Election results

[MinisterofCucumber]

The NEC and PEC are failing to hold to account the national officers of the CWU. Other forces are putting pressure on the national officers, possibly their own policy advisors who have been sent to 'mind' them.

If we were informed of every proposal made by management, we would be able to discuss these proposals and vote on them and the national officers would be able to represent the members' views. Online polls are cheap and easy to arrange. How hard would it be for the Union to collect the email addresses of all members with an email account?

National officers are our representatives in negotiations. How can our representatives represent us if they don't consult us, the people they are meant to represent?

Policy advisors are not RMG workers, have not been elected by RMG workers, are paid much more than RMG workers by subs taken from RMG workers and have more influence on national officers than RMG workers. Do we really need them?

[Big Daz]

Is there a job description for policy advisers and what qualifications does on need to be a policy adviser.

What value do they provide to the mbrs?

Can we start electing therm?

[dvbuk55]

Even more worrying is the lack of open negotiation. There is far too much discussed in secret about what is after all our future and terms and conditions. To be presented with a fait accompli and then have it as the only option for BT 2010 speaks volumes about the sort of representation we are paying for.

[Martin Walsh]

Since postal ballots became law and replaced the election of the NEC/PEC at conference, the highest percentage was just over 20 per cent , of course after the way forward agreement there was a higher percentage.

We should not lose sight of the fact that compared to PCS , Unite , RMT we have bigger percentages who vote on industrial action ballots and just above them on national elections. The reason the tories brought in the law to have postal ballots is they knew that the turn out would be low.

The reason this years ballot was lower than last by a small percentage was there is hardly any real policy differences between the candidate. Pehaps only Kye had a different view on the BTA agreement. To understand why people are not voting in the national elections perhaps we should understand why other talanted indivduals do not choose to stand for a national postion.

Personally in my opinion the role of the PEC is still unclear , certainly they do a lot of work for the benefit of members and reps , be that represnting reps at national appeals cases , negotitating on some issues across the Royal Mail Group , carrying out reviews or resolving issues in offices , overseeing trials on new products , assisting national officers in negotations , dealing with other issues delegated by national officers , overseeing the review of finances , organising , education etc on behalf of the whole union. The fact is that the role is one which the officer dictates rather than a defined role and that puts off certain people from standing. Equally some dont want to spend their life in London away from their family from Monday -friday.

On top of that we then try and ask the members to vote for candidates , most branch"s recommend the candidates to their members and judging by the results produced as the union get a branch breakdown on who the members in each branch vote for, most members vote for the candidates their branch recommend.

We can over haul the system all we like the end result will be that the law requires a postal ballot. So how do we improved the percentage of members who vote especially as they still wont know who the majority of indivduals are and what they stand for.

[Martin Walsh]

There is definately a need for a PA, how do you think the various postal departments get run whilst the national officer is at meetings with the government , Royal Mail , meeing reps or members. If Dave Ward is in Scotland , Andy Furey is in Manchester , Bob Gibson is in Belfast , Terry Pullenger is in Jersey , Ray Ellis dealing with the Romec Dispute and Phil Browne is in Bristol , do you think that Branch"s have not written to CWU HQs on issues or contacted CWU HQs or that members do not ring espeically on conduct and attandance , plus all the other workload which needs to be done.

If the PAs were not in place on the postal department then I would go as far as too say there would be an outcry from members and branch"s that issues refered to CWU HQs were taking too long to be resolved or answered.

Remember Royal Mail Group have a mountin of resource ie Dale Haddon has a team of managers working for him , as does John Duncan , Moya Greene , Mark Higson , Rob Jenson or indeed any regional management team and I have not even mentioned parcelforce , Jersey post office , Gurnsey or Isle of man , CIT , POL , Romec , VOC , RDCs Motor transport .

Nationaly the CWU will go down to 5 national officers and seven policy advisors. So in my humble opinion if you did not have the PAs in place than the national officers workload would not be sustainable.

[dvbuk55]

Exactly how often are all the national officers away at any one time? Never heard such a load of old rubbish. More like an excuse for the national officers to offload their workload. It sounds more like the policy advisors are running the union for the benefit of the policy advisors, they shouldn't forget who funds their lavish lifestyle.

Why not get a replacement officer from the myriad of Area Reps/Divisional Reps who could prioritise in the absence of the national officer - it wouldn't cost us anything would it? It's long overdue for the CWU to look at it's expenditure, easy to spend money when you are being given it without any serious responsibility to account for it.

[fishtank]

If i could ask the question........ if there is such a mountainous and copious flow of workload arriving from both Branch and individual members...what exactly are Branches doing in the grand scheme of things.
If they are simply passing it up the food chain as you suggest,or not passing it anywhere in the case of some Branches as some members will testify.....are they really necessary?

Surely if national officers are overwhelmed to the point that they have to employ advisors just to get the job done then the branch structure isn't functioning at all.
What is the primary function of a Branch?...is it just a social club because if it is can i withdraw my funding please,i don't think my face fits despite the fact that my money obviously does.

[dvbuk55]

Well you'll never get on the NEC/PEC then ft - apparently you need half a dozen branch sponsors just to be nominated and you're not going to get that unless your face does fit and of course you are prepared to follow the party line. I fancy it's a little like Munich in 1935, you need the lapel badge and in this instance not a toothbrush moustache but a corpulent silhouette

[Martin Walsh]

Dvbuk you do talk a lot of rubbish at times , they are often in the same negotations so they are often away from CWU HQs. The officers job is to go to talks and meet branch`s members. For example Terry deals with Jersey which have had a lot of problems recently , Ray Ellis was dealing with Romec dispute , Gibbo was dealing with Rob Jenson on the dispute , Andy furey on the sepeartion of Pol and Royal Mail and Dave was dealing with Moya Greene and John Duncan.

