RMCtv : Terry Pullinger : "If people do less than eight hours a month - it isn't, it really isn't a lot of money(lost)"

[Kaning It]

or out of the frying pan into the fire and join unite, its a recognised union that they must represent even if conflicted
to be honest the cwu offers nothing now other than personal representation if things go pear shaped if you make a mistake, cwu seems to offer absolutely nothing in terms of general working conditions

At least one of the remaining holiday pay tribunal cases is represented by Thompsons who work with Unite. It could well be that when these remaining cases come to court in April, Thompsons win a better deal for their member(s).

CWU will have some explaining to do then.

[wookie]

There was me thinking the CWU will fight to get to its members what they are basically owed.
It shouldn't matter if it is a small amount of £80.

[Weetrogg2]

I’m hearing that TP and his team have just negotiated a “deal of the century” on pay.

TP says although the discussion’s were particularly difficult due to covid and inflationary pressure ,but due to his and his team’s negotiating skills they have managed to get us a stunning 1% rise, but this only applies to people who have a q or x in their name or support millwall or were born between the 6th of December and 9th of December or on a bank holiday or have a mum called Sheila or a parrot named rex.

The members will not get a vote on this as this deal amounts to change which the membership cannot accept but don’t worry compliant branches will vote it through on your behalf

Obviously I’m taking the piss or am I???

[world class male]

The members will not get a vote on this as this deal amounts to change which the membership cannot accept but don’t worry compliant branches will vote it through on your behalf

24 out of the 100 branches couldn't even be bothered to vote on this deal either, which was still voted in despite the deal not been finalised due to the pass in p9 which starts monday

even if the minimum 8hrs per period remains forever then surely it must be adjusted for when you actually take your leave
i.e. if you take a weeks leave in june then you must do 6hrs that month or if 2wks off you must do 4 to qualify for that period
or is that just too much work for the admin team

[wallan]

Possible solution to the problem , should ensure more qualify for the holiday pay they are due

[Kaning It]

The solution is to pay people their average pay from the previous 12 months when they go on holiday.

Not make people wait until after a 6 month qualifying period long after the holiday week - that is an unlawful deduction of wages.

Not set an 8hr minimum criteria. That is not necessary as its blindingly obvious that posties work REGULAR overtime, no definition is needed (as it’s not for agency staff and not for the examples in other companies people have mentioned above).

The law is clear, this deal is crap, probably unlawful, and hopefully those who did not withdraw their claims will get the lawful deal in April along with those now adding claims.

[HTPostman]

With so many of us affected I wonder if in the near future we’ll see solicitors wanting to handle our claims - similar to PPI etc. Royal Mail clearly have very good lawyers but so much of this agreement is wrong on so many levels.

Also I’ve asked 3 union officials and not 1 can tell me why this went to a half arsed branch vote instead of a member vote.

[yellowbelly]

24 out of the 100 branches couldn't even be bothered to vote on this deal either, which was still voted in despite the deal not been finalised due to the pass in p9 which starts monday

IIRC every branch has to hold its AGM by 31 March each year - we should all ask:

1. Did the branch vote for the deal?
2. If not, why not?
3. If yes, what was the number of votes cast for/against etc.

A quick glance through LTBs 243/21 and 245/21 Tel just states that it was going to branch vote with no explanation why.
Perhaps it was a timescale thing to do with the tribunals.

Edit, para 1 should read:

1. Did the branch vote ON the deal?

[world class male]

24 out of the 100 branches couldn't even be bothered to vote on this deal either, which was still voted in despite the deal not been finalised due to the pass in p9 which starts monday

IIRC every branch has to hold its AGM by 31 March each year - we should all ask:

1. Did the branch vote for the deal?
2. If not, why not?
3. If yes, what was the number of votes cast for/against etc.

A quick glance through LTBs 243/21 and 245/21 Tel just states that it was going to branch vote with no explanation why.
Perhaps it was a timescale thing to do with the tribunals.

with the actual vote count those 24 branches missing wouldn't have changed the outcome but it's the principle that they didn't that's totally wrong, it could turn out that the members were asked and was 50/50? but why not publish it
i'm from a large area an not even our office rep knew about the branch vote on our behalf, not a single person was asked about the deal

[oypostie]

Fairest way is that you just add all the overtime hours worked over a six month period and pay the amount based on that. No minimum, no maximum, no having to do so many hours in a month. Simples !!

