Divsional Reps meeting with Mark Higson

[Budfrog]

The nature of the beast has changed for the worse with the regional rationalisation. The more reasonable directors and senior managers have been displaced and those appointed to the new structure care little for agreements (national or local) and no longer respect the CWU and hold them in as much contempt as much of the membership. B&H is not only allowed it is positively encouraged and any cases that are raised are not investigated thoroughly or fairly. The revision process is not working and ridiculous targets (100BSi) are being set which are, believe me , unachievable. Health and Safety is not high on the priority of RM except maybe when a WCM audit is on the horizon ... the rest of the time SSOW are ignored.

I am not sure what the next steps should be for a membership that has been so badly let down by management and union but a dose of publicity based on accurate data and not RM spin would at least open this can of worms to further debate and it is a form of action that I would promote in the current climate.

[fishtank]

This is a bizarre thread , I give you information which you all were oblivious too and which you have all been criticising Royal Mail for and the lack of any union opposition too and when I say the unions had enough , I am met with a barrage of abuse and criticism for the union or that London has got off lightly. Some of you need get the chip off your shoulder , it is not going to be 150 the Broadway who gets these proposals and it won't be Headquarters who face the change it will be you.

There's nothing bizarre about this thread,it's simply a debate about whether RM has actually changed it's direction or whether it's just more of the same directed at different areas,it's also a debate about how we deal with that and what support can be expected from areas that have already been targeted,there is nothing unusual or personal in any of that.
There was certainly no barrage of abuse that i could see.
What would have been bizarre given the current difficulties would be no debate at all and the lack of comments on the thread worries me more than the nature of them.
Now...you say the union has had enough...do you mean HQ,the Divisional Reps or the membership?

My issue with the Divisional Reps would simply be this...the Scottish Divisional Reps have obviously been aware of the situation in "RM Scotland" for 18 months so the question we in Scotland have to mull over is whether they have failed to bring this up at previous Divisional Meetings,whether they have played down the situation for whatever reason or whether their opinion just did not fit the plan at that time although obviously it does now.
These are not questions i expect you to answer dingo but they are questions that will go through the minds of most of the members in my area and whatever answer they decide on will no doubt have a bearing on how they decide to move forward with this issue.

The reason for our concern of course is that while it is well documented that members in Scotland have been suffering from most of the sins on the list you produced for well over a year...why has the union only "had enough" now?

[hans solo]

one word LONDON

[IloveMYredTROLLEY!]

Communication up and down the union hierachy is abyssmal, in an ideal world this divisional rep meeting would have been brough to the attention of the local reps and then relayed to the general workforce in advance of the meeting, so such meetings with RM management convey more real-time issues around the country...

Not things that were happening months or even years ago.

[DirtyHarry]

Ok, for the terminally stupid on here, I will never allow myself to be led down the garden path by the morons who front the CWU ever again.

The last round of strikes I took part in, were well supported and showed no signs of abating.

The CWU leadership decided to call the strikes off, and then signed us up to a deal that I wouldn't have put to a dog, never mind hard-working colleagues in dire need of improvements in pay and conditions.

The deal myself and colleagues were lumbered with, was a disgrace, and only a complete fool would have lost over a £1000 in pay for a deal that improved on nothing, and in actual fact, made our jobs a whole lot worse than before we went on strike.

All the above isn't anything particularly new, when it comes to the CWU's rather unique approach to representing it's members, but that last time, was the last straw, for me, and a good many others I'll wager.

The CWU will learn that you can only take people for granted, for so long, before enough is enough.

There, now do the dimwitted realise I didn't mean actually strike for the morons at CWU HQ?

I doubt it, somehow.

[clashcityrocker]

[quo

My issue with the Divisional Reps would simply be this...the Scottish Divisional Reps have obviously been aware of the situation in "RM Scotland" for 18 months so the question we in Scotland have to mull over is whether they have failed to bring this up at previous Divisional Meetings,whether they have played down the situation for whatever reason or whether their opinion just did not fit the plan at that time although obviously it does now.

"RM Scotland" now includes the North of England.
Our capacity plan today is their upper decile tomorrow.

[suz67]

(We have several agreements for introduction but the new regional managers are trying to get more savings and we are not having it.)


says it all really!!

[DirtyHarry]

one word LONDON

Are you being a stupid bugger, deliberately?
I'm from an office in London, and we have been slaughtered in the last two revisions.
The north doesn't have a monopoly on being shafted, never had.

