PEC REPORT DECEMBER 2007

[lovejoy]

Looking to the Future

December 2007 Executive Council Report

The first six months of 2008 will be crucial in deciding which way Royal Mail as a business and the CWU and its members are going to be heading. We face three major issues – Pensions, implementing the Pay & Modernisation Agreement and the Government’s review of competition. Most of the meetings of the PEC in December were taken up with discussing how we were going to deal with these.

Pensions

Royal Mail’s formal consultation process is due to end on 16 January, although we expect negotiations to carry on beyond then. It was reported to us that to date, only 10,900 staff have responded and that most of those have only asked for a personal illustration of how the proposals would affect them. We believe that this is down to the flawed nature of the process itself and that management would be quite happy with a low response. The booklet they put out only had their proposals and not any possible alternatives and the WTL sessions also only put their view. Holding consultations during Xmas pressure and over the holidays is hardly likely to stimulate debate either. The Union have now written to management asking for an extension of the consultation period to allow for a greater level of participation. At the same time, though, it’s vital that our members do respond. We are looking at producing an employee questionnaire and the North West Region have distributed a pre-printed card to all members for them to send back and this is something that could be used elsewhere.

Management have also given us an outline of the scheme they want to bring in for new starters. This would be a separate scheme with different trustees, only 1/3 of which would be member trustees as opposed to 50% in the current one. Staff would have to be in post for over 12 months to join and there would be three different levels of contribution – 3%, 4% & 5%. To get death in service benefit would cost a further 1%. Royal Mail’s contributions would be substantially lower than at present. The proposals as they stand are unlikely to be acceptable to the PEC and in any case, we are still pushing for an option that allows new starters to go back into the main scheme after a period of time.

A number of meetings have taken place with management, both in the formal consultation group and in direct talks. We have also held regional seminars for Area Reps and Branch Officers. Although there was a general recognition at these that there was a need for some pension reform, there was little support for RM’s proposals. Many questioned the need for such drastic changes at the same time and argued that we needed to have a clearer picture of what the finances of the business and the pension scheme actually are and how big the pensions deficit really is. There was a feeling that we should wait until the 2009 valuation to make final decisions. The ability of staff to make extra contributions, for all pay to be considered pensionable, for any CARE scheme to be linked to pay and not RPI and for ColleagueShare money to be used to lessen the impact of pension reform have also been raised. We have now asked all branches to hold meetings and to send in written submissions to help us in arriving at our final position.

Pay & Modernisation

As part of the Pay & Modernisation Agreement, we are due to implement the next three phases by the end of April 2008. The Phase 2 local revisions are due to be implemented by the end of January using the agreed enablers. This doesn’t mean accepting everything management put forward. It does mean negotiating at local level and using the IR Framework if agreement is not possible. Most issues should be dealt with at Area and Divisional level but the PEC must be prepared to act if any general problems arise. As well as carrying out local revisions, we are also committed to agreeing 4 trial offices per AGM area to look at new ways of working. Management have given us a list of the offices they want to use but have accepted that this is subject to change and agreement. Divisional Reps are due to meet with AGM’s early in January to finalise this. The CWU National Officers are working on producing our draft of a generic deployment framework for new technology, also due by the end of January, and this should be presented to the PEC at our next meeting.

We are also developing a method to deal with the working groups under Phase 4. As a Union we are not usually very good at looking into the future and coming up with ideas of our own. We prefer to wait till management come up with their ideas and then tell them where to get off. That approach is no longer effective. At our meeting on 4 December, the PEC looked at various ways of both organising ourselves to drive the issues forward and of involving our Field Officers and getting their ideas and those of our branches. Our next meeting, on 8 January, is due to get a document from Dave Ward pulling all this together into firm proposals.

