CWU condemns Royal Mail closure programme

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.cwu.org.uk/news.asp?step=3&NID=2104

CWU today (Friday) condemns Royal Mail’s announcement to close major mail centres in the North West which breaches an understanding with the union to reach a national agreement and warns that thousands of jobs are at risk.

Dave Ward, deputy general secretary, said: “This is a deeply unpopular and controversial announcement which breaks an understanding between Royal Mail and the CWU and puts around 7,000 jobs at risk.

“Royal Mail faces serious challenges at the present time and this closure programme will exacerbate the problems they currently face. The company needs to work in cooperation with the workforce and the union at a national level, but we have been inundated with industrial action requests as a result of the company’s actions.

“These announcements will not detract the CWU from continuing its preparations to achieve a national agreement covering all aspects of rationalisation. The CWU will not hesitate to use whatever means are necessary in order to achieve these objectives on behalf of our members. We are currently seeking a meeting with the Managing Director Mark Higson to resolve these issues.”

[TrueBlueTerrier]

No. 684/2008
Ref. 24207
Date: 4th September 2008

TO: ALL BRANCHES WITH POSTAL MEMBERS





Dear Colleague

NORTH WEST MAIL CENTRE REVIEW

Royal Mail have today announced the closure of a number of Mail Centres and other operational changes in the North West of England (see attached). These announcements have been made despite the assurances the Union had been given that they were stepping back on the North West Review allowing further consultation and suspending Preference Exercise activities.

These announcements will not detract the Union from continuing its preparations to achieve a national agreement covering all aspects or rationalisation. The Union will not hesitate to use whatever means are necessary in order to achieve these objectives on behalf of our members. A meeting is being sought with the Managing Director Mark Higson.

In the meantime Branches are requested to ensure that no actions take place that might jeopardie the preparation for ballots in those offices affected.

Yours sincerely


Ray Ellis
Acting Deputy General Secretary (p)


Martin Collins
Assistant Secretary
Communications Workers Union
150 The Broadway
Wimbledon
LONDON
SW19 1RX


Glasgow Mail Centre
St Rollox Business Park
20 Turner Road
GLASGOW
G21 1AA

www.royalmail.com
Dear Martin,

Re: North West Review

In my letter of 3rd September, I indicated to you that in the absence of any further input from you, in order to bring clarity to our people, we felt we had no choice but to conclude this stage of the North West Review and announce our decision. Today we will be sharing our decision with our people.

Our consultation started in February. The CWU’s input helped shape our thinking about our preferred option for the future operational infrastructure in the North West. The alternative proposal you shared on 10th July was interesting, however, once we had gone through the figures, it was clear that the proposal did not represent a viable commercial solution for the North West going forward.

The outcome of the review – the business decision
Our analysis shows that we can deliver a high quality service to our customers, operating out of three mail centre sites. We believe this is the right commercial decision and therefore would be in the best interests of our business and its long-term success, which is in all our interests.

We have decided that two of the future mail centre sites will be Manchester and Preston and that work will transfer from Bolton, Oldham and Stockport to these sites.

Work from Bolton (BL postcode), Stockport and Oldham will be concentrated onto Manchester Mail Centre, whilst Bolton (WN postcode) work will be concentrated onto Preston Mail Centre.

Alternative accommodation will be provided for delivery operations affected by the review. Manchester CDO will relocate to a nearby new site to provide additional floor space in the Manchester Mail Centre. Stockport CDO will move to Green Lane. Farnworth Delivery Office will move to Bolton West DO.

The administration unit in Bolton will remain and the remainder of the site will be sold on the open market. We will also sell the Stockport Exchange Street building.

Collection hubs will be based at Stockport and Oldham and there will also be a collections hub in Bolton. It is our intention that Stockport will be a walk sequencing site, dependent on National roll out of the sequencing project.
In our preferred option, we had identified the current RDC in Warrington as our proposed third mail centre site, where work would be concentrated from Crewe and Liverpool. In the past few weeks we have had productive meetings with Liverpool Vision, and we are grateful for the introduction to them. They are working with us to explore whether we can commercially secure the third mail centre site in Liverpool and they are now working up a proposal based on our specification to build a new build Mail Centre for Liverpool and Crewe. So today we can confirm our decision to transfer work from both Crewe and Liverpool Mail Centres. We continue to evaluate the option for the third mail centre site, which will be either Warrington or a new build in Liverpool.

As a result of the decisions to transfer from our current mail centre sites in Liverpool and Crewe we can also confirm that Crewe Delivery will remain on site and ultimately house walk sequencing for Crewe. We will also run a collections hub from Crewe. We continue to explore the possibility of moving new work to Crewe to mitigate the impact of these changes on our people. Our search for up to 3 sites for new delivery offices in Liverpool is ongoing. The placement of walk sequencing and collections is dependent on our decision about the mail centre location.

The changes are expected to commence in 2009 and will be completed by the end of 2010.

Next Steps

Ninian Wilson has today written to Ray Ellis to outline our decision to move forward in the North West and Ady Fielding has also written to Ian Taylor

Clearly decisions of this magnitude have a big impact on people and we are keen to work with you as we move into the detailed planning phase of this change.


Yours sincerely,

Stephen Cameron
Territory Director - North