LTB Minor Repairs (Autonomous Maintenance)

[Geezer]

Letter to Branches



No. 1027/11 Ref: 300 Date: 2nd December 2011

To: Branches with POSTAL Members, CWU Divisional Reps and Area Reps



Dear Colleague

Minor Repairs (Autonomous Maintenance)

Branches need to be aware that Royal Mail has decided to roll out Drivers undertaking minor vehicle repairs nationally without concluding a final agreement with the CWU covering all aspects of minor repairs including reward.

It is important to note that there are Health & Safety issues outstanding and it is disappointing to say the least that the CWU claim for reward has not been given serious consideration by Royal Mail. The Health & Safety aspect is remarkable when it is the business who states that it is one of the key pillars of their WCM project and of paramount importance. You can no doubt draw your own conclusions as to the sincerity of that statement. As far as the reward is concerned Royal Mail continues to describe this as a retrospective claim which is completely untrue. The CWU raised the issue of reward prior to the BT 2010 agreement being concluded and the email below confirms this.

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From: Bobby Gibson
Sent: 12 February 2010 09:30
To: Mike Devanny (Mike.devanny@royalmail.com)
Cc: 'dale.haddon@royalmail.com'; Dave Ward; Bill Steel; Davie Robertson; Ray Ellis; Steve Fishwick; Hayley Nutley
Subject: Fleet Maintenance - Telemetry + Minor repairs
Importance: High

Mike

I have attached the final agreed words regarding the above. Obviously we are committed to resolving all the outstanding issues as soon as possible which include the ‘Drivers Coaches’ and reward for the Minor repairs which I am flagging up to Dale Haddon as he is leading the talks for Royal Mail on reward. You will be aware that the coaching role has been on the stocks for some time now so it is not something that we have just placed on the table, and the Minor Repairs is something that you have introduced into the national talks recently. We believe that both issues would be self funding and would like to get into talks with you or whoever to resolve all outstanding issues.

With this in mind I would appreciate you contacting Hayley to arrange some dates for us to meet.

Bob Gibson
CWU Assistant Secretary - Outdoor

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It should also be noted that the reference to minor repairs is contained in the Fleet & Maintenance Services Transformation section of the BT 2010 agreement. This is because that is where it was being discussed before it was diverted to the Outdoor Dept to conclude, which was at the very last stages of the national negotiations and there is a very simple reason why the words in the national agreement (below) were included.


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Minor repairs

Drivers will be required to undertake vehicle checks in accordance with Royal Mail standards and, where practical, assist in identifying solutions to resolve issues arising to ensure that the mail is moved safely and legally.
Drivers will also be required to carry out minor vehicle repairs/maintenance tasks where necessary which are jointly agreed as suitable for a trained driver to carry out (e.g. replace bulbs, top up fluids/oil/water, replace wiper blades, change wheels). This should be carried out wherever possible within duty time, including time allocated to complete vehicle checks. However, it is recognised that some minor repairs will require additional time.
Driver training and the practical application of minor repairs will be introduced for the entire Royal Mail vehicle fleet in line with the principles contained in our agreed process: The Performance of minor repairs by network professional LGV drivers.

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We were at the closing stages of negotiations on the BT 2010 agreement and we did not want to hold up the overall agreement and delay the conclusion for the sake of a paragraph covering minor repairs. But we did make the point that those discussions were not completed and we would continue to meet to bring all aspects to a satisfactory conclusion. This was done in good faith by the CWU and later recognised at a NDG meeting as that being the case.

It is also worth noting that the wording of the minor repairs paragraph makes reference to the tasks being jointly agreed and clearly at this stage they are not. It also makes reference to the principles contained in our agreed process: The Performance of minor repairs by network professional LGV drivers.

That agreed process states that carrying out repairs is at the drivers discretion and that the drivers decision is final.