Review of Competition

The Government has announced that it’s much delayed review of the effects of competition in the postal sector will now take place in the New Year and that interested parties have until 28 March to make submissions. The results of the review are expected by the summer and obviously these will decide what the future holds for us, assuming that is that we have one. So, in the next few months the Union will need to mount a massive political campaign to persuade the Government to change the rules to rein back the effects of competition and to accept that the delivery of mail and the future of Royal Mail are issues that can’t be just left to the whims of the profit system. Obviously, much of the work will be down to national level in terms of finalising the submission, organising the national campaign work, dealing with the Government and other interested bodies and producing the campaign material. As well as that, though, every Branch will need to think about what can be done at local level in terms of building support for our views and putting pressure on local MP’s.

One of the problems we’ve had in the past is that every time either Government or politics is mentioned in terms of the postal service, the matter has had to be passed to the General Secretary’s department. This has meant the Postal Executive losing control, even though the issues involved lie fully in our remit, and sometimes this has resulted in a loss of focus. As a result, a motion was passed at the December National Executive meeting to delegate responsibility for political campaigns in the Postal sector to a committee with a majority of PEC members. The Postal Executive have now agreed the members to sit on this, including myself, and it will meet early in January to start the campaign.

Burslem

The members at Burslem are now in the middle of a four-week strike in defence of nine of their colleagues who are still under suspension. The CWU nationally offered management a proposal that involved them accepting that all appeals would go to a national appeals panel chaired by someone independent of both RM and the CWU. The members at Burslem were quite happy to call off their action if this was acceptable. Management refused point blank and so the strike went ahead. The PEC have given their full support to the members and the Midlands Region have called a solidarity demonstration for 19 January. They have also asked branches to adopt a striker in terms of raising money.

The disciplinary cases against the members have now begun. Obviously, it’s not appropriate in this report to comment on the details. What is clear, though, is that at Burslem and elsewhere, RM’s bullying and harassment procedure is being used as a weapon to deal with members that management find argumentative, awkward and disruptive of their plans, i.e. good CWU Reps and members. On the basis usually of vague anonymous allegations they spin a spider’s web by interviewing as many staff as possible in the hope of catching someone and then discipline them without any regard to the lack of credible evidence. This process only seems to apply to CWU grades, never to managers, about whom there is usually far more grounds for complaint. The CWU has always stood against bullying and harassment but by their current actions, management are undermining the whole process. As well as campaigning for the reinstatement of the members at Burslem, we should be demanding a complete and independant review of the b&h procedure.

On a related issue, the PEC agreed ballots for industrial action at two Bristol offices over the dismissal of two members of staff for comments they were alleged to have made on the royalmailchat website from their own computers and in their own time.

Post Office Limited

The pay deals in POL Counters, Supply Chain and Admin were all accepted with Yes votes ranging from 86% - 88%. The PEC meeting of 19 December agreed the details of how the introduction of the shorter working week in provincial Crown Offices would be dealt with. This information has now been passed to the branches concerned.

Vehicle Telemetry

Management are continuing with their programme of fitting telemetry equipment to vans in mail centres and the three largest DO’s in each postcode area. We were due to have a meeting before Xmas to discuss the basis on which the system could go live but, unfortunately, it didn’t take place and has been postponed to early in January. As reported previously, we will be looking for safeguards for our members in terms of, among other issues, disciplinary action and who has access to the information. We don’t see why management should have a problem as they’ve already agreed to this in relation to similar equipment fitted to Romec vehicles.

Parcelforce Pay

The Postal Executive in December unanimously agreed to ratify a pay deal for the members in Parcelforce. This involved an increase of £45.70 per month in basic pay from 1 April 2007, £13.50 a month from 1 October 2007 and a further increase of £19.09 per month from 1 January 2008. Allowances for those driving vehicles above 3.5 tonnes goes up from £10 to £30 and a core productivity payment of £15 a week will be paid to all full time depot staff. The deal has been a long time coming due to the dispute in Royal Mail but has now gone out to ballot of the members involved.

