How did your office take it

[bigsharkboy]

well the bristol branch of the union has rejected the deal and are advising all its members to vote NO..i cant believe anyone can vote yes to this sham...do turkeys vote for xmas

I cant either but just you watch when the results are announced

then give it 3 months and if they get a yes vote and everybodys whinging to the rep bout it you wont find one person who voted yes

we had the way forward billy and dave should rename this the way backward

[tony]

I cant be sure how my office will vote I think possibly 50/50 but I tell you that if this agreement comes in we may as well bend over and kiss our arses good bye.

Also if people have not realised this yet if we have to do so much by way of local agreement we as a union will become ever increasingly disjointed has Dave Ward even considered this?

Leighton/Crozier are just doing the old DIVIDE AND CONQUER tactics and to this end some people are being mugged into it, to me this just goes to show how grim this situation for us staff has become.

UNITED WE STAND DIVIDED WE FALL

VOTE NO

[postiemik]

To late mate, the union big guns didn't get involved in my office until it was to late, my local rep did his best but the last deal (sdd) said sort out as much as you can at local level and he was badgered and hassled until we moved to late starts and lost the night shift. (What a nightmare my shift finished at 14.40 leaving me 10 mins to get home before my kid left school!) This "local negotiation" will see the union dead in a few years because the local reps will not know when to refer up to higher levels or like my office will get help when it's to late! We'll have some office's doing new thing and others refusing and the managers will say " XXX office are doing this / that so you can to" regardless of wether it actually works!
The pay side of the "deal" looks ok but the strings we went on strike to get rid of are still there - if we vote yes we've just wasted time and money . My line manager already thinks it's in judging by the way he told a P/timer to be flexible this morning " mail level was low" and he could complete " easily".
As to the pension when that comes in - and it will - ( the union already seem to have gone belly up) I'm going to loose thousands unless i work the extra 5 and then I might get what i'm should get with the current scheme!

[Southsider]

Edinburgh Mail Centre in the whole thinks it is a good deal and will back it.

What a wicked sense of humour you have.I nearly fell off my chair laughing.

[rebel]

The DOM at my office addressed the workers - that helped a lot!!! What he outlined was WORSE than what we went on strike for. Everyone here is saying NO - but my rep says that many of the shire offices are already working this way. My office says NO - this forum says NO - but we all know it'll end up as a YES vote.

The pay increase has been dressed up to look OK - but its rubbish! When unlimited unpaid D2d's come in that negates any pay increase. In our office we've been told that the opportunity to work your rest day will stop (to be absorbed by my flexible colleagues).

So low basic pay, increased work load and no opportunity to supplement yor wage by doing any overtime. Thanks Billy and Dave - and you honestly (hand on heart) reccommend this to us? Why the F*** did you think we went on strike??? :cfo :lfo

[postiemik]

Yes a lot of offices are already doing the late starts, my seagull DOM got my union rep to sign us up for it without even having a ballot of the local members.
We were volanteered into trying 37.5hr in a summer and 42.5hr in a winter,( dom to chose when) covering lapsed duties and doing late starts ( months before the union stepped in). It fell apart almost straight away - the mail levels remained to high for us to cope for a lot longer than the RM / DOM counted on and we just worked our hours. The late starts led to a lot of us cutting of as we have kids to look after and our partners work to supplement our poor basic pay!

The biggest problem we are facing is the fact that management can railroad "local" changes through by badgering the staff until they give in, it happened here and it will in a lot of smaller offices, there must be ground rules about what is and isn't a"local" issue before we sign up and local members should be balloted on every issue!

We are currently facing the proposal that our 21st delivery will be axed in my office, this is not the first time that this issue has come up ( for this walk) and it will keep coming back until we give in and then the management will look at what to axe next. It's worse than chinese water torture! The night shift have been dropped ( months ago) and now because the remaining sorters are struggling to keep up with the extra work we are being sorting tested - how are we supposed to make up all the night shifts hours and still do what normally comes in in our allotted time? I don't know but all we get from the acting dom is " you'll have to try a bit harder" & "be a bit more flexible".

[majeed]

MOST THINK WE'VE BEEN SOLD OUT, SOME DO'NT UNDERSTAND THE FULL AGREEMENT...WHAT HAPPENED TO PLAIN ENGLISH!!!

Plain English is now used in selected, U.K., government departments.

[majeed]

The deal has just been re-packaged,
it has all the 'old chestnuts' of covering walks when people are off sick/holidays,total flexilbility that suits RM,spare staff can be moved about to other offices near by[part timers/low seniority?],
this deal is a joke,they think we are all fools and will accept anything,
the Reps much take the time to go through the proposed aggreement bit by bit and explain every part of it to all their members and how it will affect everyone,
most of the members at Dundee East which i have spoken to think the deal stinks,
and my vote will be a definate NO!
Remember 'Starburst' and other stupid ideas from RM,
has Legighton/Crozier ever went out with a heavy bag on their shoulder in the pissing rain or snow/ice? I think not!


Stand Free.

Starburst? Is this what you mean?:

http://www.starburst.com/

[majeed]

...we actually care about getting the job done, and have a work ethic...of course we work to pay the bills...there are a lot of us WHO ACTUALLY CARE about the USO, and getting the Mail through. I joined Royal Mail to help to provide one of the last Public Services...I CARE ABOUT THE SERVICE TOO!!!!!...this is borne out by my employment history...find out what they did before coming to R[oyal] M[ail]. You [may] be surprised with what you find!

