Royal Mail agreement presented to reps

[borders]

if you didn't get Dingo's last line , mark kleinman at City AM is predicting this - "

"Royal Mail will complete a journey from being wholly-owned by the UK state to wholly-owned by a German enterprise within little more than 12 months. Deutsche Post won’t get it delivered cheap, mind you. Royal Mail’s shares have close to doubled since being sold by the government in a deal valuing it at £3.3bn, and any buyer will have to pay a significant premium to the prevailing share price. That might mean a windfall for taxpayers’ remaining 30 per cent stake in Royal Mail, but it could also trigger a pre-election controversy about the foreign takeover of one of the UK’s best-known companies. "

[dvbuk55]

Well that clears it up this is a good agreement for the Union as an organisation, its a pity that most of the concerns of delivery members are being dealt with later.

The fact that dingo blindly ignores any post mentioning these issues speaks volumes. Unless I see an attempt to address them, it's a big fat no vote from me.

I have mentioned deliveries quite a bit actually.

1. There is a review of how postal workers are coping with the change in the mix of Mail.

2. There is review of whether the productivity and targets are achievable and realistic.

3. There is a review of the workplan.

4. There is a commitment that deliveries will remain mainly full times on roughly the same levels as now.

5. There is going to be a review completed by May of what is happening in deliveries? This will include a survey of delivery members , a joint audit of 60 delivery offices across the UK. The review will see what has happened in terms of BT revision , how resourcing is done , is there bullying practices going on , are methods being used etc. This will then trigger negotiations on ensuring there is an interim agreement addressing the issues in delivery.

6. There will be a roll out in every delivery office the fairness dignity and respect joint statement which is planned to stop bullying in the workplace.

7. There will be discussions on incentive schemes. When the Pay and Mod resourcing agreement was agreed money was given to staff based on the then 50/50 scheme from any savings made including absorption.

8 Customer requirements are changing , parcels are growing yet Royal Mail have less than 25% of the market. TNT are setting up an alternative end to end service current experience in London is that they will take between 5 and 10% of your delivery office Mail and Mail centres will lose the work completely. This is why there has to be a new delivery model and therefore there are a number of strands set up which will review such things as safety , fatigue , resourcing to workload , performance , productivity. The outcome of these strands will influence a longer term agreement on deliveries.

In addition as I said to before management did want to introduce annualised hours into deliveries so people would work longer hours when the traffic is at its highest and lower hours when traffic is at its lowest across the week and year? Royal Mail do want more flexibility including moving people from their own walks to create absorption , Royal Mail do want to use PDAs to monitor what time delivery postmen and women finish so it will assist more absorption especially outdoor. Royal Mail do want to resource to demand and not to duties and of course they want more savings.

The CWU have not agreed to any of that upfront and some of those issues will be covered in the strands.

In any negotiation no one side gets everything they want or otherwise it's not an agreement. You will have to decide whether you believe by voting no deliveries will get better without an agreement or not.

You use the word review so many times it becomes ludicrously repetitious and actually means nothing. Incentive schemes - we've had 'em and earned nothing because the deal was, reach the target and you get 50% of any savings above that level - we got nothing so do you think we want to revisit that. A rollout of the fairness dignity and respect JOINT STATEMENT which is PLANNEDto stop bullying in the workplace - how is it planned to do that exactly - and have we not had that before?

Now we reach the absolute pits -"There is a commitment that deliveries will remain mainly full times on roughly the same levels as now" - that is so imprecise . At the last count it was 69/31 and was agreed in the infamous BT2010 as 75/25 which WAS precise but of course it was pie in the sky and low and behold this time there is no figure just a few words which mean nothing.

So we go into a ballot full of reviews with imprecise wording and we are expected to say YES, I don't think so, once bitten twice shy.

[fishtank]

Now what you have never answered is do you really think Royal Mail or any company are going to in a legal contract which is enforcable in law giving those commitments which will restrict their ability to become more profitable which is clearly why some investors have taken shares out and are not going to have a review clause if we take national strike action. Remember if they did not have that clause we could take strike action every year but they could not review the clauses until at least the 5th year and the company could be losing contracts hands over fist.