Vehicle Services Pay

Ray Ellis reported to the PEC that despite months of negotiations, it had still not been possible to bring the pay talks in Vehicle Services to a successful conclusion. This was mainly because management couldn’t agree among themselves on the issue of consolidation of bonus monies. The PEC agreed that if an acceptable offer was not received by 4 January 2008 then the members involved would be balloted for industrial action.

Northern Ireland No1 Branch

The December meeting of the National Executive was presented with a report on the situation concerning the continued suspension of the Northern Ireland No1 Branch. This stated that apart from a questionnaire being sent to every member, for various reasons little had been done so far by those charged with administering the Branch, Pat O’Hara and John Holmes, to enable the members to take back control. Nevertheless, the report laid out a possible timetable for this to happen. This would involve John Holmes producing a report based on the questionnaires by 31 January, a programme of diversity training, a review of the size and composition of the branch by 31 March, Branch elections in June and a Branch AGM by 31 July.

Suspending a branch is something that is very rarely done. Although the NEC were given compelling reasons to do so in this case last July, it’s important that the Branch is returned to normal functioning as quickly as possible and that everything that is done is open and above board. For that reason, Noel McClean and myself moved amendments to the report for more regular and robust reports from the administrators and for a working party to be set up to include NEC and Regional participation. This would both draw up and implement an action plan to bring the Branch back to normal working and assist the administrators in their work.

Pete Keenlyside
Postal Executive
28 December 2007

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Thanks for posting that lovejoy- a lot of things to take on board but generally I think most of it is good news, not in what is happening but that at least the PEC and the union are making plans to counter Royal Mail where needed. Lets hope that they follow through with action.

Just one thing I would say is that most people don't understand the pensions issue fully and I wonder if the CWU have thought up or produced a standard letter (or letters) that members can send to the Pensions Consultation people to register their views/concerns. Perhaps a multiple choice letter where you cross out the items you do not have concerns about.

[lovejoy]

Thanks for posting that lovejoy- a lot of things to take on board but generally I think most of it is good news, not in what is happening but that at least the PEC and the union are making plans to counter Royal Mail where needed. Lets hope that they follow through with action.

Just one thing I would say is that most people don't understand the pensions issue fully and I wonder if the CWU have thought up or produced a standard letter (or letters) that members can send to the Pensions Consultation people to register their views/concerns. Perhaps a multiple choice letter where you cross out the items you do not have concerns about.

I think if HQ produced a standard letter RM would just discard it as nationally organised!

I know my branch has done a letter though which follows on from an earlier post i made saying branches needed to pull their fingers out because if we are not careful then with the xmas/new year period we will have done nothing............... if i can find the standard letter(s) we had i'll post it!!

[dvbuk55]

Thanks for posting that lovejoy- a lot of things to take on board but generally I think most of it is good news, not in what is happening but that at least the PEC and the union are making plans to counter Royal Mail where needed. Lets hope that they follow through with action.

.

Talks cheap - when the elections are due - some of us won't forget the promises and the betrayals too easily

[Big Daz]

Thanks for posting that lovejoy- a lot of things to take on board but generally I think most of it is good news, not in what is happening but that at least the PEC and the union are making plans to counter Royal Mail where needed. Lets hope that they follow through with action.

.

Talks cheap - when the elections are due - some of us won't forget the promises and the betrayals too easily

It will be very intresting to see how many no camp CWU bods stand for election to the PEC and how well they fare given that PEC elections have traditionally a low turn out and the majority of members that voted, did so in favour of the recent aggrement.

My hunch is that you will be dissapointed dvbuk55.

[stephen500]

Most are too idle to summit a response to the pension consultation.
I showed mine to others, reprinted below, and gave them the e-mail address of the pension consultation but none could be bothered.
Submission to pension consultation:
The e-mail address is:
Mypension@royalmail.com
"Dear Sir/Madam,

My submission first argues that as the pension fund is protected by The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) of April 2005 the proposed action is excessive.

