The Legal Protections.

[fishtank]

Why were Royal Mail so keen to sign up to legal protections?
It's an interesting question and one that did puzzle me for a while, I mean there is no precedent for it, Dave Ward calls it "groundbreaking" and "landmark" but I just thought it was very unusual for an employer to voluntarily tie their own hands like that because lets be honest love or hate the CWU they're not exactly terrifying so like I said the why puzzled me at first...

Then I thought about the timing and the floatation of the company and the political angle and the fact that the very last thing Vince Cable and the Royal Mail board wants is some investment shark coming in and breaking the company up, throwing the staff onto zero hour contracts and minimum wage and generally destroying this much loved institution that the Coalition government promised would be in safe hands after privatisation, Vince and the board would probably be out of a job and Moya's legacy would be one of death and destruction.

In my opinion the truth is the much vaunted legal protections are nothing more than a political move. probably planned well in advance to keep the sharks at bay and the company together in the short term to avoid all those concerned being run out of town with pitchforks and torches.

It all started making sense again.....

[drb]

Fish,from what I understand,the legal protections was from the CWU part,not RM. This being that every office/function is being "HR" run. All advice from HR is legal,(IHR/VR/). It is quite natural to follow suit. Some may say "evolve". Royal Mail and it's existence has been a political hot potatoe for some years now,right from 2000 with the postal act,(and of course it's liberalisation in 2006). Both with Labour and the Tories/Con Dems.

To be honest no political party can make promises on our business anymore. I do not recognise how it looks now,(or any other products in fact),to how it looked 10 years ago. Quite scary in fact.

[fishtank]

Fish,from what I understand,the legal protections was from the CWU part.

Legal protections were on offer long before the negotiations begun. They were part of the original offer, only the possible duration changed.
The Company Secretary spoke about legal protections as far back as February 2013 at a presentation in Edinburgh.
I know, I was there.
The rest of your post goes way over my head.

[drb]

Fish,
From what we have recalled,some branches maintained release for reps and IHR appeals as well as dismissals through the ET procedure and where very successful. The trouble is that route meant getting sanctioned for legal help through CWU HQ. Meaning you would have to have had more then 50% chance of winning.

I believe a motion was submitted last year at conference for branches to pick it's own solicitors as some branches,(as mentioned above) where getting successes on their own "steam". The motion did welcome a "review of the legal department". However the ET new system had/has changed since last year,(making it very difficult to file an ET). However the legal department at HQ will fund those ET's,( £250 to file).

So yes,the legal route was always in the mix from the CWU point of view,except now you do not need to have a 50% chance of winning in terms of those legally binding agreements,(Way Forward/MTFS 2/Stoke Agreement). However if some one,(or anyone) can give another point of view that is better...I am all ears....

[fishtank]

I'm talking about the specific legal protections contained within the AGF 2014 agreement.
I'm not sure why you're talking about ETs.

[drb]

I mentioned ET's because some branches where using the legal avenue way before in areas such as the IR framework.

[Martin Walsh]

The union adopted the legal protections well in advance of the sell off and was debated at annual conference.

Now I believe the members will by a huge percentage including a majority in deliveries vote to accept the agreement because they recognise they want to protect their jobs in the future from what has blighted other privatised industries.

it's fairly easy for others now to play down what has been achieved but I have been dealing with the only exception from the plan and that is the Mail unit at LAMU and aak those members if they would want those protections to stop other carriers airside from doing what they currently do. We believe we will resolve this issue and keep the work but it is a threat.

What many on here don't realise is that we now have been privatised and that is a game changer. Some of the shareholders are trying to join up to get more of a voice and they are doing it for one reason to influence the strategy to make more profits often at the expensive of our members.

We can debate and disagree on whether we should of taken action to get a delivery agreement but I do think most of the posters I have seen on here discussing the delivery did not necessary understand what the delivery talks were about and that is not about resolving the BT issues but moving on to cope with the growing parcels and end to end market. Royal Mail want further changes , improved efficiencies further changes to working and the use of PDAs , seasonal or annual hours and they do want more flexibility. The issue f bullying is being addressed and will be rolled out. There will be a review into performance to see if it's realistic and achievable. In terms of what people want from deliveries well let's list them and let's see if they are being covered in the review cause there are dozens of issues being discussed and scoped. I have done two reviews of offices and it is clear parcels have increased since the model week was introduced and the model weeks have to be reviewed. Some offices are coping ok some are not and we need to make sure we resolve them but you cannot do that by the remote control of a National agreement on its own everyone has to get their hands dirty in trying to resolve the problems.

