Are we now fighting the CWU as well as RM?

[stokes11eg]

'Still those salaries don't seem to be excessive' eh? Are you kidding? If you pay folks what they are worth, certain people should be on the dole!

[pickaname]

I dont like this idea that if youre either with the CWU or with RM management.

Both sides have let me, and the people i work with day in day out, down badly over the past few years.

Ive seen RM slowly turn the screw to the point that the business exudes a contempt for its employees; its as though they are reluctantly employing me - thats the feeling i get each day.

Ive also seen the CWU move closer and closer to RM policy to the point that both sides are almost indistinguishable from each other. Examine the way the CWU literally threw away our D2D earnings and shift allowances, let our final salary pensions get flushed away without so much as a raised eyebrow and how they allow RM to treat part time workers with the disdain of a chinese iphone factory.
All this and more in the name of supposedly saving jobs of which tens of thousands have gone and tens of thousands are set to go.

Make no mistake - the only jobs that are secure are the jobs of the CWU hierarchy - they erode your terms and conditions to secure their own.

In my opinion neither side can be trusted.

I cant trust my employer to behave in a fair and proper manner towards me and my co-workers and similarly I cant trust my trade union to represent me and my co-workers in a fair and proper manner.

This is why I have been campaigning against the CWU since the ballot result and I shall continue to do so until such time they change their attitudes and start representing their members properly.

[dvbuk55]

'Still those salaries don't seem to be excessive' eh? Are you kidding? If you pay folks what they are worth, certain people should be on the dole!

Not just the salary though stokes, their pension has remained at final salary whereas yours has not, perhaps, like RM to save spending, people employed by the union should have the same pension rights as you - would that not be what honourable men would do?

[fishtank]

'Still those salaries don't seem to be excessive' eh? Are you kidding? If you pay folks what they are worth, certain people should be on the dole!

Not just the salary though stokes, their pension has remained at final salary whereas yours has not, perhaps, like RM to save spending, people employed by the union should have the same pension rights as you - would that not be what honourable men would do?

The real shocker is that union members are funding the CWU pension deficit to the tune of almost £1.5Million a year.
So really CWU members are funding two pension deficits and will be lucky to get a pittance from their own.

[dvbuk55]

'Still those salaries don't seem to be excessive' eh? Are you kidding? If you pay folks what they are worth, certain people should be on the dole!

Not just the salary though stokes, their pension has remained at final salary whereas yours has not, perhaps, like RM to save spending, people employed by the union should have the same pension rights as you - would that not be what honourable men would do?

The real shocker is that union members are funding the CWU pension deficit to the tune of almost £1.5Million a year.
So really CWU members are funding two pension deficits and will be lucky to get a pittance from their own.

And the gravy train rolls on ...................and on.........................and on. It beats me that anyone still pays.

[stokes11eg]

'Still those salaries don't seem to be excessive' eh? Are you kidding? If you pay folks what they are worth, certain people should be on the dole!

Not just the salary though stokes, their pension has remained at final salary whereas yours has not, perhaps, like RM to save spending, people employed by the union should have the same pension rights as you - would that not be what honourable men would do?

The real shocker is that union members are funding the CWU pension deficit to the tune of almost £1.5Million a year.
So really CWU members are funding two pension deficits and will be lucky to get a pittance from their own.

And the gravy train rolls on ...................and on.........................and on. It beats me that anyone still pays.

How anyone can still try and defend this union is beyond me!and I was a unionist through and through!

[andy2007]

The reason we can defend the Union, is that in many areas, we still have excellent Reps, who REPRESENT us. The trouble, in my experience, is the number of people who can't be bothered to turn up to meetings, or vote. And worst of all. The Muppets at HQ.

If we could get more people to get involved, instead of expecting things to be handed to them on a plate. And then moan when they don't get what they need, even though they've provided no support for the Reps. We'd stand a much better chance of getting what we need. Now this isn't aimed at anyone on here. The fact that you're taking the time to discuss the issues on here, is a fairly good sign, that you're willing to put the time in at the meetings. But in my experience, there are far too many who can't be bothered. And give excuses like:
I'm not driving x miles, just to go to a meeting. That's what the Reps are for!
Why should I give up my day off, to go to meetings. They should all be held during work time, not mine.
etc., etc..

To be honest, I dispair of them. But maybe one day they'll wake up and smell the coffee.

The other problem (HQ) is going to be even harder to solve. Because unless someone's willing to stand against them, they'll keep getting in by default.

So, yes. It's going to be very hard to repair the damage to the CWU. But is that a reason to throw the towel in, and get shafted even worse in the future?
Or are we going to try to DO something about it?!?

I for one, will be sticking with the CWU. In the hope that we can change it from within. It'll be a long hard road. But worthwhile things usually are hard to get, aren't they?

