My reasons for voting yes

[SMS1969]

Every deal gets worse than the last one. Always been the case, the union manage to ‘water down’ drastic changes. It’s called negotiation. I’ve stood on the picket line in minus 9 temperatures, so I can assure you that I’m not happy with the deal.
The problem is there will be no more negotiations, if this deal doesn’t get through then RM will push through with their original intentions. That probably means commit to deliver etc. At least we have a finish time and it looks like, according to Martin, some offices won’t be moving to later times at all yet.

[scotchy1962]

You have voted yes all along so far in this dispute.
The slogans “win the ballot win the dispute” and even the original 10% no strings attached dream have given the CWU the best ammunition to get the best deal they can.

Even when independent negotiators agreed that RM had financial difficulties you still backed the CWU to get you a deal.

And they have.

It may not be what they want; or even what they promised but it’s, in their opinion, the best we can get.

Yet now, people seem to have turned 180. They are going to do the opposite of what the union recommends and even threaten to leave the union because all of a sudden they are “in bed with RM.”

Voting no will lead to massive uncertainty. RM could make the deal worse.

And they could make it worse.

Here is the problem FB you and i both know that it wont end here, i take it you are a fairly straight talking level headed individual like myself ?
Here goes, if we vote yes RM will then have the formula to force the unions hand everytime. They will more than likely break the agreement first chance they get and just resort to plan A. Union will fold and gig economy Evri/Amazon child from hell will be born.
But just say a No vote wins the day, where do they go and how do they get there. EA can be used but we will push back, banks will withdraw the warchest and i fancy people of power will suddenly show a bit of interest, especially if they go nuclear and administration is called.
Although people think its a bad thing for us i dont imagine it would be a good thing for RM, especially if they start to forensically look at the accounts.
Theres a certain amount of peril in most things we do in life and sometimes its worth the risk.
Who knows if nows the time, but when is it ever the right time?

[koolishy67]

Thanks big YES CWU

[FilthyBloke]

You have voted yes all along so far in this dispute.
The slogans “win the ballot win the dispute” and even the original 10% no strings attached dream have given the CWU the best ammunition to get the best deal they can.

Even when independent negotiators agreed that RM had financial difficulties you still backed the CWU to get you a deal.

And they have.

It may not be what they want; or even what they promised but it’s, in their opinion, the best we can get.

Yet now, people seem to have turned 180. They are going to do the opposite of what the union recommends and even threaten to leave the union because all of a sudden they are “in bed with RM.”

Voting no will lead to massive uncertainty. RM could make the deal worse.

And they could make it worse.

Here is the problem FB you and i both know that it wont end here, i take it you are a fairly straight talking level headed individual like myself ?
Here goes, if we vote yes RM will then have the formula to force the unions hand everytime. They will more than likely break the agreement first chance they get and just resort to plan A. Union will fold and gig economy Evri/Amazon child from hell will be born.
But just say a No vote wins the day, where do they go and how do they get there. EA can be used but we will push back, banks will withdraw the warchest and i fancy people of power will suddenly show a bit of interest, especially if they go nuclear and administration is called.
Although people think its a bad thing for us i dont imagine it would be a good thing for RM, especially if they start to forensically look at the accounts.
Theres a certain amount of peril in most things we do in life and sometimes its worth the risk.
Who knows if nows the time, but when is it ever the right time?

Yeah, I get that. But that’s only if RM and the CWU share the view that the union has capitulated.
I’m not sure we can just ignore the independent negotiators as well as RM and the sudden U turn of the union regarding the state of the finances.
It could be that the union presumed they had money so expected a wage rise. And when reality hit they knew the deal would sound bad. The other changes are to save money, obviously. Which again falls into either you don’t believe RM and that the CWU are hand in hand with them, or that the changes are actually needed and perhaps both sides are telling the truth.

The finances are dire because of RM mismanagement of money. The dispute is a farce because the CWU talked the talk but failed to walk the walk and it ended up being a Thompson vs Ward battle.

If I’m being cynical, I think YES or NO vote will only delay the inevitable. By the time of the next negotiation and perhaps the one after that, the job will be pretty much what RM want.

[POP2022]

Martin, you are a decent and honourable guy, but you don’t have the troops with you and therefore you don’t have the union. This is a massive error, we have no improvements to what we have at the moment. You have had 3 massive YES votes for industrial action.

I think you either need to renegotiate or considering building a strike fund for autumn pressure! No one wants to go on strike but this deal will lead to me and many others leaving the business, therefore you aren’t acting in your members interests.

[77SAMPOST77]

Thanks big YES CWU

If you vote yes foolishy67 then they will come back at you again and again ,
Perhaps things like no paid breaks , commit to deliver , Pay for your own uniform etc ,

A yes vote is like saying do whatever you like and I will comply .

