Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains. Karl Marx.
Stefanovic is a no bullshit Journalist, high profile Lawyer, blogger, Vlogger, Filmmaker, campaigner, Labour supporter and Political and Social Commentator widely known for his no nonsense debunking of Political deceit with a social media following of more then 100,000 and a weekly post reach of 10 million.
Update on the national talks and highlights of #TheCWU delivering a 70,000 strong petition to Royal Mail HQ.
Christmas 2017 – Resourcing Joint Scoping Exercise
Dear Colleague,
Please find attached a copy of the agreed Joint RM/CWU Christmas Resourcing Scoping Exercise which has been agreed with Royal Mail this morning.
As you will note from the agreed document, we have maintained throughout the discussions with Royal Mail that we would not accept any of our members being compelled to change their hours of attendance in order to perform this work commitment.
As such you will see from the attached that we have agreed that the scoping exercise will be overseen by Delivery Leaders and Divisional Reps of all Units within their areas of responsibility who will jointly assess the number of volunteers to move shift to support afternoon / early evening delivery. Volunteers will be sought from existing staff (Duty Holders & Reserves) within each Delivery unit including both FT and PT employees.
Exceptionally where there is a shortfall of volunteers to move their duty attendance then units may seek volunteers to undertake this work by offering:
• Less than full time employees the opportunity to perform full time hours undertaking the later parcel delivery operation for the duration of the Christmas period.
• Scheduled Attendance, across the full week on a pre-scheduled basis and in line with the existing contractual arrangements.
• The number of volunteers from neighbouring offices including both FT and PT employees.
Branches should be aware that Royal Mail still wish to proceed to the use of external mediation on the principle of being able to compel individuals to change their hours, however we have not accepted this position and therefore Branches assistance in trying to ensure we can jointly encourage the necessary numbers of volunteers for the afternoon / evening parcel delivery operation would assist in this regard.
In addition we have also raised with senior management the fact that when a similar exercise was carried out in advance of last year’s Christmas arrangements there was a lack of “buy in” from managers within some localities who did not engage or indeed show support to this exercise. We have been assured that this issue has now been addressed, however if Branches or reps experience a similar response again from local management during this exercise please can this be raised with their divisional reps in the first instance.
Further to the introduction of the evening delivery of parcels outlined above, Royal Mail has also taken the decision to open all Customer service points (enquiry offices) on Sunday the 24th December with the opening times of 11am-3pm. This is in addition to those CSP’s which are already open on Sunday’s and will remain open on Christmas Eve in line with their normal Sunday opening hours. This scoping exercise also aims to pick this initiative up, and accordingly seek volunteers who will attract the National agreed pay rate for this day.
We have agreed for joint responses to be sent to RM and CWU Headquarters by Friday 15th September in order to conclude the Final Christmas Agreement for 2017.
Any queries to the content of the above please contact the Outdoor Postal Department, email: outdoorsecretary@cwu.org quoting reference number: 170.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Baulch
CWU Assistant Secretary
Click on the link below to view
REVIEW OF UNIONLINE
The purpose of this LTB is to advise branches that the NEC has agreed we are at a point in the development of Unionline, where it is beneficial for CWU to review the overall performance of Unionline as a business model.
As such, the NEC has agreed terms of reference for an independent review that will be carried out under my authority, working in conjunction with the Head of Legal Services.
As branches will be aware, Unionline was established as an innovative response to far-reaching and much publicised changes to legal funding brought in by Lord Justice Jackson. At that time, in light of the Jackson Review, the NEC fully understood that the previous legal structures we operated within were not sustainable and with further changes to the legal profession planned; this remains the case more than ever. Therefore, Unionline was created on the basis of an alternative business structure (ABS) that was jointly owned by GMB and CWU.
In addition to providing quality legal services for our members, a key objective of Unionline was also to generate income for GMB and CWU and the ongoing financial performance of Unionline will be considered as part of the review.
We have kept the GMB fully informed of our intentions and will work closely with our sister union throughout the course of the review, which we aim to conclude by the end October 2017.
At an appropriate point, we will be seeking the views of branches and members on the services provided by Unionline. Furthermore, it may be that this takes the form of a wider survey in conjunction with the GMB. We will advise Branches separately on this in due course.
Finally, in taking this course of action I want to make it clear, that CWU remains committed to Unionline and continuing to work proactively with the GMB to ensure it is a success for both unions and our respective members.
Any enquiries on the content of this LTB please forward to gsoffice@cwu.org
Yours sincerely
Dave Ward
General Secretary
Dear colleagues,
Please find below the latest video update from Terry Pullinger. This is straight from the talks. We are now at an absolutely critical stage.
Annual Leave/Resourcing Guidelines
The above guidelines that were circulated to Branches on the 5th September 2016 have recently been subject to a National refresh and review.
As a result of this review an updated set of guidelines is attached to assist managers and representatives when discussing and concluding 2018-19 annual leave arrangements which should be concluded in line with the way forward agreement by 31st October 2017.
There are a few changes / additions to last year’s guidelines, which are important to draw to Branches attention. The main changes are that the national review of the “Annual Leave Calenderisation Work Aide” has taken place and particular attention should be paid to the information / guide tab which have been updated to assist managers and reps in undertaking the correct process to establish leave demand and populate the work aide accordingly. However, it is important to stress that it is a guide and should therefore be used as such.
