time for the leadership to actually show some and actually make our conditions better rather than worse.


As for the longer delivery spans...............5 hours it takes me and the longest is 6 hours and has been from our last revision (which we were left alone to try to deal with).

[randompostman]

Ok lets examine each of your claims

pay cuts simply not true pay went up more in 2001 to 2010 period than in any other decade. If your refering to Door to door and the early shift allowance then tell me how many OPGs are now starting at 5 or 5:30 in the morning ? or did you want the union to argue for a shift payment which no longer exists ? In terms of door to door a really worrying trend is that door to door has reduced by a third from the Swindon walk bundling centre. Now what people seem to miss is that the £20.60 has now increased by the pay rise and will increase by future pay rises . Why ? because it is a permanent additon to basic pay and the only reason it is not in the your total basic pay is that it is non pensionable and that the union did not want to have a basic pay for deliveries which would be higher than that of processing and distribution staff who all recieve just £8 supplement.

I don’t know what school you went to but a pay cut is when any rise does not match inflation and that has happened for the last seven years, I don’t give a toss about bonuses or even D2D payments as I view these as more CWU failures when all’s most workers really want is PENSIONBLE PAY something that HQ couldn’t even get as they ripped us off with the delivery supplement.

The reason that people have to work longer is not down to the Union it is the law. Indivduals can still take their final salary pension scheme at 60 and continue to contribute to the care pension scheme and take that at 65. Ie two pension pots. Now the reality is that most staff when they reached 60 wanted to stay on in any case and most worked on till 65. You seem to have forgotten that point.

Utter BS it is not law that you HAVE to work till your 65! That is when the state pension kicks in, do all the rich have to work till they are 65? NO they don’t! HQ has allowed Royal Mail to steal five years of our lives!

Longer deliveries , well that is an option , but tell me if your indoor workload is changing casue of sequencing even if it is 6 minutes per hour the fact that there are now two waves of work to an office rather than all the work into the office for the start means that you have to put hours somewhere to mantain full time jobs. However no one should be doing any extra hourage over 4 hours unless they have introduced delivery methods. Remember only 146 offices have at this moment introduced methods.

Well we are one of the 146 and we do have longer deliveries and not enough time to do IPS, throwing in and deliveries. They have not cut one job from our office and are having to send in posties from other offices and swamp the place with managers. I have been on NDM for 3 months. We are due sequenced mail in the next 12 months and it seems that it has already been informally agreed that there will be no savings from that as 10 minutes is not worth it when most are going over in the quiet summertime. Tell me what bunch of brain dead Muppets came up with NDM anyway? Oh that’s right HQ and RM senior management.

Bullying and harrassment , well it does exist , but the CWU do at local , area , divisonal and national try and stop it when it knows about it. Could it do more , yes and hopefully this will be done under this review. A divided union , well I have been in the job for 27 years and the union has been divided for all that time. How do you change it ? Most unions are divided some on policy some on other issues. But tell me any other national union who ballots the whole of their union as much as us and takes action. Sure the RMT are strong in London with regards to Transport for London but that is one region.

Glad you acknowledge that B&H do exist, our Rep is very good but many offices are not so lucky. A few posters from HQ are simply not good enough. Do you not feel any shame that you are a full time official in a divided Union? How can you say we have a divided Union when those two words are the very opposite of each other! Another failing of HQ and the full time officials. As for the RMT I have no stake in that Union as I am not a member so in the context of this post it is a waste of time even talking about them unless we could learn something from them.


Massive increase in subs , well I disagree , subs have gone up like every thing else in the UK but you can still pay less than a pint of larger for belonging to a trade union per week.

My subs went up from £1.90p to £3.11p in one go so I would say massive even if you don’t.

“A union that ingnores its members and reps , now I cant go along with that. The union sets up a structure which means that a Branch gets a rebate of union money to organise and communicate with their reps and members. If your Branch is not doing that then shame on them and they need to be held to account. CWU nationally should communicate more but they do support reps and members in loads of ways including meetings and assistance.”