According to their web site:

"Protecting People's Pensions



The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) was set up in April 2005 to protect you if your employer goes bust and its pension scheme can no longer afford to pay you your promised pension.

If you are a member of an eligible scheme, and you have reached the scheme's normal pension age, we will pay you 100 per cent compensation for what you should have received at the time your employer went bust. We will also pay 100 per cent compensation to those who have retired on legitimate ill-health grounds, regardless of age, and to those receiving a pension in relation to someone who has died.

If you have retired but have not yet reached the normal pension age of your scheme, we will pay you up to 90 per cent compensation. The same applies if you are yet to start receiving pension payments. The total level of compensation is subject to an overall cap which is recalculated each year. Between April 2007 and March 2008, the cap at the age of 65 is set at £29,928.56. This equates to £26,935.70 for those receiving compensation at the 90 per cent level."

Source: http://www.pensionprotectionfund.org.uk ... nsions.htm

In reality the fund is protected by that above act and therefore the suggested remedy to reduce Royal Mail's liability is not proven.

Furthermore consideration should be given to raising the contribution rate of existing and future employees, along with linking the contribution rates of Royal Mail to profit levels before contribution.

This contribution rate would be flexible and would increase or contract by no more then say 3%..

Therefore a link is established with the health of the company, for both the employee and employer, and the fund receives increased contribution as profits improve and less in periods of contraction. This would be within defined limits of say plus/minus 3%.

I cannot agree with the proposal to limit future increases in pension to a maximum of 5%.

There should also be no reduction of benefits for those retiring at 60, regardless of which scheme is adopted, for employees in scheme prior to implementation of any proposals."

[dvbuk55]

Thanks for posting that lovejoy- a lot of things to take on board but generally I think most of it is good news, not in what is happening but that at least the PEC and the union are making plans to counter Royal Mail where needed. Lets hope that they follow through with action.

.

Talks cheap - when the elections are due - some of us won't forget the promises and the betrayals too easily

It will be very intresting to see how many no camp CWU bods stand for election to the PEC and how well they fare given that PEC elections have traditionally a low turn out and the majority of members that voted, did so in favour of the recent aggrement.

My hunch is that you will be dissapointed dvbuk55.

You are probably right - there are too many who fall for the dribbling rhetoric and forget what is actually achieved. When it comes down to hey lads hey we both know the PEC and the leadership are going to look after No 1. Oh and we are No 2.

[dvbuk55]

Hm - much food for thought there linkin and really to the point - these are the people we PAY to look after our interests and the PEC are supposed to police them. As the next pay round is 2009 there is a lot of water to go under the bridge before then.

[dvbuk55]

Hm - much food for thought there linkin and really to the point - these are the people we PAY to look after our interests and the PEC are supposed to police them. As the next pay round is 2009 there is a lot of water to go under the bridge before then.

And you know what? Thats what realy scares me! HQ have insured with that pay deal that we as members can only go to them for help in 2009 and all other issues will be dealt with localy (or at best with the likes of Ward showing his face for a photo call on a local picket line to help with his election, look at Burslem. His sh*t deal caused it with out amnesty built into the settlement.) their is not a central issue to galvernise and build support for action among the CWU but of course Hayes and Ward knew this, that is why they offerd up that sh*t deal in the hope we would all get over it and go back to not bothering to remember or vote at election time leaving them to strut around and not earn their cash amd pensions for another few years with the added bonus that they help Brown out with his 2.5% pay freeze in the public sector watch the other unions fall into line!

Do you know what worries me linkin? the fact that the pay deal got voted in and they will be the same voters when the elections come along and don't you just know who's gonna win again - if there was an emoticon for sh*T I would be using it right now.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Do you know what worries me linkin? the fact that the pay deal got voted in and they will be the same voters when the elections come along and don't you just know who's gonna win again - if there was an emoticon for sh*T I would be using it right now.

Sorry if anyone offended PM me and I will remove