[carlosevenos]

Martin if they are so skint, why are they still paying manager's thousands of pounds in bonuses just for implementing a revision, when its their job. As well as all the money on agency. My office is currently having work done on it, to revamp it. Surely with no money this wouldn't be possible.

[chrisj]

The Union did not help the situation by sticking a finger in their ears when they were first asked to look at the books? Even articles in the Guardian and other places emphasising the precarious financial position of RM was met with derision and mistrust and down the pub sort of language.

They have whipped up the member too much for what they could ever have achieved; and what we have now could have been achieved with less of the adversarial attitudes and certainly not striking at Christmas when it was obvious that such an action will be damaging and will move RM to give up on their vision...

Did RM start off by wanting to crush the Union? I doubt that but they clearly wanted a freer hand to run the business and reduce the influence of the Union but talks of war chest and removing the Union off the shop floor was probably not their intentions.

Removing the Union will not be easy anyways because the Union is quasi-management and in most big offices, some of the managers will be clueless without the Union involvement...

We need to move on and get on with things...

* I think the Union should work better with RM to reduce the impact of the USO on profitability and they should adopt a more positive attitudes to profit making and the fact that this is a plc where shareholders are not the problem...

** I want rid of Saturday letters for starters, Mondays are quiet anyways, there are so many vacancies that reduction in staffing will not even need VR. Owner drivers along with Posties to help manage the parcels (especially the above show size parcels. More Saturdays off will be welcome after the battering we are getting on Delivery - more family time, please!

CR is not even with the poor financial situation; many are leaving as we speak and it will continue... Folks will just have to move offices or function to avoid CR...

Vote as you wish but the deal will go through... Either by a narrow Yes vote (virtually all other functions apart from Delivery will deliver a large Yes vote, many will abstain and many more will be convinced in the next 2 weeks.

[Caesar]

Thanks big YES CWU

If you vote yes foolishy67 then they will come back at you again and again ,
Perhaps things like no paid breaks , commit to deliver , Pay for your own uniform etc ,

A yes vote is like saying do whatever you like and I will comply .

I agree that RM will come for more, especially if we are still loosing money but I don’t believe that a yes vote gives RM the green light to go ahead.
If RM do come for more, individually we wouldn’t be able to fight them and will need the CWU to do our bidding.
I think a yes vote shows support for the CWU.

[chrisj]

This place is not anti-Union by the way - in fact, it has been very pro-Union and dissenting voices against the Union and their high expectations or reality had been derided for a very long time...

Reality now bites and folks are lashing out for being taking on a ride to nowhere...

Also, some of the lurkers or quiet ones are just poking their head up nowadays...

[Hyrrokkin]

Martin/CWU

RM have pretty much got everything they wanted - you can spin it any way you like...simple as that
RM got themselves into a financial mess - as usual we have to give up even more t&c while they give up nothing
CWU wanted to save themselves - well done you have at the expense of us...the people you work for and represent - give yourselves a pat on the back for that one,job well done.
This agreement has more holes than a sponge and will only get worse as RM will come back for more very soon - this is only the beginning and you kmow it - no doubt the CWU will continue to bend over like they always do.
CWU know this is a horrible agreement & RM know this is a great agreement
CWU are shysters and a disgrace

[Skuse]

Martin Walsh in a personal capacity.

Royal Mail are in a financial mess of their own making and whilst we can blame them for getting into that position, the fact is they could end up ceasing to be a going concern.

Those who doubt this just need to look at the first two pages of the agreement. What public limited company would open their poor financial position for the whole market to see if they not telling the truth ?

Does anyone believe if they did go into administration the government appointed administration would care about resolving issues in our dispute like pay , later starts , flexibility, sick pay.

The things that convinced me to vote yes to the agreement were .

1. Whilst there are parts of the agreement which I would rather not have in it, the fact remains it was not a pic and mix it was part of an overall package which Royal Mail needs to show to the market that it had a future.

2. We had massively changed Royal Mails proposals from last summer and from their best and final offer on 22nd November.

3. In a company staring into the abyss financially there was simply no more money to fund more pay.

4. The other consideration was things going to get better by further strikes or worse. Royal Mail without an agreement are legally obliged to try and avoid administration by introducing change by executive action and they would have needed to introduce far bigger change then what’s is in the agreement.

5. If the company entered into administration then thousands of jobs would be lost which are not linked directly to the USO.

6. The reason why the ballot allows for time to fully explain the reasons why the agreement was reached and exposing some myths is we generally want to engage.

7. It would have been easy to simply take strike action but it would have been a gamble equivalent to playing Russian roulette with our members jobs and futures. No responsible union does that.

8. We generally believe that we have changed Royal Mail’s plans but there is no agreement without change as the company don’t survive.

