How to get rid of a union rep who has been there for years and is absolutely useless

greavsey · Post by **greavsey** » 27 Mar 2016, 19:31

My rep does what the management wants and has no time for the shop floor. Unfortunately no one is prepared to take her place. What can we do?

IcanthelpthewayIam · Post by **IcanthelpthewayIam** » 27 Mar 2016, 19:47

At the next annual election stand against him and then try and get enough votes from your colleagues to beat him, if you don't know when the election is due then contact your local branch for details

In The Know · Post by **In The Know** » 27 Mar 2016, 20:38

zx135 wrote:At the next annual election stand against him and then try and get enough votes from your colleagues to beat him, if you don't know when the election is due then contact your local branch for details

It's a feline. Defo not worth crossing

Pompey Boy · Post by **Pompey Boy** » 27 Mar 2016, 22:17

Someone, with the support of his or her colleagues, needs to stand against her - no other way.

Reps like this are bad news. Our distribution guys going to SOMC may face the same situation - how else can SOMC staff have such crap starting/finish times and weekend working?

Post by **Godric** » 27 Mar 2016, 22:23

greavsey wrote:My rep does what the management wants and has no time for the shop floor. Unfortunately no one is prepared to take her place. What can we do?

until someone is willing to stand up to the plate to replace her .... then it is your own fault and stop bitching .... being a union rep nowadays is a thankless job .... I done it for 4 years unless you have a united office then Royal Mail are going to walk over you because the union has greatly weakened our position with their climb downs during strikes when we had massive backlogs of mail built up in '99,07 and 09 the union were more concerned in not upsetting the labour party than representing the members that pay their wages .... unless you are willing to do the job you are in no position to criticise

Jpro747 · Post by **Jpro747** » 28 Mar 2016, 00:41

Why not just go above them and go to area rep or higher?

slinder123 · Post by **slinder123** » 28 Mar 2016, 06:28

if you have no confidence in your rep you just need a majority vote of your unit members to get rid easy

Tman · Post by **Tman** » 28 Mar 2016, 09:28

Godric wrote:
greavsey wrote:.. unless you are willing to do the job you are in no position to criticise

Not that tired old "justification" again?
Fair enough retort if it's the day-to-day grizzling of RM staff, but it's no response when the rep is useless. Why should paying members put up with the poor situation just because the alternative would be the cry of "well you do better then".
Just because people volunteer doesn't mean they are immune from (constructive) criticism.

fishtank · Post by **fishtank** » 28 Mar 2016, 10:56

Holy s**t, I agree with Tman.
Poor reps damage the union and short change the members, you can't justify keeping them in place just because no one else will do it, In a lot of these offices the reality is no rep would be better than a bad rep but the union doesn't like top down accountability so there are few if any checks and balances to keep these people in line. You can complain to branch but chances are they're all drinking buddies anyway.

Being a rep for all the right reasons is obviously something that should be applauded but there are also reps who are in it for themselves or just plain incompetent and we do ourselves no favours letting them hide behind this justification that they were the only one "brave" enough to do it.

peterg · Post by **peterg** » 28 Mar 2016, 11:04

"unless you are willing to do the job you are in no position to criticise"................?

What a stupid, thoughless and unhelpful comment! Do you not think before you post on here

CLINTEASTWOOD · Post by **CLINTEASTWOOD** » 28 Mar 2016, 11:57

I take my hat off to any rep and respect them all.BUT if they choose to be reps they should educate themselves through the very good union courses, learn the tools so you can challenge the manager, be prepared to stand up and talk to your members good or bad news and take the s**t.And above all stick to the national agreement's then you can have a clear mind and know that you have done your role properly.

Post by **Godric** » 28 Mar 2016, 18:33

peterg wrote:"unless you are willing to do the job you are in no position to criticise"................?

What a stupid, thoughless and unhelpful comment! Do you not think before you post on here

well the guy is criticising his rep, she isn't on here to defend herself ... she stood up and decided to make a go of it .... according to the O/P no one in the office is willing to take her place hence my comments ... for all we know the O/P may have a longstanding issues with the rep ... it does happen

when I took on the role no one else in my office was prepared to do the job ... I done the best I could and still received loads of flak from my fellow colleagues who had no balls to take it on ... all that grief and extra work for £50 and no thanks for trying your best

Post by **Godric** » 28 Mar 2016, 18:37

CLINTEASTWOOD wrote:I take my hat off to any rep and respect them all.BUT if they choose to be reps they should educate themselves through the very good union courses, learn the tools so you can challenge the manager, be prepared to stand up and talk to your members good or bad news and take the s**t.And above all stick to the national agreement's then you can have a clear mind and know that you have done your role properly.

union course ... I did the job for over 4 years and we received no training or training courses they were always cancelled with a couple of weeks before each course .... no one in Glasgow Amal as far as I know has had union course in the past 5 years due to cancellations

Post by **Judgee** » 28 Mar 2016, 19:31

To be fair. Just how much influence/options do local reps have these days? The higher union reps, area and upwards pretty much have bent over for management and those lower down have very limited options indeed. Sadly I feel the unions days are numbered now. We haven't had anyone with enough balls to make a stand at the top for a long time.

Post by **Godric** » 28 Mar 2016, 20:09

Judgee wrote:To be fair. Just how much influence/options do local reps have these days? The higher union reps, area and upwards pretty much have bent over for management and those lower down have very limited options indeed. Sadly I feel the unions days are numbered now. We haven't had anyone with enough balls to make a stand at the top for a long time.

exactly ... then you have postmen who think they are managers interfering in other posties duties running back to the manager telling stories trying to get their fellow posties the sack