Let's break down the "legally enforceable" commitments to their bare bones.

I've already explained why I don't believe there is any real validity in the "legally enforceable" aspect of the agreement but in a nutshell something is only legally enforceable if there is some serious penalty available for breaching the agreement,In our case there is,we lose the protections against a reduction in our terms and conditions,In Royal Mail's case it's what? So assuming I'm right and the legal aspect is just window dressing what do we have?
A commitment by the business to continue with the business model it is currently using and making decent profits from for the next 5 years.That's not bad but there are exceptions primarily based around the profitability and sustainability of the company so...

What we actually have is an agreement in principle to continue as is until or unless it no longer makes financial sense to do so....that's all this agreement is when you strip away the baubles.

Would the business have committed to that without a no strike deal?,I would imagine so, I don't think they were quite ready to start tearing up contracts and changing the whole way the company was run just yet despite the scare stories because they already have a solid,stable profit making business model.That might change in future but not in the short to medium term unless there is a major change of ownership in which case I think you'll find your agreement is practically worthless anyway despite how watertight the CWU lawyers think it is.

In all honesty the bottom line is trust,the CWU doesn't trust it's members with the truth and the members don't trust Royal Mail but Dave stands up and talks about the union being "embedded" in the company.I don't think that's what the membership want to hear from the DGSP dingo,Co-operation with the employer is very necessary but only a couple of months ago he was talking about how Royal Mail had basically blanked the union for two years over pay and screwed us over the colleagueshares...that's a hell of a turnaround in relationships.

At the end of the day some kind of deal was necessary with some kind of promise to protect terms and conditions but adding a legally binding no national industrial action clause,(and that's what it is) has placed all our chips on the table and left the membership very exposed if it all goes badly wrong over the forthcoming review of deliveries and any future negotiations..

[peterloo]

7. During the negotiations Royal Mail wanted the CWU to agree annualised hours for all delivery post persons. They wanted a commitment to continuous improvement on efficiency. They also wanted more flexibility so they could resource more to workload and not your actual duties within the office. They also wanted the CWU to agree that the PDAs could be used to record when every OPG finished and can detail what speeds their walking and can be imputed into geo route to establish resourcing and more flexibility. The CWU stopped any of this happening but be in no doubt that is still on Royal mails agenda.

I'm sorry but it's easy to say Royal Mail wanted this and that and the CWU stopped it happening but we only have your word for that and you only have the word of whoever told you so if we're going to have a grown up debate about something we have to steer clear of unverifiable might have beens.
The above may be true or it may not or Royal Mail might have just thrown it in there to scare the negotiators but it's neither here nor there because it doesn't appear on any proposed agreement.

Sorry Adam Crozier was chasing that stuff pre the 2007 dispute and I have a hard copy of the brief he gave to all Uk managers at the time. The big tag line was Royal Mail will no longer pay OPGs for change and they wanted rid of the MTSF too.

[cloherty1976]

I have mentioned deliveries quite a bit actually.

Dingo I did ask you in a PM about network employees getting the scheduled attendance payments enhancements from 4 to 6 weeks but you have not replied to my question so do I take it either you don't know the answer or we are not getting the payment. I only ask the question as remember when we got the £100 Xmas bonus payment I asked our union rep at the time if we get the payment and he said we did but we didn't. The way the agreement has been written I just want to know for sure if we as network drivers have been included in this deal or have we been forgotten about?

[Danelectro]

7. During the negotiations Royal Mail wanted the CWU to agree annualised hours for all delivery post persons. They wanted a commitment to continuous improvement on efficiency. They also wanted more flexibility so they could resource more to workload and not your actual duties within the office. They also wanted the CWU to agree that the PDAs could be used to record when every OPG finished and can detail what speeds their walking and can be imputed into geo route to establish resourcing and more flexibility. The CWU stopped any of this happening but be in no doubt that is still on Royal mails agenda.

