The CWU safe in their hands? doc

[Nikellie]

Wowsers, this really does hurt the CWU members (of which I am one). There is no smoke without fire, in my humble opinion. Hayes gets Annual Leave payments totalling in excess of £29,000 going back to 2000 - seriously!! Comparisions can be possibly be drawn with the banking scandals and MP's pay/reward frauds from information in these documents. Who is going to call Hayes to account? Are the trustees powerless, are they not carrying out their duties as prescribed by law?

[Nikellie]

And forgot to mention,when you signed up to the site you agreed to this in the RULES...

KNOWN PERSONALITIES WITHIN ROYAL MAIL AND THE CWU

It is fair to say that those in the 'top jobs' come in for a lot of criticism on this forum, please post constructive criticism and nothing else. Any libellous or slanderous posts will be deleted or amended, in no way should these personalities have any abuse aimed at them, period.

Top jobs come in for a lot of criticism do they? Oh, so Hayes can claim £29,560 for "unused annual leave" and recommend a further £133,000 for the rest of his cronies on the NEC but the CWU members and RMC forum must abide by the rules and avoid anything posting anything libellous or slanderous?

I wonder what the Daily Telegraph journalists thought before they exposed the worst excesses of the MP's expenses scandal? Why can I not post about a union where the top bosses determine their own expenses/back pay without reference to their members? Did MP's not determine their own expenses rules without reference to the electorate?

Hayes is an ineffectual, overpaid, champagne socialist (gosh, is that allowed?) and it's now time for a change at the top. Who is protecting the frontline CWU members being slaughtered by these revisions/mail centre closures, where is the leadership?

[dvbuk55]

Taking a well earned holiday or maybe just squirelling the days away for a future pay out. What's a days holiday worth to the likes of them I wonder?

[LinChong]

As revelations go, this is so boring I had to really make an effort to read it.

Officers get paid well, have got back pay and the political fund borrowed money from the main account. This is hardly embezzlement. The originator(s) of this document seem to be pissed off because the Education centres are going to be closed.

Embezzlement is not a serious threat to the Union in the way that bribery is because embezzlers only nick money off the members and don't have to deliver what the bribe offerers want.

If the revelations had been about sexual favours given in return for pushing through the privatisation agenda it would be a story.

How much Alvescot and Elstead time is spent training reps and how much time is spent on non-IR training for Labour Party politicians?

If the privatisers wanted to control the direction of the Union would they bribe the GS or other members of the NEC or both?

Who would the GS be replaced by and whose interest would this suit?

We should have gone out on strike over the closure of post offices under the last government and the public would have been solidly behind us. We could have stopped privatisation then. We didn't because a lot of our leaders are more loyal to the Labour Party than the CWU.

If it were proved that ambitious women in the LP were cucking the socks of the NEC, that would be a story.

[dvbuk55]

Well linchong next time your subs go up to pay for non-taken holidays - remember your post. The union is being run for its own benefit and not for the benefit of the members. How would it be to change the rules so we could sack people with their hand in the till and not have to wait for an election.
As for privatisation..they are already discussing the best benefits they can pave the way for themselves.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Top jobs come in for a lot of criticism do they? Oh, so Hayes can claim £29,560 for "unused annual leave" and recommend a further £133,000 for the rest of his cronies on the NEC but the CWU members and RMC forum must abide by the rules and avoid anything posting anything libellous or slanderous?

Yes for 2 reasons.

1. The daily Telegraph and any other journalist has lawyers trained in the Libel and Slander laws, to read over their article to check for inaccuracies and to make sure that the evidence they have backs up the claims.

2. We, as in RMC, are an INDEPENDENT website run and paid for by Posties. We are not trained in Libel or slander so we have to be careful in what we allow to be posted. It would also be unfair to tun the risk of this site getting shut down and people sacked just because one person wants to rant.

To be honest its Common Sense and I can't see why people push the boundaries. One thing is for sure as McLovin will probably agree if Royal Mail can identify you and link it to a post on here that is libellous, they will sack YOU.

I wonder what the Daily Telegraph journalists thought before they exposed the worst excesses of the MP's expenses scandal? Why can I not post about a union where the top bosses determine their own expenses/back pay without reference to their members? Did MP's not determine their own expenses rules without reference to the electorate?

You can as long as you don't become slanderous or libellous. Basically don't make claims unless you can back them up with evidence and that you are willing to post on here.

Hayes is an ineffectual, overpaid, champagne socialist (gosh, is that allowed?) and it's now time for a change at the top. Who is protecting the frontline CWU members being slaughtered by these revisions/mail centre closures, where is the leadership?

See nothing wrong in that you are expressing an opinion on Hayes's Politics and fitness for office and you did not use abuse to put your view across.

[Nikellie]

OK TrueBlueTerrier,

I appreciate the need to protect the integrity of RMC and the duty of care of the poster - points well and truly taken on board.

However I am dealing with the documented FACTS (i.e. accounts and NEC No 110/12) that our union bosses are seeking in excess of £160,000 (one individual has already received £29,560) in unused annual leave payments, dating back to 2000, for themselves. IMHO this is morally reprehensible and draws comparision with the MP's expenses scandal. Would Royal Mail be likely to honour payment requests for unused leave from it's employees?

