Future of Romec: Acquisition by Royal Mail

Future of Romec: Acquisition by Royal Mail
We are pleased to report that following a lengthy and thorough review process, reported in LTBs 078/15, 193/15, 338/15 and 462/2015, Royal Mail has confirmed its intention to become the sole owner of Romec, bringing to an end the joint venture which was originally set up in October 2002 and establishing Romec as a wholly owned subsidiary company within the Royal Mail Group.
A joint statement from Royal Mail, CWU and Unite is attached, together with an internal announcement being made to Romec employees today.
As reported in LTB 078/2015 issued in February 2015, Royal Mail’s agreement to a proposal from CWU to establish an independently chaired joint review of the future provision of facilities management services came against the background of Royal Mail’s stated preferred option to outsource FM work by disposing of its majority shareholding in Romec to its joint venture partner Cofely. We are pleased to say that Royal Mail engaged positively in the review, which was independently chaired by Peter Thompson, and on the basis of a careful consideration of the needs of the business Royal Mail has taken the decision to insource, rather than outsource this work.
A key element of the review is the attached “Agreement on the future provision of Facilities Management services to Royal Mail”. This agreement will be the subject of an individual member ballot of CWU members in Romec following a national briefing which will take place on Thursday 21st January 2016 details of which will be notified separately.
The agreement, with a brief paragraph by paragraph of summary is attached. Key elements are:
• Terms and conditions for existing staff are unchanged

• There are limited changes to terms and conditions for new starters

• The agreement includes a 3 year pay deal providing an increase of 4.57% in basic pay over 3 years

• There is a commitment to the creation of a new employee relations culture including establishment of a national consultative forum.

• The agreement takes forward the approach adopted in the review of the Future of Romec by committing all parties to joint working to deliver the measures necessary to make Romec a success as part of Royal Mail Group
We would wish to thank Branches and Representatives in both Romec and Royal Mail for their support in the campaign to bring Romec in-house which played a significant part in establishing the review process.
Any enquiries for engineers and admin grades should be addressed to PTCS department, quoting reference PTC/RE/dj/335.

Email address: djeffery@cwu.org
Any enquiries for Cleaning grades should be addressed to the Outdoor department, quoting reference 120. Email address: outdoorsecretary@cwu.org.
Yours sincerely
Ray Ellis Bob Gibson

Assistant Secretary Assistant Secretary