[Kaning It]

Fairest way is that you just add all the overtime hours worked over a six month period and pay the amount based on that. No minimum, no maximum, no having to do so many hours in a month. Simples !!

The law says to average it out over 12 months (as of April 2020) so your suggestion is not far off what RM should be doing.

[Martin Walsh]

Whilst I am not going to get into a debate over the merits or not of the Average Holiday Pay Agreement , it is important to state that the law change on 7th April did not apply workers with regular hours.

There is no statutory reference period when calculating holiday pay for workers with normal working hours. Case law suggests that holiday pay for these workers should be based on an average over a period that is ‘representative’ i.e. one which reflects normal working. In practice.

So whilst it has been changed for agency workers , zero hour workers , term time workers and other irregular work hours to an average of 52 weeks it does not cover Royal Mail or other companies hours who have fixed and regular hours.

[world class male]

Whilst I am not going to get into a debate over the merits or not of the Average Holiday Pay Agreement , it is important to state that the law change on 7th April did not apply workers with regular hours.

There is no statutory reference period when calculating holiday pay for workers with normal working hours. Case law suggests that holiday pay for these workers should be based on an average over a period that is ‘representative’ i.e. one which reflects normal working. In practice.

So whilst it has been changed for agency workers , zero hour workers , term time workers and other irregular work hours to an average of 52 weeks it does not cover Royal Mail or other companies hours who have fixed and regular hours.

so are the union going to get the qualifying hours revised?
a colleague does a regular 3hrs p/w, he had 2 weeks leave in june and got nothing, still it was only around £50,
nothing you can really buy with that

[yellowbelly]

Whilst I am not going to get into a debate over the merits or not of the Average Holiday Pay Agreement , it is important to state that the law change on 7th April did not apply workers with regular hours.

There is no statutory reference period when calculating holiday pay for workers with normal working hours. Case law suggests that holiday pay for these workers should be based on an average over a period that is ‘representative’ i.e. one which reflects normal working. In practice.

So whilst it has been changed for agency workers , zero hour workers , term time workers and other irregular work hours to an average of 52 weeks it does not cover Royal Mail or other companies hours who have fixed and regular hours.

so are the union going to get the qualifying hours revised?
a colleague does a regular 3hrs p/w, he had 2 weeks leave in june and got nothing, still it was only around £50,
nothing you can really buy with that

Two fillet steaks at The Bar & Block for Dave & Tel directly over the road from CWU HQ or if they downgraded to rump
steak they could invite Simon as well and just have to cough up a quid between them, drinks and tips not included.

[Kaning It]

Whilst I am not going to get into a debate over the merits or not of the Average Holiday Pay Agreement , it is important to state that the law change on 7th April did not apply workers with regular hours.

There is no statutory reference period when calculating holiday pay for workers with normal working hours. Case law suggests that holiday pay for these workers should be based on an average over a period that is ‘representative’ i.e. one which reflects normal working. In practice.

So whilst it has been changed for agency workers , zero hour workers , term time workers and other irregular work hours to an average of 52 weeks it does not cover Royal Mail or other companies hours who have fixed and regular hours.

That is not quite true in theory or in practice. The issue of overtime (guaranteed, non-guaranteed and voluntary), commission and bonuses has been dealt with in numerous Employment Appeal Tribunals since British Gas v Lock/British Airways v Williams (albeit Williams was based on the Aviation Directive and not the Working Time Directive).

The result of the above is that holiday pay should be based on “pay that is normally received”.

No one can possibly argue that posties (particularly part time ones) don’t do regular overtime.

To get pedantic, and the law is just that, someone on 25 hour contract over 5 days for example does not have regular hours as they can be asked to start at different times depending on need and so they are not on fixed hours.

In addition to numerous EAT decisions, the ECJ pretty much left employers with two scenarios re holiday pay: 1 pay what is normally received or 2 pay the average over, what is now since 6 April 2020, 12 months.

As a final point on your “not regular” argument, the EAT in Dudley v Willets and confirmed in East of England Ambulance NHS Trust v Flowers made clear that overtime worked one in every four or five weeks was sufficiently regular to count. No 8 hour minimum, just some overtime once every 4/5 weeks. If a bit of overtime once every 4/5 weeks counts then the multiple hours racked up by posties must all count.

The CWU bailed too early and seemingly did so based on your ‘regular’ argument. Their case was totally winable.

Incidentally the law change in April 2020 merely changed the reference period from 12 weeks to 12 months. Holiday pay was still supposed to be averaged out prior to April 2020, just over a shorter reference period.