Information

[Martin Walsh]

Clash is correct , given the fact that with or without agreement , Mail Centres were closing , prior to the BT Agreement we had the North West Mail Centre Closure programme which closed 5 mail centres including LIverpool and Crewe. We had the closure of Milton Keynes , Reading and Oxford. So MAil Centres were closing without a national agreement, the BT 2010 agreement put in a consultation process of 2 x 90 day processes with a comphebsive people resolution plan. Does it mean that mail centres will stay open no but it does allow Branch's to put a case forward which has to be answered prior to a decision .

Now despite the national union saying that there should be no savings agreed until there was a national agreement in place , over 300 offices agreed full geo route revisons outside of an agreement with no lump sums. The National Agreement ensure that Royal Mail could only introduce a Revison if they followed the 6 step process ,it had the menu of options and no commitment to 100bsi. The national agreement has helped to ensure that Royal Mail never achieved the savings they first wanted. Delivery routes across the country have only reduced by 2500 since the introduction of BT2010.

The national agreement committed the business to a 75/25 split on full time / part time ratio. Prior to the national agreement Royal Mail had wanted to introduce the TNT Dutch model where the average part time contract now is 9 hours. We now have a breakdown for every single office with regards to part time full time mix and we are above the 75/25 national mix. Prior to this agreement the North East had a split of just above 50 per cent.

Now in terms of Door to Door , Royal Mail had been proposing to change door to door from 2003 as it was not growing in terms of revenue and quality was poor. Royal Mail were considering an alternative workforce to deliver this and once again Royal Mail are considering this idea for delivering door to door , mail not linked to USO and packets to compete with TNT who are paid £7.10 per hour and have zero hour contracts and can work any hours from 06:30 until 20:00 in any postcode.
In addition Royal Mail wanted it in workload but not to pay anything for this move as they stated that they were already paying wages to deliver mail. In the end the CWU forced Royal Mail to use all the wages from door to door and the early shift allowances and put it into a permanent addition to basic pay which increases everything there is a wage wise. Now full time and part time delivery people must be on the same hourly rate so this is why it is paid pro rata. Door to Door now makes 130 million clear profit for the business and is growing and they want to now look at a 3 day door to door service. Royal Mail have also Introuduce a self imposed cap of 6 Intems per office.

Now in terms of pay rises , during the worst recession since the 1930s we had 3 years of above inflation pay rises ,,lump sums linked to revisons and we were paid a lump sum of £400 from colleague share when the agreement first came in , if the union had not insisted on this money would have disappeared along with the rest of the colleague share money.

Now some of you might of believed the agreement was crap , but did you think the union had a veto on walk sequencing , door to door , and revisons if so then you really were misguided.

[dvbuk55]

The veto was industrial action - which as I remember was called off after 2 days - and if we are due more of the same with a proclamation of a deal of the century - don't bring it on. As for the 75/25 split.........well? And if the North East was already a 50/50 split what good did a National 75/25 split bring to their table - no surely not the winners and losers scenario.

[fishtank]

we had 3 years of above inflation pay rises

No we didn't.

2009 Pay Rise 0% Inflation(CPI) 2.2%
2010 Pay Rise 2% Inflation(CPI) 3.3%
2011 Pay Rise 1.4% Inflation(CPI) 4.5%
2012 Pay Rise 3.5% Inflation(CPI) 2.8%

We had a pay freeze followed by two years of below inflation pay rises followed by one year at above inflation.
That is basing inflation on CPI,historically the lower of the two measures.

we were paid a lump sum of £400 from colleague share when the agreement first came in

That lump sum was due within weeks of the agreement being signed anyway.

if the union had not insisted on this money would have disappeared along with the rest of the colleague share money.

I don't think the union should use the disappearance of the colleagueshare money as some kind of testimony that they were right all along.
If the union felt that way the two "re-payments" of the colleagueshare money that were not honoured should never have been incorporated into the BT2010 agreement.
The members rightly or wrongly blame the union for it's lack of action to date over the colleagueshare fiasco so to be honest the less said about that the better.

[mandelsons_toenail]

With regards to the delivery supplement, I fear come any potential privatisation, that £20 odd quid a week will vanish

[borders]

There is going to be a dispute unless the Tories back down on Privatisation, cant see that happening myself . we have just had a consultative ballot and over 90 % on a 74% turn out said they are willing to take action. this is a battle that we have to take on , the people at the top [ witness Moya Greene ' s latest pay deal for one ] are filling their pockets. its sickening, at least the Highway Robber wore a mask.
we may not win and most people cant afford a strike but the sensible idea would be to tuck away some money over the coming months to help lessen the blow.

[dvbuk55]

There is going to be a dispute unless the Tories back down on Privatisation, cant see that happening myself . we have just had a consultative ballot and over 90 % on a 74% turn out said they are willing to take action. this is a battle that we have to take on , the people at the top [ witness Moya Greene ' s latest pay deal for one ] are filling their pockets. its sickening, at least the Highway Robber wore a mask.
we may not win and most people cant afford a strike but the sensible idea would be to tuck away some money over the coming months to help lessen the blow.

I think you misconstrued the consultative ballot, it was a series of questions which had only realistically an affirmative response. It had a high turnout which was good, it had an almost unanimous response of support which was brilliant - what it didn't do was indicate the willingness to take industrial action other than a possible boycott of DSA.