I'm sorry but it's easy to say Royal Mail wanted this and that and the CWU stopped it happening but we only have your word for that and you only have the word of whoever told you so if we're going to have a grown up debate about something we have to steer clear of unverifiable might have beens.
The above may be true or it may not or Royal Mail might have just thrown it in there to scare the negotiators but it's neither here nor there because it doesn't appear on any proposed agreement.

Sorry Adam Crozier was chasing that stuff pre the 2007 dispute and I have a hard copy of the brief he gave to all Uk managers at the time. The big tag line was Royal Mail will no longer pay OPGs for change and they wanted rid of the MTSF too.

The point is that they can say what they like but at the end of the day they couldn't make major changes without either breaking the union or winding their neck in and accepting less because then as now (for the next 2 years) I don't think a strong united membership of 115000 is as easily walked over as some like to make out.

[dvbuk55]

The point is that they can say what they like but at the end of the day they couldn't make major changes without either breaking the union or winding their neck in and accepting less because then as now (for the next 2 years) I don't think a strong united membership of 115000 is as easily walked over as some like to make out.

And you'd be right, but there is soon to be an un-united membership of 115,000, because if this deal goes through there will be no strength in unity because it has now been proposed to denigrate that into what exactly? Each individual unit however small is to stand alone and to fight it's own corner and so you have to ask yourself what am I getting for my money?

[gashead-postie]

6. On deliveries , this is worth clearing up some noise. If anyone thinks the business is going to reverse the changes they made in 2007 and 2010 in terms of working the hours people are paid for , absorption , the use of automation and the use of CDVs and HCTs then you might as well give up now. It is never going to happen and that's not just done to the fact that TNT will start taking work off you once their roll out plans are complete.

sorry dingo but this should be topic number one not six..the cwu have refused to make this the top of the agenda when it is clear the majority of posties want it to be..

the whole membership could walk out on this subject alone...yes the managers are milking the numbers to get more flex

it use to be called summer savings now its all year round savings

no it cant be everywhere but theres a lot of posties now being treated like pit ponies not human beings and it has to stop

[BernardBresslaw]

Well that clears it up this is a good agreement for the Union as an organisation, its a pity that most of the concerns of delivery members are being dealt with later.

The fact that dingo blindly ignores any post mentioning these issues speaks volumes. Unless I see an attempt to address them, it's a big fat no vote from me.

I have mentioned deliveries quite a bit actually.

1. There is a review of how postal workers are coping with the change in the mix of Mail.

2. There is review of whether the productivity and targets are achievable and realistic.

3. There is a review of the workplan.

4. There is a commitment that deliveries will remain mainly full times on roughly the same levels as now.

5. There is going to be a review completed by May of what is happening in deliveries? This will include a survey of delivery members , a joint audit of 60 delivery offices across the UK. The review will see what has happened in terms of BT revision , how resourcing is done , is there bullying practices going on , are methods being used etc. This will then trigger negotiations on ensuring there is an interim agreement addressing the issues in delivery.

6. There will be a roll out in every delivery office the fairness dignity and respect joint statement which is planned to stop bullying in the workplace.

7. There will be discussions on incentive schemes. When the Pay and Mod resourcing agreement was agreed money was given to staff based on the then 50/50 scheme from any savings made including absorption.

8 Customer requirements are changing , parcels are growing yet Royal Mail have less than 25% of the market. TNT are setting up an alternative end to end service current experience in London is that they will take between 5 and 10% of your delivery office Mail and Mail centres will lose the work completely. This is why there has to be a new delivery model and therefore there are a number of strands set up which will review such things as safety , fatigue , resourcing to workload , performance , productivity. The outcome of these strands will influence a longer term agreement on deliveries.

In addition as I said to before management did want to introduce annualised hours into deliveries so people would work longer hours when the traffic is at its highest and lower hours when traffic is at its lowest across the week and year? Royal Mail do want more flexibility including moving people from their own walks to create absorption , Royal Mail do want to use PDAs to monitor what time delivery postmen and women finish so it will assist more absorption especially outdoor. Royal Mail do want to resource to demand and not to duties and of course they want more savings.

