Why we might have to work to rule in the longer term

[Jpro747]

We have the runners in our place , come in early run around don't take there meal relief. They are all guys in there 30/40 . I don't think they will have a job to go to if they keep on.

These tw@ts are the reason RM take the piss. They are spineless mugs. Not only do they s**t on themselves, they s**t on those who are trying to prove the rounds are unachievable by doing the job properly. I’ve got 0 respect for them!!

[postslippete]

What feels different about this strike is that we appears to be in a summer of discontent. Rising inflation and falling real wages means the cost of living crisis. The rail workers have been on strike, BT and the Post Office, Ryanair. But I actually think a lot of workers are angry at chief executives asset stripping and taking huge bonuses whilst also fiddling the figures so they then have to pay their workers f** all. And if workers wages don't go up in real terms then that means a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. Royal Mail are saying they have offered us 5.5%. But they aren't offered us 5.5% at all. They imposed 2% without agreement, another 1.5% based on signing away terms and cons and a £500 as a bonus for having targets that they know are unachievable.

Theres also a lot of negativity in the company. Royal Mail praised the work that DOMs did last year stating that they did hundreds of tasks every day and then promptly got rid of the DOM role and introduced COMs on lesser money instead. There are many long serving managers that have had enough of DILO and and all the other cr*p and want to leave on VR. But that is clearly going to cost money, and money is something that is not really being spent on the workforce in Royal Mail. Take a look at our vans compared to the competition. Its been weeks waiting to get new uniform. The new staff get the new kit and the rest of us are left looking like a walking advert for the homeless.

Royal Mail have also been hit with fines from Ofcom for letters and parcels arriving late. But get this - the fines have been around £1 to £1.5 million. What's that compared to a business that says it is losing £1 million a day? As a business they don't want to lose the letters business as they still get plenty of revenue from it. But the fines that Royal Mail are paying is peanuts compared to what they could be saving by not getting the stuff delivered every day. This is a targeted plan by the company to try and force fewer delivery days for delivering the mail. Just imagine only needing half the delivery workforce in on a Saturday.....

Now this is only a rough draft and bear with me here...but there were 90,000 postmen and women in 2019. Lets say, the average postie is on £12 an hour, 30 hours a week across 5 days. In other words they get paid £360 a week before tax, or £72 per working day. If only half of that 90,000 workforce is needed on a Saturday (45,000) then 45,000 x £72 = £3,240,000. That right there is a saving of over £3 million. Now I understand that we are working 7 days a week now (although there really aren't as many needed for Sunday parcels) and floaters/reserves that I have not accounted for. But theres a very tidy saving to be made.

But Royal Mail don't really want to spend money. For a business that says it is losing £1 million a day why are they even bothering with agency staff? All they are doing is winding us up and creating an even bigger rift with its own workforce. Its like they are deliberately poking us in the eye spoiling for a fight. Royal Mail will never achieve its objectives if it takes the my way or the highway approach. Theres just too much at stake. And for a company that has just slipped out of the Footsie, the stakes are quite high for those running the company. They might as well put it all on red for all I care because I don't gamble. I've planned ahead and worked out my budget and what I need and I've set some aside some for the forthcoming strikes. I honestly believe that Royal Mail have a lot more to lose than me. Its such a shame that more people just don't realise that.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Working to rule will require a ballot never say this to a manager you could be sacked for it just saying it say instead" I will perform to the standards and regulations of the terms I am employed by in my contract."

I believe you can have a vote locally to work to rule if you follow the correct procedure. The CWU should have also put this on the ballot paper nationally.

How would that work? As every ballot paper is non traceable nor office defined!

Offices can ballot for local industrial action it does not have to be a national cause. In fact, both the 2007 and 2009 strikes had local strikes popping up across the country before the national ballot. IIRC the 2007 national strike really came about because there were so many units asking for local ballots so the CWU decided to go national.

[Cedar_Room]

Arriva are doing it today. Mass disruption caused by staff (and I quote) “withdrawing their goodwill & refusing to pick up extra shifts” - I live in hope that we do something similar

[Martin Walsh]

Work to rule or an overtime ban would require another national industrial action ballot on action short of a strike.