Frontline members continue to battle against poorly managed revisions and mail centre closures whilst our union NEC is seeking to line their own pockets. I'll make no apology for bringing this issue to the top of the RMC forum.

[fishtank]

If the privatisers wanted to control the direction of the Union would they bribe the GS or other members of the NEC or both?.

No.
Why would they?
Royal Mail already control the direction of the Union simply by being the largest employer of members.
No Royal Mail means no CWU so it's really a no-brainer if you need the Union to move in a particular direction that suits.
What do you think a Joint Statement is?
Have you seen Dave Ward's CWU TV videos?
Did you miss Moya Greene at the conference?
If all else failed they could always threaten to remove check off and force the union into financial oblivion.

Stop looking for ridiculous movie style conspiracies where they aren't even needed and concentrate on a far more believable scenario,simple greed and financial incompetence.
It might seem boring to you but at least it's based in reality and despite what you think it easily has the potential to bring the union to it's knees and force a merger.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

OK TrueBlueTerrier,

I appreciate the need to protect the integrity of RMC and the duty of care of the poster - points well and truly taken on board.

However I am dealing with the documented FACTS (i.e. accounts and NEC No 110/12) that our union bosses are seeking in excess of £160,000 (one individual has already received £29,560) in unused annual leave payments, dating back to 2000, for themselves. IMHO this is morally reprehensible and draws comparision with the MP's expenses scandal. Would Royal Mail be likely to honour payment requests for unused leave from it's employees?

Frontline members continue to battle against poorly managed revisions and mail centre closures whilst our union NEC is seeking to line their own pockets. I'll make no apology for bringing this issue to the top of the RMC forum.

I agree with you, its something that needs to be sorted as soon as possible. It is certainly a divisive subject, and one on which the gliteratti at HQ are quite rightly getting it in the neck.

RMC as a forum is certainly the place to talk about this subject in fact Postman and myself both tried to get hold of the document (it looks like his contacts are better than mine ) so we are not trying to shut down the topic, in fact I am a little surprised that its not getting the number of posts I thought it would.

I think that there is a need to change the ethos and hierarchy at HQ, and at lower levels, in fact its one I have posted on quite a bit. HQ and FTRs run a risk if they get seen as out of touch with the common postie, we have reached that stage, but the question remains not whether the CWU needs to change, but whether it can, and if there is enough frustration out there to force a change.

Is this a Keggie moment, only time will tell.

[fishtank]

Is this a Keggie moment, only time will tell.

I think it might be bigger than that.
It did puzzle me that Billy decided to convert all of his unused leave into cash at a time when the Union's finances are in a precarious position.
I would have expected him to take some as leave and some as cash and roll some on as has been the case in the past,maybe given the Union's position and his relatively comfortable salary i might even expect a socialist trade union leader to have waived at least part of them.
I did not expect him to trouser the lot in one go.

Given that it seems others are being encouraged to cash in anything they feel is owed to them it does remind me of all those Northern Rock customers waiting outside their branch desperate to remove their savings..
I would assume that all of these people are aware of the union's financial weakness at the moment so the real question is.....
Do they know something we don't?

[Nikellie]

OK TrueBlueTerrier,

in fact I am a little surprised that its not getting the number of posts I thought it would..

Surprise indeed as it's quite an explosive set of accusations. I wonder if the level of interest is due in part to it being spread across five separate PDF's, some of which contain six pages (including a lengthy piece on the legal responsibilities of being a trustee). Perhaps it could be edited into a one pager detailing the main issues in order to stimulate greater interest in this thread?

As fishtank points out "Do they know something we don't?"

[TrueBlueTerrier]

OK TrueBlueTerrier,

in fact I am a little surprised that its not getting the number of posts I thought it would..

Surprise indeed as it's quite an explosive set of accusations. I wonder if the level of interest is due in part to it being spread across five separate PDF's, some of which contain six pages (including a lengthy piece on the legal responsibilities of being a trustee). Perhaps it could be edited into a one pager detailing the main issues in order to stimulate greater interest in this thread?

As fishtank points out "Do they know something we don't?"

I'll give it a go but there may be an issue with the file size as this boards system has a size limit for attachments.

Edit: Document attached All parts

merged_document.pdf

NB Listening to football so sorry if merged them wrong

[Nikellie]

One point in particular intrigues me, why did the Policital Fund go from a surplus of 32,192 in 2009 to a deficit of 171,276 in 2010.

1. Where did all that money go? They must have known at the end of 2009 that the fund was low having only £32.192 available. Why did the trustees not ask questions about the low level of the Policital Fund?
2. Why did the accountant/finance officer not flag up that the Political Fund was massively overdrawn? Surely they would know if cheques were being written against this fund?
3. Why in 2006 did the fund reduce from a surplus of 729,111 to 202,698, perhaps an election year - but still expenditure of over half a million pounds!!

At best it's mis-management of union finances at worst it's utter incompetence.

[General Mannerheim]

Why are you surprised that it's not got more post?
The rank and file are far too busy trying to keep our heads above water with all the s**t we are dealing with at a local level to be bothered about what the t.urds at HQ are up to,in fact I strongly suspect most members already thought s**t like this goes on all the time.

[Grinder64]

Hayes is an ineffectual, overpaid, champagne socialist (gosh, is that allowed?) and it's now time for a change at the top. Who is protecting the frontline CWU members being slaughtered by these revisions/mail centre closures, where is the leadership?