We are also aware that it is being inferred by some managers that the CWU has agreed to this, probably on the basis of the above, which we hope has been explained and understood. The reality is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and that remains our position as far as minor repairs are concerned. Therefore F&MS CWU members who volunteered to undertake the delivery of training on the basis minor repairs would be agreed by the CWU should refrain from training anyone, given that discussions on minor repairs has not been concluded. Additionally, Driver members scheduled to receive the training need to be aware that neither the content nor the delivery of the training has been agreed by the CWU and in these circumstances (even where some members may have been trained) they should not sign off as “trained to do minor repairs”. Also minor repairs should not be attempted based on these un-agreed training sessions. If a vehicle has a fault the driver should remove the vehicle from service using a PMT1 to record the fault.

The CWU is not attempting to hide anything from its members or mislead anyone. It is true that as part of Business Transformation 2010 the union committed to agreeing a range of minor vehicle repair tasks suitable for trained OPG drivers in Royal Mail to undertake. However it was clear to us that through the efforts of OPG drivers the business would make substantial savings on avoiding external contractor payments and stem time & mileage costs for taking vehicles to and from MT workshops. It was on this basis that we put in a claim to share in the savings generated by our members’ efforts. Royal Mail maintains that the signing of the BT 2010 agreement included all aspects of reward. This is not true. At the time we could not make a viable claim as we had not had the opportunity to evaluate what the savings might be. We simply submitted an open claim for reward.

What is extremely disappointing is that we acted in good faith, in the spirit and intent of the national agreement and in particular the Transforming Relationship section. It was done as part of building the new relationship with Royal Mail and we therefore engaged with Fleet & Maintenance Services in a Joint Working Party to agree the processes, procedures and training to ensure OPG drivers were capable of performing the minor repair tasks they were being asked to undertake.

Whilst good progress was made by the Joint Working Group around safety issues, training and procedures unfortunately the business has refused to seriously acknowledge our claim for a share in the savings. This was raised at the National Deployment Group (NDG) and it was agreed that we would meet with Royal Mail to present out reward claim. A meeting did take place in March 2011 where we presented some figures and Royal Mail did not. We asked them to consider our claim and come back with some figures of their own. This request has been ignored, even when we met again at the start of November; a meeting we thought was intended to resolve the matter, no financial figures were produced by Royal Mail. As a consequence we have not been able to make any substantial progress on the reward claim despite those meetings and numerous exchanges of correspondence.

The CWU has made genuine efforts to bring the issue of minor repairs to a satisfactory conclusion. However it would appear that the business has got what it wants and has no interest in dealing with the CWU issues. This flies in the face of the national agreement, and cannot be considered as acceptable behaviour.

Therefore could Branches and Representatives please ensure that this LTB is widely distributed amongst all of our members and in particular OPG drivers and F&MS workshop members so that they are fully aware of the facts and the CWU position – the undertaking of minor repairs is not agreed with the CWU.

Any approaches from Royal Mail regarding minor repairs should be reported to the Outdoor Dept without delay. If Royal Mail insists on proceeding without agreement then Branches/Representatives should resort to the IR Framework and register disagreement.

Any enquiries to Bob Gibson’s Office, quoting reference 300
Email address: hnutley@cwu.org

Yours sincerely

Bob Gibson
Assistant Secretary

[brothermagrew]

I've just been on the CWU website and this LTB has either been removed or is failing to open up

[Cut Off King]

Questions -
1-- What is included within "minor repair" ?
2-- if a vehicle needs a minor repair( and there is no official agreement ), do we carry it out ? - e.g. replace a bulb or wiper blade
3-- If we don't carry it out and a manager attempts to conduct-code an OPG for refusing to obey an order, what will happen ?
4-- Why did the CWU fall into the RM trap of "we'll get back to you about that" ?
5-- Is it possible to get RM to stick to any agreement ?

[fishtank]

4-- Why did the CWU fall into the RM trap of "we'll get back to you about that" ?

Especially when the trap's been used more times than a manager's coffee mug.

5-- Is it possible to get RM to stick to any agreement ?

[Glenno]

I've just been on the CWU website and this LTB has either been removed or is failing to open up

[DGP1]

We change our own wheels and top up our own oil.............services and maintenance carried out by RM mechanic in a van.

[dvbuk55]

I would have thought that waiting almost two years for a response from RM was giving the green light for them to go ahead because it was obviously not considered important enough to chase up or clarify.