Whilst a branch can request a local ballot it has to be on something which has been through the DRP process and not just a tag on to the national issues.

Whilst balloted work to rules and overtime bans can be effective they are pose an element of risk as well. Royal Mail normally decide to suspend / take individuals off pay for working to rule as they don’t like paying people for taking industrial action , this often leads to the rest of the office walking out unofficially in support of those suspended/ taken off pay. This then means Royal Mail can get a potential injunction on all ballots.

Believe me if work to rules actually worked do you think we would have had the strikes we have in the past ?

[Mickeybrowneyes]

Seems very confusing... It is all around the wording I suppose.
Turning up on time and taking your break and not doing overtime is something that is done by many postman anyhow. I don't really understand the difference but see how it can cause problems in a dispute.
Who is the judge and jury to decide if it is 'industrial action', it's an area I have never fully understood.

[jessicarabbit]

Surely the slightly faded, curly cornered "Do the job properly" poster at the extreme end could be construed as union encouragement for an unofficial work to rule. I'm confused. Do the CWU want us to do the job properly or not???

[Martin Walsh]

Unfortunately the anti trade union laws make it very difficult. If an office collectively tomorrow all decided to do the job properly and it built a backlog then Royal Mail will claim it is unofficial action especially as industrial relations is very difficult at the moment.

It is word collectively that Royal Mail will use.

[Dexydog]

In the news that train staff are refusing to do overtime.
Do they have a ballot for that?- that hasn't been reported.
I realise it has to be co-ordinated to be effective, but I don't see how any individual refusing overtime and starting when they are contractually paid to can possibly be seen as industrial action.
I was asked to work my day off this week and refused the offer because it didn't suit me- this wasn't industrial action of any kind, I just didn't want to do it.

[postslippete]

Unfortunately the anti trade union laws make it very difficult. If an office collectively tomorrow all decided to do the job properly and it built a backlog then Royal Mail will claim it is unofficial action especially as industrial relations is very difficult at the moment.

It is word collectively that Royal Mail will use.

Yes, its all very confusing Martin


In all honesty I merely wanted to know how the Royal Mail management strike was progressing and so I looked on the Unite website to find out.

What I wrote in the opening comment about the Work to rule and starting/finishing on time/taking breaks/not doing any unpaid work etc was directly copied from the Unite site.

https://www.unitetheunion.org/news-even ... s-and-pay/

[fallenworld2022]

Feel a bit dissapointed that we have no instructions as to what we are supposed to do when we come back from a strike?

some guys will work overtime and clear the back log and some will say no work to time, maybe if we had some direction from our union we will be more united.

[postslippete]

Feel a bit dissapointed that we have no instructions as to what we are supposed to do when we come back from a strike?

some guys will work overtime and clear the back log and some will say no work to time, maybe if we had some direction from our union we will be more united.

Thats a rather excellent point. We could all walk back in after strike number 1 or 2 and/or face extra work and many of us will be wanting to:

- start and finish on time
- take our breaks
- work to our time


And if many of us get our heads together and all work this way then we might get suspended or unpaid as managers will tell us that we have been working to rule. That same "work to rule" that managers themselves were proposing to do??

[fallenworld2022]

union you have your members going on strike! at least have some sort of strategy , and tell your members what we are supposed to do after we come back from a strike! whats allowed? overtime? no overtime? work to time? whats the strategy? be nice to be all united! and have some sort of clue what is going on? how long can we stay united if every man is left to his own device, strange strategy before we even have started, could do with clarification what our aims are.

[Mickeybrowneyes]

I think that's the point. They can't legally give us clear direction legally because of strict trade union legislation... Up to the individual I suppose

[SpacePhoenix]

Arriva are doing it today. Mass disruption caused by staff (and I quote) “withdrawing their goodwill & refusing to pick up extra shifts” - I live in hope that we do something similar

I thought I heard a mention of it getting deemed to be unofficial industrial action