Now the enquires from Branch`s to CWU Hqs are huge as are members issues contact to CWU Hqs. Everything from claity about agreements to problems with managers.

Now if some wanted to cut Headquaters then in my opinion you target central service departments like Equality , organising and Education rather than main stream departments like mail centres , deliverys, network , parcel force , CIT , Romec , POL , Motor transport.

Now in my humble opinion you could remove money from those departments which would not reduce the amount of courses people could go on , or the amount of orgaining we need to do or even pushing forward the equality agenda.

Of course I dont expect you to agree as your anti Headquaters at all costs. But hey its easy and popular on a site like this to play that game but it does not make it right or better for branch`s or members.

[MinisterofCucumber]

Hello Dingo,

What is the job description of a Policy Advisor in the CWU and how are Policy Advisors selected?

[dvbuk55]

I may well talk a load of rubbish dingo but I didn't advocate the deal of the century so it's no wonder you are sticking to the doctrine in case your position improves.

It seems to me that HQ is way overdue for an overhaul. The trouble is that there is no will to change things, I mean you were a signatory to the changing the union document some time ago but I notice there has been no change.

Money comes too easily for some folk and that is why they don't want change.

[fishtank]

Now if some wanted to cut Headquaters then in my opinion you target central service departments like Equality , organising and Education rather than main stream departments like mail centres , deliverys, network , parcel force , CIT , Romec , POL , Motor transport.

Now in my humble opinion you could remove money from those departments which would not reduce the amount of courses people could go on , or the amount of orgaining we need to do or even pushing forward the equality agenda.
.

That's very noble of you dingo,i'm sure Linda Roy may feel differently.
No turkey likes to vote for their own particular Christmas do they?
The truth is though,those departmental budgets are much smaller in comparison to the"main stream" departments so the scope for savings without rendering them pointless is equally small.
It would simply be a token move like removing the Indoor Sec position....after all......how much was Martin earning?
By saying that cutting the funding to these departments would have no effect on member services you are promoting the opinion that they are wasting money.
I would however agree that cutting the funding would have little effect on the organising we do,certainly within Royal Mail but that is simply because we do very little to start with.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

The fact is that the role is one which the officer dictates rather than a defined role and that puts off certain people from standing. Equally some dont want to spend their life in London away from their family from Monday -friday.

Why should PEC members spend Mon - Fri in London. Surley as we seem to be a predominately geographicaly based Union why can't the PEC members work from their home offices. Do we really have an overiding cause to have them based in London all the time.

Now days most people have computers at home and work, with skype webcams and broadband connection if a face to face meeting is needed why not do it on the internet. Documents can be passed by email and hard copies passed to London for reference purposes. Of course you would need to "network" in HQ at least once per month but that could be done over a 2 day period rather than a 5 day one.

If we did go to PEC members being based at home offices in my opinion it would improve representation, engagement and the costs savings could be quite tidy. Any office space freed up at HQ could easily be rented out at extremely good rates.

is it worth thinking about.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Now if some wanted to cut Headquaters then in my opinion you target central service departments like Equality , organising and Education rather than main stream departments like mail centres , deliverys, network , parcel force , CIT , Romec , POL , Motor transport.

Now in my humble opinion you could remove money from those departments which would not reduce the amount of courses people could go on , or the amount of orgaining we need to do or even pushing forward the equality agenda.
.

That's very noble of you dingo,i'm sure Linda Roy may feel differently.

She does - IIRC there was a brief period of interest on Facebook and as I said on that at the time, I really think getting rid of the Equality Department would be a step backwards more so now. We seem to have a greater degree of Ill health retirement questions and Equality Act queries on here and getting rid of the main department at HQ when this subject is as prominent as it appears to be woudl be a grave mistake.

Mind you having heard her speak, and having spoken to all 3 at different times I think she could quite easily be a good candidate for either role. Perhaps closing the quality section at HQ could be just the impetus she needs to start a challenge.

[Martin Walsh]

TBT sadly the role of the Postal Executive is that they have to meet with management on various issues including oversea trials etc and Royal Mail managers are based in London either at Rathbone Place , Albert Embankment and Old Street.

Other PEC members have to visit other Branch`s around the UK , meetings are normally in CWU HQs and of course this includes NEC , PEC and the various committees which sit on be that finances , orgainsing , education or equality.

Now of course not everyone agrees with what I have suggusted. I was one of the authors of the document which suggusting the merging of departments , and Linda , Trish , John East and Dave Joyce all opposed the document as you natually expect.

However the real con in this matter is that the only changes which have occured is to elected postions on both industrial executives and NEC. So the Indoor secretary has gone , and 9 telecoms executive have been removed. Yet
the central services such as equality , Education and Orgainsing has remained.

My point fishtank is that simply having a department normally means you pay for the National Officer , a PA and a secretary which means your budget is reduced in what you want to be doing , if you merge a department then you have more money to invest in the object of the department. I have seen the figures and two thirds of a departments money is spent on staffing costs and not on improving the equality , organinsing or education.

Oh and I think that members first and foremost join the union for protection and reprsentation in the workplace and I believe that the money should be used industrially first rather than in a central services department. Oh yes myself and Linda have had some words but that is because both of us believe passionately in the union we just dont share the same vision on how we can improve the union. However it is healthy to have debate.