[pickaname]

Do what many in my office has done.

Leave the CWU and decide to take action on your own as an unofficial loose group.

We have already decided to come together on the lapsing issue when the rep blindly agreed to let RM force it in regardless of workload. We also 'remind' people coming in early and finishing early is not on - something the now defunct CWU rep didnt give two hoots about.

Think about it.

If the CWU represented our interests in the workplace all these people who are taking independent action would be union activists. Its a travesty we were cast on the scrapheap and left to fend for ourselves, but we have no choice. The CWU dont give a toss - the 2010 & beyond agreement proves it.

[Martin Walsh]

Lets dispel a few myths

1. Is the people at Headquaters are in managements pockets. What a load of rubbish. First and foremost if you know Dave, Bob , Terry and the PEC then that simply is not true. They have authorised more strike action then all the other unions put together. Theur record in improving terms and conditions could not be faulted. Lets just look when Dave Ward came into office in 2003 the majority of delivery postal workers were on a 6 day week and we were some way off reaching £300 per week.

Well at the end of this deal pay will stand at £393.73 for delivery staff and not only has all delivery staff been on 5 day weeks since 2003 that they will have the opportunity to work less Saturdays.

Those who seem to shout the loudest really should look at the situration in the round. Whether we like it or not the mail`s market in the whole world is shrinking. The UK is no different bussiness to bussiness mail has in the main been replaced by E subsitution. Downstream access is growing so revenue shrinking.

Post Comms crazy rules mean that Royal Mail have to leave head room from the downstream access price and mail sort 2 price in order for the TNT etc to compete therefore meaning that they can take more work.

On top of this whether we like it or no we have seen increased mech and now we face automation via walk sequencing. Examine every other country who has faced these problems and most have then taken the route of turning the industry into a mainly part time job.

The CWU did not go down this route. The CWU forced Royal Mail to reject the Dutch Delivery Model. If we had not then you would have faced massive pay cuts in the way of reduced working hours.

Instead the CWU used the unaddressed market and got Royal Mail to pay twice one in the way of the supplement and the other in the way of keeping more hours in your office when you have your revison.

If you dont realise how valuable that will be , you will do when you have your revison.

Pickaname you might think you have a group of indivduals who stick together in your office. But what happens when you have a disagrement with management. They dont have ot listen , your a group of indivduals and they only recognise the CWU as the voice of the workforce. You will have to abide by the national agreement as all non members have to do. Plus you cannot ballot or take any form of action. At some stage management will target you , and then you will realise that a trade union is not just about CWU HQs its about workers having support from a massive organisation.

Now in terms of the union being in debted to Royal Mail , every union has arrangements with their employer. We have had an arrangement for check off which is deductions from wages since the late 60s. The employer charges the union a sum of money which they say it costs for them to deduct union fees straight from the union fees.

Are you seriously telling me that since the late 60s we have been in the pocket of Royal Mail as I must have been in 20 odd differnt disputes in the time I have been in Royal Mail and taken something like 10 weeks strike action.

Now what is included in the new deal is an opportunity to talk about the central billing arrangement which was first agreed in the early 90s. Central billing is when the rep has to take leave for union purposes attending a tribunal , going to a conference, going to a committee meeting, doing legal and medical cases, attending some courses , reprsenting a member at a dss appeal, going to a national briefing, and a whole range of other things which Royal Mail do not give paid leave for.

Previously to the 90s an indivdual had to take unpaid special leave and their Branch paid them the difference. However off course their pension was not paid , nor was their national insurance or tax for that matter leaving indivduals at risk from the tax claims and reducing their pension.

So the union achieved an agreement whereby an indivdual who took unpaid union leave would still get their wages paid by Royal Mail and then Royal Mail reclaimed the money from union headquaters and headquaters then took the amount of the Branch rebate.

Again hardly that arrangement leaves the union in the pocket of Royal Mail. The agreement simply suggusts that a better arrangement can be reached.

I might have my disagreements with Headquaters and we do , as a divison like mine does repersenting the views but no one can tell me that the CWU have sold out.

That is simply a load of tosh. The CWU cannot ingnore that Royal Mail has changed in the way of post comm , e subsitiution , falling revenue from DSA , automation and reducing letter traffic.

Thats why the agreement was accepted by the membeship . They know that as well.

Like I say , your entitled to be outside the union but if you really think that Royal mail are going to allow you to continue to chase time then I think your in for a rude awakening.

[dvbuk55]

You're right Dingo, no one can tell you the CWU has sold out, because you are part of the system unfortunately many ordinary members feel disenfranchised.



“Oh wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursel's as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, And foolish notion” From Burns


You paint the picture of a small individual group being isolated, not so, they have exactly the same legal rights as any worker. How would it be, for example, if as a group within an office, brokered a deal outside of the 2010 agreement which was to their benefit - now there is an interesting situration.