Never mentioned Branches but trust me the membership and Reps that are forced to represent them are left swinging in the breeze daily or do you not bother to take in the daily posting from members on RMC and all the problems they suffer every day? I can’t speak for others but I don’t want better communications from HQ! For them to do their jobs and REPRESENT OUR INTERESTS RATHER THAN “GOVERNMENT” AND THE EMPLOYER SHOULD BE WHAT A UNION DOES!

Tens of thousands of job losses. Of course there has been , when we went to one delivery we were meant to lost 30 thousand job losses and each office got £26.28 pence pay increase , yet Royal Mail only managed to get 5000 job reductions due to the fact offices negotitated better deals.

So you are saying despite HQ selling out 30.000 jobs it was our local unit Reps that stopped this massive sell-out of our jobs and cut it down to 5.000? I never knew that so KUDOS to our local Reps and shame on CWU HQ for that I say!

Now the reality is that we now have 59 mail centres rather than 73 . DSA traffic now bypasses the outward operation which now account for 51% of outward work. So jobs will go unless you want the CWU to argue that we should have jobs that sort thin air. Or give the union ballons on sticks to walk around with.

Ahhhhhh DSA a system where we as members pay with our jobs pay terms pensions and conditions so that private companies can skim the cream and have us deliver their mail at a loss! Now was it not a “Labour Government” beloved of HQ that allowed that to happen? Labour the party that Billy Dave and many of the CWU NEC, PEC are members of? Just how hard did they fight “their” friends and how many millions of pounds have that shower got from CWU members in the last six years despite very few CWU members being members of that other bunch of sell-outs?

Now it always makes me laugh when people say all the reps on full time release are living the dream. What a load of rubbish. If you want to take a weeks leave I take you around with me and your see so called dream I live last week on Monday - I had meetings in the Mount , then a membership meeting with the mount members , then I had to go to Romford to discuss new duties then I had a meeting on the mail centre consultation back in the Mount. Tuesday I had to go to Greenford to meet on North West deliveries , then back to meet on mail centre issues and then meetings with the late part timers in Nine Elms till 9 at night. Then on weds I had walk seqeuncing deployment group meetings then a stage 3 disagreement then a meeting on fixed term contracts , late wednesday night had to travel to bournemouth for the delivery reference group meeting and the divisonal reps meeting , got to Bournemouth just after 10 at night. Got back home after the divisonal meeting at 1800 friday and still had emails etc to do.

I don’t believe in paid officials and that is my choice, but with that said if you are unhappy with your workload then you need representation from a good Union so I don’t recommend the CWU as you will end up with more work and less pay!

So its easy to throw stones but lets put some facts into it for god sake. Sometimes I do believe that some on here live in some kind of bubble which shuts out real life and what is really happening. Yes we would all love to be back to the 80s when the job was so much better but the world and Royal Mail has turned. You can shout from the sidelines but those in the talks cant ingnore the change in the industry and if everyone is truthful most of our members know that outside things have changed this industrial for the worse like pension regulation changes , like de regulation and the digital revoulation in e mail substution and the Union has had to deal with those real problems.

Spoken like the chief apologist for HQ that you are, all the Unions woes are down to the membership not understanding and excepting change blah blah blah! Most of these so called changes are needed only because of the direct failure of HQ and their collusion with “Government” If they had represented the CWU membership from the start instead of selling us out for their own political aspirations and own pissing self-importance most of this “change” would not be needed now.

[forestbodd]

total bullshit the pensoin the shares the lot so more talks Moya Greene has done all this before check out her record on the canadian postal service.she came to n.d.c. and said we need to scale down the workforce do you have to be told twice or are we all scared

[fishtank]

April 2010
Royal Mail will provide the CWU with genuine engagement at the development stage of key business policies supported by transparency and good information share. New strategic involvement forums will be
established to ensure the CWU can influence and shape key national policies before decisions are made.


July 2011
Royal Mail has confirmed that the new Business Plan and details of the company’s financial situation will be shared with the Union

Not really the same thing is it?