NETWORK 12 REVISION ACTIVITY

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Letter to Branches




No. 346/2012
Ref: 233.08
Date: 11th May 2012

FOR THE URGENT ATTENTION OF:

All Postal Branches with Network Members
All Divisional Representatives
All Regional Organisers
All Area Distribution Representatives
All LGV Representatives



Dear Colleague

NETWORK 12 REVISION ACTIVITY

Further to LTB 233/12 it is with great regret that the department has had to produce this LTB and report to you that we believe Royal Mail Logistics have broken the agreement made on the Network 12 process and therefore all discussions should be suspended both locally and Nationally until such time as the disagreement is resolved Nationally.

By way of a reminder you will recall that Royal Mail Logistics and the CWU Nationally had agreed that there could be collective interest in reaching a successful deployment of Network 12 between late June and early July 2012, prior to the start of the Olympics.

Both parties recognised that this deployment target was earlier than had been done previously and would therefore require a positive and pragmatic approach at all levels if the deployment target was to be met. It was also agreed that the review would be based on the current RDC and VOC network.

We are at Stage Two of the process and the National Working Group met on Thursday 10th May 2012, only to be presented with first cut proposals, which clearly were not based on the current RDC and VOC network, as the Paragon outputs excluded the two RDC/VOC’s involved in a consultation process over their future. In addition all road services including ‘Empty Legs’ had been removed on the basis that the business intend to use external resource on these runs.

Nationally we have gone to great lengths to reassure those CWU members whose RDC/VOC is going through a consultation process that no final decisions have been made and that the process is genuine. Equally we have agreed to enter genuine discussion on the ‘Progressive Agenda’ with no pre-determined positions and the matter of ‘Empty Legs’ is part of that process.

However the managerial team involved in the National Working Group for Network 12 have made it quite clear, via their proposed first cut network requirements, that they consider both the RDC consultations and the progressive agenda discussions ‘fait accompli’ in their eyes and that is totally at odds with the approach we agreed.

Therefore we are now in a disagreement process at National level and the Network 12 discussions, RDC consultations and Progressive Agenda discussions are all suspended at this point. If management decide to still pursue these issues locally without resolving this National disagreement then the CWU will have to decide how we respond Nationally.

In the meantime we advise that there should be no local negotiations on these matters until a resolution to this national disagreement is found. If any attempt is made by local managers to progress revision activity then the matter should be the subject of a disagreement via the provisions of the IR Framework and my department at CWU HQ notified immediately.

It would appear that the ‘dash for cash’ mentality has once again seized the management of the business to the extent that it is overriding any desire on their part to demonstrate integrity and honour in the agreements we have made.

Please remember those agreements are designed to protect the concept of mutual interest and protect our Network members and it is essential that you verbally explain in detail to every member involved the seriousness of this development because we believe it is essential that those agreements are defended and honoured.

Any enquiries in relation to this LTB should be addressed to Terry Pullinger, Assistant Secretary, e-mail: dwyatt@cwu.org quoting reference number: 233.08

Yours sincerely



Terry Pullinger
Assistant Secretary

[Johny O]

The meeting that was scheduled for Monday at PRDC has been canceled because of the above.

[Martin Walsh]

The meeting that was scheduled for Monday at PRDC has been canceled because of the above.

yes Johnny after speaking to Terry Pullinger I cancelled the meeting , a couple of the reasons for doing this involved this consultation. Royal Mail had agreed that both Woking and East London VOCs would be covered by Network 12 but when the paragon runs came out on Thursday now runs we're assingned to East London or Woking. in addition one senior manger attempted to say that the 90 day consultation period had started at the CWUs conference which was wrong as well.

of course the wider issues are big ticket issues in terms of network and the CWU are not having what Royal Mail's plans are for Network and that means by all means at the Unions disposal.

[heathrow86]

Dingo, will the CWU let the members know what RM plans were? Obviously it must be pretty serious.

[Johny O]

I think we are heading for a major onslaught.

Maybe this isn't the right thread to put this but:

Royal Mail plans to sell off half its flagship sorting office in central London with the transformation of the five-hectare (12-acre) site into flats, netting the postal service up to £1bn.