[stokes11eg]

: Dingo--you keep going back to this story of every postal working chasing time--yes, some lucky people have easy walks, and others, who are management pets, always get away with it! but the vast majority of us have always worked long and hard, with no ducking and diving along the way.Right up to and sometimes over our time. Sorry, but you still sound as if you are spouting R/M propoganda. As for paying us twice by the way of supplement and extra hours--that's not so-- most have lost a great deal through loss of D/D income, and the extra hours to prep are a fairy story. Although agreeing that way back this Union did do some good for the rank and file, those days are long gone.If my memory serves me well, most of the proposed strike action in recent years has initially been led by the rank and file,not by Hoddit and Doddit.
This Union is all talk and no action.

[dvbuk55]

He keeps going back to people chasing time because that is what he sees in London - out in the real world, where part timers represent a much greater proportion of the workforce, life is very different. You will now hear how they went on strike for 20 days and so they did to protect themselves not to benefit the members as a whole.

[andy2007]

The one thing I agree with you about Dingo, is that CWU HQ aren't in RM's pockets. Personally, I never said they were. What I did accuse them of, is being so isolated from the realities of our day to day work, and so hung up on increasing our wages. That they're neglecting the more important issues. And when it comes to Strike action. Yes, they've called a lot of Strikes. But they've also called a lot of suspensions of Strikes, without consulting the members first! Which has allowed RM to catch up a lot (but obviously not all) the backlog. Which meant that it took weeks, or even months to rebuild the pressure on RM. Which obviously extended the length of the Strikes, way beyond what was necessary. Which made it harder to maintain the Strikes, and caused far more disruption than neccessary for the Public. For whom we're supposed to be providing a SERVICE! Now I know that the point of Strikes is to create disruption. But surely the greatest disruption should be to the EMPLOYER not the Public. That's why I referred to them as Muppets.

I know that they think they're doing as much as they can in the current climate. But they are letting the local and area Reps down, and worse, letting the entire membership down. And yes, I know that RM said that they'd only negotiate if the Strikes were suspended. But just how long do you think they could have held out, with the utter chaos that the backlog was already causing at the time. And don't forget: It would have got much, much worse, if we hadn't suspended the Strikes.

Now to the latest agreement: Yes, I realise that there are some good points to it. But they're far outweighed by the costs to us as Posties. And far worse than that: It is clearly discriminatory against Part Timers. Because everything is based on their CONTRACTED HOURS and not THE ACTUAL HOURS they work. It's not difficult to calculate their average hours, and pay them accordingly. Instead of sticking rigidly to this pro-rata based on contracted hours. How many Part Timers work 40 hours Nationally?
Yet they still get pro-rata payments.

Now this isn't about money (at least from my point of view), it's about FAIRNESS! Whatever happened to "an injury to one, is an injury to all"?

[Judgee]

Dingo what the hell planet are you from?

You must work for a different company to me because in the last decade the CWU has just run up failure after failure.

Sure many years ago wages were under £300 and the 6 day week was common. But the biggest increase to pay in this time came with the biggest increase to work load and the dropping of the second delivery. Overtime was readily available and a postman could earn far more than he could today. There may be more people on the five day week now but they all have to work the SA day because in real terms salaries at the RM have dropped substantionally.

Now we have the wonderful D2Ds included in the workload which we are basically doing for free, well thank you CWU. Not only did they fail to get the payments raised for the crap at all in the last ten years, now we are doing them for free

Bending over for management is not the way to represent your supporters.

Like the typical CWU sheep you bleet on and on about mail volumes falling and how we are all lucky to have jobs and we can thank CWU for that, well that's just bullshit. Anyone in deliveries with half a brain can see the pricing system is at fault not the amount of mail being delivered.

As for more saturdays off have you been drinking meths? In our office you cannot get a saturday off for love nor money. Even when you are owed weeks in holiday time. Will this change? No because we are now completely understaffed because of the 60,000 rats that left the sinking ship thanks to CWU stupidity

When I think of the RM management and the CWU I am very much reminded of George Orwells Animal farm. When I look through the window I can't tell anymore which are pigs and which are humans they both look so alike!

[Big Daz]

My branch is having a meeting of RML IR reps (We are a RML only branch, rather than a RMG branch) in a couple of weeks and it is paid union leave so RML are paying our wages still that day and not the CWU via central billing.

Is that such a bad thing, or should we say to RML thanks but we will pay just to avoid accusations of being nobbled?

Our branch committee meetings are unpaid leave as they are for the purpose of the internal affairs/running of the local CWU branch rather than a industrial meeting to disccuss workplace issues and RML IR issues/CWU IR policy.