Comparison between Royal Mails ‘final offer’ delivered to the CWU on 9/0/07 and the document that has now been ratified by the PEC.
Scope of Agreement
They wanted to exclude LAs from the pay deal.
• The CWU have turned this around!
Removal of Night Shifts in DOs
Royal Mail wanted ALL night shifts in delivery offices removed
• This position has now changed and city centre units and offices with a high proportion of firms deliveries will now be able to negotiate the retention of night work.
Retarding Delivery start times
Royal Mail wanted all start times to be post 6am.
• Units will now be able to negotiate pre 6 am starts based on arrival patterns.
• Grandfather rights have been secured for any member affected by the change going as far back to those who moved to later starts post May 2005!
• Original Saturday start/finish times will now be reinstated
Efficient Summer Scheduling
Royal Mail wanted this to be introduced with immediate affect.
• Discussions / Trials will now take place with the full involvement of the CWU at all levels.
Flexible Working
Royal Mail wanted ‘total flexibility introduced with would have completely sidelined the union. Staff would have faced their hours being changed by up to 2hours with little or no notice and with no agreement by the CWU.
• The majority of Royal Mails flexible working plans have been either shelved or put into the joint working groups for further discussions.
• The agreement gives the possibility for Royal Mail to ‘ask’ staff to flex their attendance times by up to 30minutes. The national union have made it clear that this is no way compulsory.
• Monthly pay and annualised hours were high on Royal Mails agenda. Negotiations on these two subjects will now take place over the coming months. All members will get a vote on any deal that is reached on either monthly pay or annualised hours!
ESOS Scheme
Royal Mail wanted to close the scheme with no involvement from the CWU.
• ESOS will now close but a joint audit will take place to ascertain whether or not members are due any further payments.
D2D and Election Material
Royal Mail wanted to remove the payments for D2D items and also lift the current cap on the number of items per week
• The CWU have pushed Royal Mail back on this issue and now after negotiations all delivery staff will get a vote if any agreement is reached
• Although some members may be worried that this issue will come around again it is clearly a significant move from Royal Mail
Conduct Code, Attendance Procedure, Personal Performance
Royal Mail wanted to make drastic changes to the conduct code, attendance procedure and introduce new ‘personal performance’ standards.
• Through negotiations the CWU have forced Royal Mail back on all of these issues.
MTSF
This is perhaps the most important of all our agreements. It covers pay and job protection as well as payments for EVRs. Royal Mail wanted this agreement completely replaced.
• The union have moved Royal Mail from this position. The agreement will now be ‘reviewed’ and the pay and modernisation agreement even contains the MTSF agreement in several places. This movement from Royal Mail holds a great significance to us all.
New IR Framework
This agreement has served the union well down the years and the aim of Royal Mail was to replace the agreement and in affect sideline the union
• A joint working party will now look at the IR framework and the union will have full input into these negotiations.
PENSIONS
Royal Mail wanted the union to sign up to radical pensions proposals as part of the Pay 2007 agreement.
• The union have succeeded in de-coupling the pensions from pay
• A formal 60 day consultation will now take place
• Unlike CMA the CWU have not sold out and given agreement to what Royal Mail want
• Members will have the chance to give input throughout the 60 days (formal still to be finalised)
• ALL pension scheme members will get a vote on any final proposals
• This means if needs be Royal Mail letters, Parcelforce, POL, Customer services, ROMEC and Quadrant will be able to challenge this issue as a united force.
PAY
We know that pay has never been the main issue in this dispute but again the offer now represents major movement from Royal Mail. We all remember the constant letters from Royal Mail telling us the offer is the offer.
• 5.4% from October 1st offers in our opinion better value going forward than Royal Mails ‘final offer’ of 2.5%.
• Any pay rise in the future will have a higher cash value on top of the 5.4%
• Put simply with 5.4% there will be more money in your pocket every week and every year going forward
UNION INVOLVEMENT
Perhaps the crux of the whole dispute was the fact that Royal Mail wanted to remove the union from the workplace. Through the strength of members action we have been able to completely turn this around.
Just look at the two documents. The second document has the words and influence of the CWU stamped all over it.
LIKE I SAID JUST ANOTHER VIEWPOINT