Local Reps' meetings for Deliveries, Mail Centres, Romec etc

[LinChong]

Where are they?

There are conferences for all sorts except local reps. Does the CWU want to organise local reps or isolate local reps?

[LinChong]

To make it clear, the suggestion is that HQ organise networking events for all local reps working in the same type of unit.

For example, all Mail Centre local reps will get a meeting together, all Fleet and Maintenance Service local reps will get a meeting together, all PO local reps will get a meeting together, all PO Supply Chain local reps will get a meeting together etc.

If HQ can organise a conference for Youth, they can organise a local reps conference. How much rep training do the Youth activists get? The workshops on the National Youth Education Event are "anti-racism, drugs, recruitment & organising, sexual health and many more". There are probably courses on 'why you shouldn't eat fried chicken and gamble on the horses'. Where is the emphasis on things that are a priority for the members that pay their subs?

Members want reps that can fight for them. If a rep can make sure that all duties are covered, overtime is shared out fairly and the rep can write a grievance that will make a manager shake with fear, the members will be happy. They don't want someone coming back from a union funded weekend telling them not to take drugs and wear a condom but can't help them if money has been unlawfully deducted from their pay.

[LinChong]

There have been a lot of views but no replies.

Does anybody want to comment?

[dvbuk55]

There have been a lot of views but no replies.

Does anybody want to comment?

Communication is the name of the game and what the union lacks. The union are busy engaging Royal Mail, setting up a dialogue with the TUC, Ofcom, other trade unions - that must be the BIG PICTURE - so exactly who is looking after the local membership family snaps - because Area/Div and Branches certainly aren't. It is time HQ came back down to earth and got to grips with organising the grass roots - fine have a dialogue with these other parties BUT DON'T FORGET WHERE YOUR MONEY COMES FROM. You cannot consistently ignore the members and then expect support.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

There have been a lot of views but no replies.

Does anybody want to comment?

Hopefully they are thinking through their arguments and will add to the debate. I personally don't measure a threads quality on the quantity of responses, rather I measure it on the diversity of the arguments presented.

[LinChong]

Communication is the name of the game and the businesses and services we work in but it is not the practise of the CWU.

We don't even have a national data base of all our local reps that is accessible to all our local reps.

Can anyone tell me why would it be a problem if a local rep in a unit at one end of the country were to communicate with a local rep in a similar unit at the other end of the country?

[Glenno]

LinChong, welcome, as a Local Rep you should have access to your Branch, and if so make that contact, because they hold all the details you are asking for, attend AGM's, do a bit of networking, get yourself on a course or two at Alvescot and all will become a bit more clearer. Comm's has always been a big issue in the C W U

[Stormproof]

If you've attended courses/meetings you should have a list of local reps phone numbers/email addresses eh Glenno

[LinChong]

Why can't local reps have automatic access to all other local reps in the CWU via their login on the the members section of the CWU website?

If a local rep wants to ask a question or share the result of a successful grievance with other local reps, why should they have to go through their Branch?

The Branch has to give permission for a local rep to go on courses. If a local rep wanted contact details of members outside the Branch, the Branch would ask why before giving out this information. This is wrong. A local rep should only have to justify themselves to the members in the unit that elect them.

A Branch committee does not decide who is allowed to stand as a local rep. Why should a local rep have to go through their Branch to get information that should be available online?

Branches are only useful for putting motions to conference and how much time is there for IR matters at our conferences? Even if you can get a motion past the Branch, the Standing Orders Committee is a further hurdle.

My experience of the CWU and royalmailchat has been like the reception the two Americans got when they entered The Slaughtered Lamb. In theory, anyone can be elected to a post within the CWU but in practise, those already holding office decide whether to accept you. If they don't want you, they won't even tell you why. We have an organisation that is a private members club and the existing structures keep it that way.

[fishtank]

My experience of the CWU and royalmailchat has been like the reception the two Americans got when they entered The Slaughtered Lamb.

Did they walk in the door and start calling people c***s?
I actually agree with you about the branch structure though,for too long many branches have been run for the benefit of branch officials not members....but obviously happy to use members money to fund their little social clubs.
Unless you were like-minded you were not welcome
The reason this has been allowed to fester is partly a cyclical apathy from the membership fed by a deliberatly difficult and incestous democratic process and partly a lack of top down accountibility by those at HQ signing off the cheques to branches.
Some mistake the federal model for the do whatever you like model.
I've said all this before though so it isn't news.
As for lumping this site in with that...i think the members would say otherwise and it's only their collective opinion that matters....not mine or yours individually.

[dvbuk55]

My experience of the CWU and royalmailchat has been like the reception the two Americans got when they entered The Slaughtered Lamb

And royalmailchat? I'm not entirely sure what the connection is between RMC and the organisation of the CWU

[LinChong]

The way I see it is that we have too many small Branches that can easily be taken over by cliques. This happens because the current system makes it easy for shop stewards to get outnumbered in the Branch Committees.

The Model Branch Constitution requires Branch Committees to have Equality Officers etc. that can all be cronies of the Branch Secretary. The Constitution should guarantee a seat on the Branch Committee for every Section Secretary and every separate unit in the Branch should be a mandatory section. Branches should be large enough to ensure that the Section Secretaries outnumber the combined strength of the other Branch Officials. This would help make Branch Committees serve the members rather than the Branch Secretaries.

Our IR structures are geographical and do not match our employer's management structures. For example, if there are 5 of the same types of unit spread throughout the UK, the units are spread across territories. We have no IR rep that is responsible for negotiating on behalf of all 5 units and who is solely democratically accountable to the members in those 5 units. Maybe we should get rid of all rounder Area and Territory reps and replace them with specialist Area and National IR reps for each type of business unit. If there are only 5 of the same type of unit in the UK, there is no need for the Area Rep level. Where there are a lot of the same type of units like DOs, then there is a need for Area Reps but all Area Reps should be solely democratically accountable to the members in the units they represent.

It is not acceptable for NEC substitutes to be responsible for national negotiations. They are not accountable to the members they negotiate on behalf of.

[LinChong]

Does anyone want to debate this?

[POSTMAN]

I would,but the WIFI is s**t here,i'll have a lager teebs...
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