9. On Later starts 62% will finish up to 15:30, 93% will finish before 16:00. Everyone will know their start times before they vote for example if you work in Sheffield City there is no change to start times and if you work in Sheffield North you move 15 minutes later. The aim of the joint working parties is to improve this further. Only 103 delivery units out of 12:50 will have a finish time after 16:30 and most of these are rural or 4 day weeks where they have more hours to fit into their duty each working day.

10. Royal Mail wanted to introduce annualised hours which meant you had to complete your duty even if it went past your finishing time. Annualised hours would have been linked to SISO and PDA.

Instead we have agreed seasonal variations where everyone will know a year in advance their start and finish times.

The period will run from September 2023 till September 2024. Within this period a full timer will work 15 weeks during the peak at 39 hours , 24 minutes before their duty time per day.

15 weeks during the summer at 35 hours, a full timer will start 10 minutes later and finish 14 minutes earlier.

22 weeks at 37 hours.

All hours will balance between September 2023 and September 2024.

The joint aim is to reduce absorption in the summer months and to improve quality of service during the peak.

Part timers will work 10 minutes more per day in the peak and 10 minutes less per day in the summer.

11. On sick pay , it was Hobsons choice , Royal Mail were imposing all the sick changes in May , all their managers were being trained.

Did the union reach an agreement which modified those changes or did it allow Royal Mail to impose that change. Remember less than 1 in 4 of employees come into contact with any of the sick proposals.

The union decided to modify these by :

A) We changed the SSP to 2 days for the second absence and this means for 55% of those 25% who go sick who never have more than 2 absences will benefit from the reduction of a day.

B. We have achieved a clause if sick reduces to 5.5% then SSP measure will be removed and all sick will be paid as previously.

C. Royal Mail wanted to automatically issue stage 1s and 2s this is not in the agreement.

D. We have improved Royal Mail’s previous I’ll health proposal.

Is the above ideal ? No but be in no doubt if you reject the agreement on the basis of the changes to sick leave, Royal Mail will impose it.

12. Royal Mail decided to smash the workforce and union. They wanted to replace current staff with owner drivers and wanted compulsory redundancies. Instead we have an agreement and whilst it is not perfect , stops all of that. it is also an agreement which stops imposition and allows us to start changing the revisions which Royal Mail had imposed.

It has also allowed us to minimise later starts , stop compulsory Sundays , remove annualised hours , flexi bank without finishing times , managed to keep RRIS , TPM, Sunday premium and all the other allowances.

Plus we have the best opportunity to get justice for the reps and members who have been treated unfairly. For those who have been dismissed or facing dismissal only this agreement gives them a chance for justice.

I totally understand we want to have got more on pay but unfortunately with a company going to declare a loss of nearly 500 million there is no more money for now. Yes I know what they gave in bonuses and dividends last year but that does not change that this year they got no more money for a pay rise.

So in conclusion the PE have not been shy in previously calling for strike action, 18 days of strikes more than anyone other strike since 1971. If we thought more was on table then we would have called more.

The truth is we did not believe there was and the risk of the company ceasing to being a going concern and the impact on our members was not worth gambling with.

Anyone who is considering voting no must answer this question? Do you believe what is on the table gets better by doing this and are you really willing to gamble with 125 thousand of members jobs ?

It is easy to shout behind a keyboard I would rather see Royal Mail go under than to agree this deal.

It is a total different thing having to then deal with those 125 thousand staff who may no longer being getting a regular weekly wage or are being made redundant.

The CWU over the coming weeks will be engaging with our members to tell them why we reached this agreement and what it means to them.

Solidarity to all.

I don’t comment much as I work for Distribution but was a postie on a walk for 20 years but I agree with this comment !

[gil]

Oh goody they will taking work off me now as I am struggling to finish on time as it is another great idea

[Zippyy]

Martin/CWU

RM have pretty much got everything they wanted - you can spin it any way you like...simple as that
RM got themselves into a financial mess - as usual we have to give up even more t&c while they give up nothing
CWU wanted to save themselves - well done you have at the expense of us...the people you work for and represent - give yourselves a pat on the back for that one,job well done.
This agreement has more holes than a sponge and will only get worse as RM will come back for more very soon - this is only the beginning and you kmow it - no doubt the CWU will continue to bend over like they always do.
CWU know this is a horrible agreement & RM know this is a great agreement
CWU are shysters and a disgrace

This, with bells on.

If Ward, Furey et al had any moral compass at all they'd do the decent thing and resign their positions.

[Postmanham]

Totally agree. Turkeys voting for xmas if you vote no. Wake up and smell the coffee people. Too many on here have no clue about what the realities of what working for a private company means. No one will bail us out if we throw our toys out the pram. Its not great but at least for now we have a chance to at least protect a living for ourselves. The alternitive
P and O springs to mind