[cloherty1976]

My mail centre shut down in 1998 and we had to move to one of these super mail centres but it has not been to bad

[silly suffolk]

mail centres may have been closing before bt2010, but since the aforementioned agreement every mail centre to go under review has shut, except truro. and travelling to a super office is becoming more and more difficult because of the distances involved. to a lot of mail centre workers who cant travel they have in affect been made compulsory redundant. even if the union had lost the argument over closures , wouldn't it have been better to fight for people in mail centres than simply comply with a drastic closure programme.

[borders]

There is going to be a dispute unless the Tories back down on Privatisation, cant see that happening myself . we have just had a consultative ballot and over 90 % on a 74% turn out said they are willing to take action. this is a battle that we have to take on , the people at the top [ witness Moya Greene ' s latest pay deal for one ] are filling their pockets. its sickening, at least the Highway Robber wore a mask.
we may not win and most people cant afford a strike but the sensible idea would be to tuck away some money over the coming months to help lessen the blow.

I think you misconstrued the consultative ballot, it was a series of questions which had only realistically an affirmative response. It had a high turnout which was good, it had an almost unanimous response of support which was brilliant - what it didn't do was indicate the willingness to take industrial action other than a possible boycott of DSA.

splitting hairs dvbuk, so in your opinion there is no willingness to take industrial action against Privatisation ? surely by voting you are opposed to Privatisation you are willing to take it further ? we all know that work to rule , overtime ban , boycott of DSA will be impossible to police and wont work , it will come down to Industrial Action to have any chance of success IMO .
p.s. check the vote out on the other thread - Will you support the CWU with strike action? 63 out of 77 say yes [ small sample admittedly ]

[dvbuk55]

There is going to be a dispute unless the Tories back down on Privatisation, cant see that happening myself . we have just had a consultative ballot and over 90 % on a 74% turn out said they are willing to take action. this is a battle that we have to take on , the people at the top [ witness Moya Greene ' s latest pay deal for one ] are filling their pockets. its sickening, at least the Highway Robber wore a mask.
we may not win and most people cant afford a strike but the sensible idea would be to tuck away some money over the coming months to help lessen the blow.

I think you misconstrued the consultative ballot, it was a series of questions which had only realistically an affirmative response. It had a high turnout which was good, it had an almost unanimous response of support which was brilliant - what it didn't do was indicate the willingness to take industrial action other than a possible boycott of DSA.

splitting hairs dvbuk, so in your opinion there is no willingness to take industrial action against Privatisation ? surely by voting you are opposed to Privatisation you are willing to take it further ? we all know that work to rule , overtime ban , boycott of DSA will be impossible to police and wont work , it will come down to Industrial Action to have any chance of success IMO .
p.s. check the vote out on the other thread - Will you support the CWU with strike action? 63 out of 77 say yes [ small sample admittedly ]

Pretty much what the Nurse said, but as for splitting hairs............it's one mighty fat hair borders and there are a number of issues which will decide the outcome of an IA ballot.

[CLINTEASTWOOD1]

Hi
Been asked to become office rep by the other members is this a good time for a newbe?

[fishtank]

Hi
Been asked to become office rep by the other members is this a good time for a newbe?

It's a good time to have an office rep,newbie or not.

[borders]

There is going to be a dispute unless the Tories back down on Privatisation, cant see that happening myself . we have just had a consultative ballot and over 90 % on a 74% turn out said they are willing to take action. this is a battle that we have to take on , the people at the top [ witness Moya Greene ' s latest pay deal for one ] are filling their pockets. its sickening, at least the Highway Robber wore a mask.
we may not win and most people cant afford a strike but the sensible idea would be to tuck away some money over the coming months to help lessen the blow.

I think you misconstrued the consultative ballot, it was a series of questions which had only realistically an affirmative response. It had a high turnout which was good, it had an almost unanimous response of support which was brilliant - what it didn't do was indicate the willingness to take industrial action other than a possible boycott of DSA.

splitting hairs dvbuk, so in your opinion there is no willingness to take industrial action against Privatisation ? surely by voting you are opposed to Privatisation you are willing to take it further ? we all know that work to rule , overtime ban , boycott of DSA will be impossible to police and wont work , it will come down to Industrial Action to have any chance of success IMO .
p.s. check the vote out on the other thread - Will you support the CWU with strike action? 63 out of 77 say yes [ small sample admittedly ]

Pretty much what the Nurse said, but as for splitting hairs............it's one mighty fat hair borders and there are a number of issues which will decide the outcome of an IA ballot.

such as ?

[dvbuk55]

[quote="dvbuk""]Pretty much what the Nurse said, but as for splitting hairs............it's one mighty fat hair borders and there are a number of issues which will decide the outcome of an IA ballot.

such as ?

[/quote]

What you have seen is the vote of union members, which doesn't take into account how many non-union members there are, the number of part time members who would vote yes to the consultation but baulk at a loss of pay, what RMs response would be to a strike which by some posters opinion wouldn't be until September and that gives them a long time to prepare. You see there is a world of difference in saying yes to a number of questions that costs nothing and yes to an all out strike. It's rather like the NIMBY syndrome - yes we need more houses but not near me, yes we need a new shopping mall but we don't want to lose the high street stores. Yes to anything as long as it doesn't inconvenience the voter.

[borders]

non-union members don't get to vote in a union ballot of which there is around 18,000 in a workforce of about 130,000. part-time / full-time workers - whats the difference we all lose money when we strike ? while I concede people can/will change their minds , whose to say people who initially did not want to strike change their minds too ?
the idea that people that have voted in the consultative ballot don't understand what the vote entails and what it could lead to i.e strike action is frankly belittling the intelligence of the members.