[hans solo]

do we have a copy of fri ltb just in case our rep doesn,t recieve it
so i can show troops at wtl and laughing session tmrw

[thebiggestman]

You're living in the clouds Dingo. London has now had revisions in nearly half its offices as you point out and despite not knowing their success or failure due to the Olympics Royal Mail are returning for more savings, whilst you say the are renaging on the National Agreements and joint statements. Therefore why would an office that went through all the pain and tribulations of implementing them now jeopardise what they have achieved by supporting the other half who haven't implemented anything and withdraw all cooperation. We supported Union through thick and thin in recent years even saving its very existence if we were to believe what was being touted and for that we lost our Mail Centre had our members shafted not supported and if it were not for local reps blocking Roal Mail's 100BSI utopia delivery offices failing all over the place as is proven by the debacle being played out as we speak in the new area delivery managers original area. I'm sure you message was take a chance don't get too technical and had we done that we would be in s**t street so we will not stand on the streets for another 19 weeks on and off just to make you look good on your white charger once again

[RTP]

Ask members for the worst thing to come out of BT2010 and I'm sure the majority vote would be lapsing, or resoursing to workload as it's now referred to. All it ever was and will ever be is a ticket for RM to abuse the system and bully and harass members. First thing HQ needs to do is decide how to get rid of this if they want the majority back on side.

Just in my opinion like

[Dee Plish]

Before getting too excited, I would await Royal Mail's lies, erm response to LTB 687/12. That being said, their actions at Regional level do bear the oh so familiar signs of RM wanting to start yet another Union breaking scrap pre-privatisation. Reading some of the faint hearted comments above, it's no wonder they can sniff weakness.....

Sadly, working for RM is always a battleground thanks to the idiots in charge who have absolutely no concept of a happy workforce being more productive. In Stalin's Russia, the populace were fed wonderful propoganda about increases in tractor production whilst being brutalised in reality. In the Stalinist Royal Mail, we get The Courier and B&H. Whatever happens, we have ONE Trade Union representing us. You may not like them at times, but without it, we are well and truly divided and conquerable. That is why RM want to break it. That is why we have to resist, at all times.

[demon]

in our office we are allready doing everything royal mail want us to to everyday we are battered thanks to this union no time to recover from day before work load saturday finish 2.45 pm every day the come see if we can laps now they are going to put bar codes in every van which must be scanned after each loop so they can see how long it takes to do a loop we are allso doing collections on saturdays if you pass the boxes on your delivery so why would we support the union now they have allready shaffted us to much

[dvbuk55]

Before getting too excited, I would await Royal Mail's lies, erm response to LTB 687/12. That being said, their actions at Regional level do bear the oh so familiar signs of RM wanting to start yet another Union breaking scrap pre-privatisation. Reading some of the faint hearted comments above, it's no wonder they can sniff weakness.....

Sadly, working for RM is always a battleground thanks to the idiots in charge who have absolutely no concept of a happy workforce being more productive. In Stalin's Russia, the populace were fed wonderful propoganda about increases in tractor production whilst being brutalised in reality. In the Stalinist Royal Mail, we get The Courier and B&H. Whatever happens, we have ONE Trade Union representing us. You may not like them at times, but without it, we are well and truly divided and conquerable. That is why RM want to break it. That is why we have to resist, at all times.

RM haven't so much broken the union but coerced it into being a partner at the expense of the membership.

[fishtank]

Reading some of the faint hearted comments above, it's no wonder they can sniff weakness......

The members are a lot of things but they are seldom faint hearted,if Royal Mail do believe that the CWU is not up to the fight it will more likely be the previous behaviour of those that make the decisions that leads them to believe that.
They certainly won't base any decision on anything written on here.
Members can be organised but they need honesty both in the reasons for the fight and what the aims will be.
Hoping for blind faith or harping on about past victories should never be an alternative to reality and the truth...that mistake was made in 2009 when members went out completely unaware of the reality of the situation facing them and the subsequent fall out and reality check left a great deal of members feeling short changed.

That is why RM want to break it.

If Royal Mail wanted to break the CWU they are smart enough to know that the easiest way to do that is to bring the union closer to them not polarise opinion and force members to take sides.
Industrial action usually does wonders for both recruitment and organisation.