The redevelopment at Mount Pleasant on the outskirts of the capital's financial district is unlikely to be completed until after the company's privatisation in about two years, leading to fears new owners could asset-strip the business instead of reinvesting.

The high-value land assets, which stretch across the country, also appear to contradict the Royal Mail chief executive Moya Greene's assertions that the company is "balance-sheet insolvent".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/1 ... sfeed=true

Note the article states "high value land assets" meaning many more buildings are likely to be sold off.

[SpacePhoenix]

I think we are heading for a major onslaught.

Maybe this isn't the right thread to put this but:

Royal Mail plans to sell off half its flagship sorting office in central London with the transformation of the five-hectare (12-acre) site into flats, netting the postal service up to £1bn.

The redevelopment at Mount Pleasant on the outskirts of the capital's financial district is unlikely to be completed until after the company's privatisation in about two years, leading to fears new owners could asset-strip the business instead of reinvesting.

The high-value land assets, which stretch across the country, also appear to contradict the Royal Mail chief executive Moya Greene's assertions that the company is "balance-sheet insolvent".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/1 ... sfeed=true

Note the article states "high value land assets" meaning many more buildings are likely to be sold off.

I wouldn't be surprised to see all the MCs (and PRDC) in London which are due to remain open get sold off and a new mega-office get built outside of London (probably near the M25). They could make a load of money on the sites. Anyone know which MCs and RDCs RM own and which are rented/leased?

[craigyboy4677]

im surprised that RM actually run artics around the centre of london running between nine elms and mount pleasant,i would have thought it would be more efficient to have 6 mail centres dotted round the M25, including the new mail centre at hemel hempstead.

[Martin Walsh]

You forget that no mail centre outside central London could connect with EC1-4 , WC1& 2 , W1 , SW1 , SE1 outward work with all the late collections.

On top of all this the inward operations of EC , W1 , WC and N1-22 were all scoped to go in the London Mail Centre plan and were all concluded that their was no way that any mail centre could cope outside of London with their inward and have the work flow through the night to the delivery offices which were needed.

[Johny O]

Well we're stuck out in the country and we own the land, Woking VOC I mean.

20 miles from Heathrow airport.

We could end up a central delivery office, an outhouse for HWDC or get sold off for real estate.

We really have no idea yet.

[dodger162]

Which MCs will be processing Inward for SE and SW, is it Croydon and Jubilee?

[Johny O]

I wonder what they will do with a site like Woking.

It's a fair size building, it used to be a parcel force depot, when we were at SHCDC (southern home counties) in Guildford they shut that place and moved us to woking.

Since then the customer collections have been dwindling to almost nothing and we do some international work IE processing airport mail (usually charity begging letters from the USA).

The building is about 100 meres long by 40 metres wide with dock levelers installed already.

We have a fairly large yard that can house quite a few vehicles and we are on brown belt land (industrial estate) and right next to a housing estate.

I simply do not have the traffic figures or enough information to be able to reach an informed judgement and management are keeping it all to themselves and saying nothing.

Perhaps we will be a mixture of things but local deliveries are now fully staffed and vacancies are few and far between.

We wait in hope.

I get the feeling higher management know exactly what is going on.

I guess we will find out when this meeting is rescheduled.

[Martin Walsh]

Which MCs will be processing Inward for SE and SW, is it Croydon and Jubilee?

South West London to jubilee and South East London to Croydon

[dodger162]

I think the plan is to transfer traffic from WDC and ELDC to PRDC.

[Martin Walsh]

I think the plan is to transfer traffic from WDC and ELDC to PRDC.

Your correct on the RDCS work but not on the network part.

[Johny O]

There's a lot of people at out place who think everything is going to be alright, they think they will have jobs, a lot don't even drive.

Woking VOC will either be a big central delivery office (very likely), an outhouse (with very limited staff) or sold off.

Finding jobs for our lot might be hard as every where seems to be fully staffed or even excess in staff and trying to shed jobs.

It may seem financially better (three hours driving to and fro for work for £330 a week take home pay.) for many members to take the VR settlements and then take their chances in the job market (a very unknown quantity).