cwu info

[fishtank]

But the fact remains that the only money most people got off colleague share was when the union moved money for colleague share into lump sums. We had two payments of £400 under Pay and Mod and the £1000 under BT2010 was all from colleague share money.

The exact facts about the payments made under the colleagueshare scheme are as follows...

£600 in Local dividends and £600 in Group dividends split up as follows £400 for each dividend was paid on 30/5/08 and £200 on 29/5/09,in total £1200 gross.

The final dividends were replaced by the Pay Deal Lump Sum of £400 paid when we accepted BT2010 replacing the final dividends of £200 Local and £200 Group.

The third share issue was converted into a cash payment and went towards the £1000 Transformation Bonus Payments.The number of shares which would have been issued is unknown but may according to RM have been similar to the second issue...around 300 shares.

[bunkerland]

If I like a gamble , I would think that maybe the investor are not lining up to buy into Royal Mail , that the staff dont want it and maybe a certain oppostion might not support it either. So maybe that leak is aimed at trying to say to postal workers if you support the sell off then you will recieve some money.

Well that's us all screwed then,history suggests whether it be locally(from years ago) or nationally(recent times) us posties would sell our own grannies for the possibility of a lump sum. Easily led and easily bribed. Some things will never change!

[Lincox]

Fish, the get out clause is that they do not state when this will be done or in what time. Another piece of work between RM and CWU that has no conclusion or meaningful benefit for the members. The people that we put in positions to protect our interest appear to have no idea how to negotiate and come to a totally conclusive position or one that cannot be misinterpreted by RM.

[motch]

some people still even think the earth is flat as well !

it's like a giant flapjack

[fishtank]

Fish, the get out clause is that they do not state when this will be done or in what time.

The get out clause is we agree stuff,they ignore stuff and we do nothing but enter into more talks about agreeing stuff.
At some point somebody has to draw a line and say no more stuff gets agreed until you sort out the other stuff but it seems we're off on another agreeing new stuff mission.

[dvbuk55]

some people still even think the earth is flat as well !

And some think the sun shines out of the unions arse

[north london driver]

It,s all building up to a Summer of discontent, followed by an Autumn of jousting, followed by a Winter of misery. Unless the Tory/Lib dem pact crumbles and employment is put back on the political agenda, Royal Mail can be confident that there will be no hunger for strike action, especially with the amount of fixed term contracts there are in the business.

AND WHOS FAULT TO AGREE TO FIXED TERM CONTRACTS.

Wh,s fault was and is it North London?

there should never been part-time/job sharing/or fixed term contracts at royal mail it is a full-time job.
everyone should be full-time then we know where we stand since we have had all these make-beleave dutys brought in now
managers have had the upper hand on staff and treat them like s**t.it was the biggest downfall of our union to except the idea that we work hours at any time of the day,everyday on this forum we hear of staff being treated unfairly and working for nothing due to staff scared of losing there contracts.
if you were a manager who would you bully first someone who would be hard to get rid of due to a full-time contract or
the innocent part-timer who probly is not in the union and could have his contract ripped up at the end of his short-term time with royal-mail.this is why all staff should be in the union but nowdays it just seems an extra burden to staff.
remember all these contracts take another person off the dole que and keep the goverment happy with there figures.
every office should be checked by reps (unit or area) and ask them face to face if they want to join the union and give them the details why they should join and the gains in joining then if there not-intrested then that is down to them.
all offices should have on the union board the names and union numbers of all members.
if our union ever ask for a national strike by its members we may well find out that some offices have more non-members
than union members then the damage will take years to recover if it ever does.
sorry lincox
as for the answer i cannot remember must been a deal or in a long agreement signed off a few years ago,
i just hope i have not let myself into a trap here (a london agreement).

[Lincox]

Part time and job sharing as long as they are permanent contracts I have no problem. Fixed term contracts should never have been agreed if that is what the CWU have done. I do however believe that it would be better if Part Time and Job Share designed on working a full days shift so on any given day each worker is doing the same amount of work so we dont have these arguments about who should prep D2Ds and whether a walk is fully prepped for someone only working 5 hours or less. This situation causes more dissent and disagreement between workers than any other problems.

[Martin Walsh]

Fixed term contracts are often not agreed but based on a major Royal Mail restructure be that a mail centre closure or a major set of revision activity. Sometimes it does make sense why would you want to make recuirt staff on a permanent basis in a mail centre which is just a few miles away from a mail centre which is closing and which would allow those permanent staff to move into the other mail centre.

Equally if you are in a delivery office which is likely to lose a number of jobs why would you still recuirt on a permanent basis as under MTSF those indivduals may have to be complusory transferred to another office.

Fixed terms contract if done correctly can assist in avoiding complusory redundancies.

Royal Mail have often abused the use of Ftcs and the job security agreement now introduces the following safeguards

The use of FTCs in an area now has to be agreed and against an exceptional circumstances such as a mail centre closure.

That all FTCs over 2 years should be made permanent

That once an office has had their transformation revision all FTCs regardless of service should be made permanent and all new staff should be recuited on a permenant basis.