The CWU have not agreed to any of that upfront and some of those issues will be covered in the strands.

In any negotiation no one side gets everything they want or otherwise it's not an agreement. You will have to decide whether you believe by voting no deliveries will get better without an agreement or not.

I'm sorry but all I see in this post, are promises here, and plans there and commitments and reviews. In other words, and no disrespect intended, it is strategically formed waffle, attempting to blind more naive members, into voting in a deal, which has no plans for change, included in it at all.

[clashcityrocker]

6. On deliveries , this is worth clearing up some noise. If anyone thinks the business is going to reverse the changes they made in 2007 and 2010 in terms of working the hours people are paid for

So does this mean that in those offices where job and knock still exists, the rep is going to insist everyone works all their paid hours or he will be in breach of a legal document and could be taken to court?

[Danelectro]

The point is that they can say what they like but at the end of the day they couldn't make major changes without either breaking the union or winding their neck in and accepting less because then as now (for the next 2 years) I don't think a strong united membership of 115000 is as easily walked over as some like to make out.

And you'd be right, but there is soon to be an un-united membership of 115,000, because if this deal goes through there will be no strength in unity because it has now been proposed to denigrate that into what exactly? Each individual unit however small is to stand alone and to fight it's own corner and so you have to ask yourself what am I getting for my money?

I agree- so I should have said the potential of a strong united membership can still have some clout,certainly back then and during current negotiations as I don't think Royal mail would have liked to endure a strike that im sure would have kept strong for a good while but if this deal goes in then god knows..by the way I attended the CWU Scottish independence debate and the Labour guy swore blind that its still their objective to renationalise Royal Mail..so no worries then

[dvbuk55]

The point is that they can say what they like but at the end of the day they couldn't make major changes without either breaking the union or winding their neck in and accepting less because then as now (for the next 2 years) I don't think a strong united membership of 115000 is as easily walked over as some like to make out.

And you'd be right, but there is soon to be an un-united membership of 115,000, because if this deal goes through there will be no strength in unity because it has now been proposed to denigrate that into what exactly? Each individual unit however small is to stand alone and to fight it's own corner and so you have to ask yourself what am I getting for my money?

I agree- so I should have said the potential of a strong united membership can still have some clout,certainly back then and during current negotiations as I don't think Royal mail would have liked to endure a strike that im sure would have kept strong for a good while but if this deal goes in then god knows..by the way I attended the CWU Scottish independence debate and the Labour guy swore blind that its still their objective to renationalise Royal Mail..so no worries then

We should be asking that if these reviews, WCM, a can do culture and increased productivity with incentives is going to be beneficial and not cause industrial unrest why would RM need a no strike clause without national involvement.

[Minischoles]

I would say to anyone thinking of voting yes, note how many times Dingo had to use the word review.

Reviewing something does not in anyway guarantee or even imply action will be taken - it doesn't even mean they acknowledge there is a problem. They already have their heads buried in the sand over any problems occurring, what is going to change?

[Himaggen]

In any negotiation no one side gets everything they want or otherwise it's not an agreement. You will have to decide whether you believe by voting no deliveries will get better without an agreement or not.

Is that confirmation that a NO vote will mean the CWU will not go back to the table in order to attempt to seek an alternative agreement, (basically there is no Plan B, vote this in or we cannot help you)!

[dvbuk55]

In any negotiation no one side gets everything they want or otherwise it's not an agreement. You will have to decide whether you believe by voting no deliveries will get better without an agreement or not.

Is that confirmation that a NO vote will mean the CWU will not go back to the table in order to attempt to seek an alternative agreement, (basically there is no Plan B, vote this in or we cannot help you)!

Well it's pretty much the same old same old vote the way we want or you're on your own - but there's is a slight twist this time - even if you vote the way we want you're still on your own

I just wish there are enough people who pull out of the union to make a difference.