I agree. I've done all sorts of jobs - some mundane, but most were very interesting. All of them paid average-to-below-average pay, but most of them involved providing a service to people, which I have found to be very rewarding: I need to live in the world, but I find money a big turn-off: I'm happy to have enough for my needs. Probably the most rewarding job that I do at the moment is a voluntary post for a maximum of a few hours a week in my locality.

I think that when you put others before yourself, society benefits as a whole and that is always my aim when I do anything: how will it affect other people and what about the people out there that don't think like this or are not in as good a position as me? What is everyone doing? How will it all work out? 'If I get myself in order, it will help everyone else to get in order'. These are the type of things that go through every moment of my day.

And I admit, it helps if you work with people who think and act the same, normal, human, way.

[Regal]

In our offices it is full of sheeples ( people like sheep )
they have not bothered to read up or find any infomation on what this deal really is
they are just blindly accepted the wisedom of the union
i have put up infomation on the noticed board but they keep getting ripped down
unfortunatly i think our office will vote yes.

[postiemik]

I used to think the same way, once upon a time. I finished my delivery regardless, put in the little bit extra to find addresses that had bits missing etc.
Then slowly but surely the RM ground that out of me by sniping a bit of my time here and adding a bit there. I was once part of a crew of 10, we were supposed to perform ASAP duties but the supervisor slowly lapsed more and more duties, using the ASAP staff to cover. Then the DOM called us in and gave us a lecture about our work levels falling he had no idea that most of the time half of us were being used to cover duties that leave reserves should have been doing! Then in comes SDD and inspite of the office already running it fairly well we were told that more cuts would have to be made. My delivery suddenly lost it's regular day of and I was forced to move away from an area I had been working on for 11 years - all my local knowledge and dedicaton flushed away at the drop of a hat!! So it's not that posties don't care we want to be treated with fairness and have cozier and leighton give us what we signed up for! A finall salary pension and a reasonable living wage (I'm not greedy - enough to pay my way) so when I retire I don't need state hand outs.

[majeed]

I used to think the same way, once upon a time. I finished my delivery regardless, put in the little bit extra to find addresses that had bits missing etc.
Then slowly but surely the RM ground that out of me by sniping a bit of my time here and adding a bit there. I was once part of a crew of 10, we were supposed to perform ASAP duties but the supervisor slowly lapsed more and more duties, using the ASAP staff to cover. Then the DOM called us in and gave us a lecture about our work levels falling he had no idea that most of the time half of us were being used to cover duties that leave reserves should have been doing! Then in comes SDD and inspite of the office already running it fairly well we were told that more cuts would have to be made. My delivery suddenly lost it's regular day of and I was forced to move away from an area I had been working on for 11 years - all my local knowledge and dedicaton flushed away at the drop of a hat!! So it's not that posties don't care we want to be treated with fairness and have cozier and leighton give us what we signed up for! A finall salary pension and a reasonable living wage (I'm not greedy - enough to pay my way) so when I retire I don't need state hand outs.

Thanks for that brother. I meant: when everyone acts fairly.

[tenpole tudorsack]

In our offices it is full of sheeples ( people like sheep )
they have not bothered to read up or find any infomation on what this deal really is
they are just blindly accepted the wisedom of the union
i have put up infomation on the noticed board but they keep getting ripped down
unfortunatly i think our office will vote yes.

"Sheeples"...good word!!! I Like It! These are the people we need to win over in order to achieve a "NO" vote!

[BIG AL]

HI MAJEED,
LIKE YOUR INTERPRETATION OF 'STARBURST,
THIS WAS AN IDEA FROM RM WHERE 5 POSTIES WOULD BLITZ 6 WALKS IN 20 MIN. BURSTS,
EACH GOING OUT AND DOING A PART OF A WALK AT ONE TIME,
THE SPEED MERCHANTS WERE RUNNING ROUND THEIR 20 MINS,WHILE OTHERS WERE STRUGGLING TO FINISH,
ALL IN ALL LEADING TO 5 VERY KNACKERED POSTIES.
AS YOU CAN IMAGINE THIS 'FANTASTIC' NEW WAY OF WORKING WAS KICKED OUT!

NOW, WE FIND OURSELVES IN ANOTHER POSITION WHICH WILL LEAD TO RM ADDING MORE WORK ONTO PEOPLE;BREAKING ALL AGREEMENTS [SHATTERING 318S];MAKING US WORK LONGER WHEN THEY SAY;BASICALLY ANYTHING THEY WANT WILL BE DONE BY US.

WHAT IS 'REASONABLE REQUESTS?',
THIS IS A TOTAL DISASTER FOR EVERYONE OF US,

THINK VERY CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU CAST YOUR VOTE,
AND VOTE WITH THE FUTURE IN MIND,

VOTE NO!

STAND FREE.

[Dark Diamond]

Edinburgh Mail Centre in the whole thinks it is a good deal and will back it.

Maybe the MC guys will support it, but our DO and others in Edinburgh won't (I know most if not all in our DO voted NO)

:cfo :lfo