[Martin Walsh]

Lincox the cwu have employed a firm of accountants to examine the Royal Mail books. Colleague share was never a negotiation or an agreement with the cwu.

I think your falling into the same trap as most others in the union lets blame everyone else. CWU HQs blame the offices for agreeing things which were never in the actual agreement 100 bsi etc , Branch's blame headquarters for Royal Mail breaking and changing the agreement , local reps blame everyone above and some blame the members for carving up the job.

For me it's about what we collectively can do better to tackle all these issues. I think cwu HQs should now publish the review into the accounts and confirm what most of us know that at the time when colleague share was due Royal Mail had revalued the company to make sure that no money was due to be paid out.

The real enemy for doing that was not the cwu but Royal Mail who wanted to rid the company of the pension deficit to ensure they could make the company easier to sell.

[dvbuk55]

When the money wasn't paid out the CWU was like Pilate washing its hands of colleague share - but it makes you wonder what the reaction would have been if it had been paid out.

[fishtank]

Colleague share was never a negotiation or an agreement with the cwu

That's not entirely true,by incorporating the payments into the BT2010 agreement the union made it part of an agreement.
That was a mistake.

It was unnecessary since the shares already existed and putting them in an agreement made no difference to their value or the chances of them paying out.

The only reason it was done was to make the rewards section of BT2010 a little more sexy for the members.

It was a cynical move on the part of Royal Mail and the CWU negotiators to help ensure the acceptance of the agreement.

It came back to bite them on the arse,they should accept that they got it wrong and learn from it...so they don't make the same mistake again.

Attempting to rewrite history or wash their hands of it shows a lack of respect for the intelligence of the membership.

[Lincox]

Lincox the cwu have employed a firm of accountants to examine the Royal Mail books. Colleague share was never a negotiation or an agreement with the cwu.

I think your falling into the same trap as most others in the union lets blame everyone else. CWU HQs blame the offices for agreeing things which were never in the actual agreement 100 bsi etc , Branch's blame headquarters for Royal Mail breaking and changing the agreement , local reps blame everyone above and some blame the members for carving up the job.

For me it's about what we collectively can do better to tackle all these issues. I think cwu HQs should now publish the review into the accounts and confirm what most of us know that at the time when colleague share was due Royal Mail had revalued the company to make sure that no money was due to be paid out.

The real enemy for doing that was not the cwu but Royal Mail who wanted to rid the company of the pension deficit to ensure they could make the company easier to sell.

Dingo, I was referring to the fact that the CWU and Royal Mail issued a joint statement last year which has not been followed up by CWU. You now say that CWU employed a firm of Accountants to examine the Royal Mail Books. OK this has cost all of us money by way of our subs to employ these Accountants and yet CWU have not had the decency to let its members know what the result of that examination was. CWU are the guilty party in this respect and perhaps now you can accept this and suggest to the PEC that they should treat the membership with a little more respect and not let things go which are going to come back and bite them. I wait in anticipation of a report from the PEC on this issue.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

I think your falling into the same trap as most others in the union lets blame everyone else. CWU HQs blame the offices for agreeing things which were never in the actual agreement 100 bsi etc , Branch's blame headquarters for Royal Mail breaking and changing the agreement , local reps blame everyone above and some blame the members for carving up the job.

Its ALL of the above and its a symptom of the disengagement between all levels. If its a trap, its one of our own making.

Disengagement, apathy and self protection are all a cancer that is dragging the Union down, and until they are tackled seriously, members will stay disengaged, reps will stay apathetic, and the officers will be seen as more and more distant.

No one is to blame, we are all to blame but it doesn't change that something has to be done, but it appears nothing is.

[Martin Walsh]

Fish you know what I was saying the CWU were not involved in the creation of colleague share. Yes the CWU in talks attempted to get as much of colleague share into links to both pay and mod and business transformation but that is not the same is it. I was not trying to belittle anyone over colleague share.

Now in terms of what is wrong with the CWU well there is a number of things , too little comms , to few who want to get involved in the trade union movement including the CWU , to many happy to post things on the internet but not willing to make a difference in the workplace or stand up to management, to many reps who dont meet the members to explain the bad things and not just the good things.

I have been in the CWU for over 28 years and there have always been weak areas , all agreements have always ended in local negotiation. Equally I believe there are still some very good areas and some very good strong offices who stand up for themselves by standing together and protecting each other.

The CWU have announced that over the next 3 months the CWU will be launching a campaign of the membership over the 3 main issues , privatisation , regulation and workplace issues including pay and pensions. Each division/region have been asked to ensure that Branch"s produce a plan which lays out a timetable when they will visit all offices in their Branch and hold meetings with the members and what other comms they intend to produce. The CWU centrally will be carrying out telephone polls to ensure that offices have been visited.

I know in London we have some comms going out next week , some more after the conference , postcards to mps , a postcard to moya , a units rep meeting and members meeting across London.

Other should also be doing the same. There is no doubt that the union has to reconnect into the workplace but I am convince that if we did this everywhere not just in a few places then the members will understand that on all the issues we will get a better outcome by fighting then we will do by not standing together and by not standing together allowing Royal Mail , the Government and Of comm to destroy our pay , pensions , terms and conditions and remove jobs.