Now one thing is for sure I am not aware of one branch who is recommending a rejection of the agreement? Either they are out of touch with the membership or maybe some of the posters on this site are not talking for the masses. We will won't have long to wait remember 95000 of the 115 000 members to be balloted work in delivery.

[fishtank]

Royal Mail want further changes , improved efficiencies further changes to working and the use of PDAs , seasonal or annual hours and they do want more flexibility.

http://www.cwu.org/news/archive/royal-m ... -reps.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We have achieved ending annualised hours and stopping increased flexibility and increased monitoring.

So which is it?

[Glenno]

The union adopted the legal protections well in advance of the sell off and was debated at annual conference.

Now I believe the members will by a huge percentage including a majority in deliveries vote to accept the agreement because they recognise they want to protect their jobs in the future from what has blighted other privatised industries.

it's fairly easy for others now to play down what has been achieved but I have been dealing with the only exception from the plan and that is the Mail unit at LAMU and aak those members if they would want those protections to stop other carriers airside from doing what they currently do. We believe we will resolve this issue and keep the work but it is a threat.

What many on here don't realise is that we now have been privatised and that is a game changer. Some of the shareholders are trying to join up to get more of a voice and they are doing it for one reason to influence the strategy to make more profits often at the expensive of our members.

We can debate and disagree on whether we should of taken action to get a delivery agreement but I do think most of the posters I have seen on here discussing the delivery did not necessary understand what the delivery talks were about and that is not about resolving the BT issues but moving on to cope with the growing parcels and end to end market. Royal Mail want further changes , improved efficiencies further changes to working and the use of PDAs , seasonal or annual hours and they do want more flexibility. The issue f bullying is being addressed and will be rolled out. There will be a review into performance to see if it's realistic and achievable. In terms of what people want from deliveries well let's list them and let's see if they are being covered in the review cause there are dozens of issues being discussed and scoped. I have done two reviews of offices and it is clear parcels have increased since the model week was introduced and the model weeks have to be reviewed. Some offices are coping ok some are not and we need to make sure we resolve them but you cannot do that by the remote control of a National agreement on its own everyone has to get their hands dirty in trying to resolve the problems.

Now one thing is for sure I am not aware of one branch who is recommending a rejection of the agreement? Either they are out of touch with the membership or maybe some of the posters on this site are not talking for the masses. We will won't have long to wait remember 95000 of the 115 000 members to be balloted work in delivery.

Personally Dingo " I get where you are coming from" and also know of NO Branch that is going against this Agreement, but to say 95,000 out of 115,000 are delivery people who have a choice to accept/decline this offer on the facts of this Agreement is not the way to go, the masses will follow the DOLLAR and with nearly 1 yrs back pay following thru to (dare i say it) to O/T and allowances will sway a lot of peebs, and that is why this info has been released (21/02/14) If it is a good Agreement it should stand on it's merits, no roadshows, no Area & Local Rep's meetings just on its merits, in mt opinion this Agreement like the last lacks INPUT....Glenno

[chrisj]

Fish, you will be accused of the same old same whereas they are doing exactly the same thing... In fact, your argument or supposition is being hijacked with the same old same to discredit the train of thought and to campaign for a Yes for vote; add some obfuscation and some irrelevant tangential points of view too...

I do not see anything in your post that is outright against the Agreement or anything that does not show an understanding of the current status of the business and its implication. Of course, our ignorance of the talks on delivery was highlighted, again!

What I see from your original post is a level scepticism about the generosity of RM and the supposed achievement of the CWU. Even most of the people that will end of voting Yes will not trust RM 100% or the CWU for that matter.

* BTW, I have also said previously that I cannot believe that RM might be looking to break up the company at an early stage and throwing many many thousands of employees on much lower wages will not do anything for the political parties (or the country's economy through tax credits etc) especially one that has finally managed to sell off a popular 'public' government.

Let the debate continue. In the words of David Dickinson, Sorry to interrupt.

[chrisj]

Royal Mail want further changes , improved efficiencies further changes to working and the use of PDAs , seasonal or annual hours and they do want more flexibility.

http://www.cwu.org/news/archive/royal-m ... -reps.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We have achieved ending annualised hours and stopping increased flexibility and increased monitoring.

So which is it?

So is this agreement going to stop RM going for improved efficiencies, more flexibility and possible use of PDA to help with delivery and also monitor activities?

Well, surprise surprise, the bit about improved efficiencies and more flexibility is already happening to some degree. And PDA factor will come in the near future.

[dvbuk55]

So which is it?

Whichever RM want and then the union will trumpet it as a game changing, ground breaking, land marking deal of the century again..does seem strange though that the rep who coined the phrase is still trying to get revisions in 4 years later not such a good deal then but hey ho onwards and downwards as they say.