There have been some changes in the Annual Leave Resourcing agenda with the summer staffing presentation removed. A CWU presentation has been produced to assist reps in undertaking leave agreements and this will be sent out in the coming weeks. Managers and reps will also need to establish the total number of owed weeks above the leave year’s contractual entitlement which need to be documented in your agreements and arrangements agreed locally put in place to deal with it.
The changes do not impact on current processes in relation to weekly resourcing meetings and forecasting up to 12 weeks ahead above or below your AWD, which should be kept under review using the 3 month model week updates to inform consideration to any necessary structural change.
The focus is on concluding a robust and reliable Annual Leave Plan / Agreement that includes all individuals’ legally contractual leave entitlements as its primary driver, whilst also identifying extra leave slots in low traffic periods over and above those agreed to facilitate the taking of additional leave and therefore maximising choice of leave slots for individuals.
The existing national agreements, guidelines, agreed tools, procedures and processes in place to support resourcing on an ongoing basis are not affected by these annual leave/resourcing guidelines. They remain firmly in place and will in fact be used to support the process and assist in providing a balanced approach to year round leave allocation and resourcing.
Below is guidance that has previously been communicated to representatives but is worth repeating especially for representatives entering into leave agreements for the first time;
It is essential when entering discussions that CWU representatives establish and allocate the unit’s contractual entitlement first which will in turn identify the number of leave reserves required to enable reliable resourcing.
“Vacancies and leave reserve vacancies should remain under constant review to ensure adequate resource is available to meet customer and operational requirements”.
When establishing leave demand include all staff contractual leave, Bank Holiday credits for annual leave that coincides with Bank Holidays and rest days that fall on a Bank Holiday, purchased leave, and any leave days carried over from the previous year. Your DOM should have this information in their Manpower Plan that you need to check to ensure all contractual and carried over leave has been captured.
The number of weeks can be checked through this calculation below and should be cross referenced with the number of leave weeks in PSP that are in the Annual Leave Calenderisation aide and the relevant adjustments made.
For example:
If the above added up to 600 weeks to be allocated and covered and 2 weeks were closed for Christmas Pressure the number of leave reserves to cover AWD would be 12, (600 / 50) = 12. Add to this the leave reserves leave 12 @ 5 weeks = 60 weeks would mean another leave reserve (60 / 50) = 1.2.
In this example that would mean that a minimum of 13 leave slots a week for 50 weeks should be available. If you then agree to open up another 3 slots due to agreed absorption through the summer weeks then in the period June to August the number of open slots available should be 16.
This is just one flat line example. Units may decide not to employ against all 13 reserves and convert some to S/A or overtime. This is subject to local discussion and agreement.
As a consequence of providing additional leave slots in the summer period there maybe leave gaps in the ‘winter’ period, notwithstanding other absence, which you may need to discuss and agree a plan to deal with. There could be more people available in the unit, bearing in mind traffic/workload traditionally increases during this period. This should be dealt with via weekly resourcing meetings and subject to agreement.
Branches should progress any disagreements in regards to managers refusing to fully engage and adhere to these guidelines in establishing annual leave plans / agreements through the IR framework as appropriate.
Any queries to the content of the above please contact the Outdoor Department reference 230.05, email address: outdoorsecretary@cwu.org.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Baulch
CWU Assistant Secretary
Click on the link below to view
THE CWU AND MOMENTUM
The purpose of this LTB is to update branches on the union’s relationship with Momentum.
As branches will be aware, Momentum grew out of Jeremy Corbyn’s first campaign for the Labour leadership in 2015, to capitalise on the support this generated and its success in reaching out to new (particularly young) voters. Today Momentum has around 150 local groups around the country, 27,000 full members and 200,000 supporters.
Over the past two years we have been monitoring developments with Momentum closely and building a working relationship with the organisation at a national level. While it has taken some time for it to become properly established, at the start of this year Momentum finalised its constitution and rules, which now require all members of Momentum to be members of the Labour Party and focuses the organisation on campaigning for a Labour government.
The general election earlier this year showed the value of Momentum as part of the wider labour movement. It put on training sessions for 3,000 activists, created the website mynearestmarginal.com (which had over 100,000 unique visits) directing people to campaign in marginal constituencies and it mobilised members for more than fifty campaign weekends. It also ran an extremely effective social media campaign with 1 in 3 Facebook users in the UK watching a Momentum video during the election.
Its contribution to Labour’s campaign has been recognised across the Labour Party and there are now serious efforts from the Tories to copy what it has done. Momentum also won plaudits from across the media and politics for The World Transformed festival that it helped to run alongside Labour Conference in Liverpool last year. With over 5,000 visitors, this was the largest fringe event ever to have been held, opening up the conference to the general public and a wider audience.
Through this work Momentum has now established itself as a political force in the UK and we believe that it has an important role to play in securing a transformative Labour government. In light of this, at its meeting in July the CWU NEC unanimously agreed that the CWU should now affiliate to Momentum to have a formal role in its governance structures at a national level. This will be put to CWU General Conference for endorsement in 2018.
We believe affiliating to Momentum will have a number of benefits for the CWU. Firstly, from CWU candidates to our policy campaigns, we want to work with Momentum to promote a trade union agenda within the Labour Party. Secondly, we want to work with Momentum on campaigning more generally, particularly when it comes to our industrial issues and raising the profile of our campaigns. And thirdly, we want to make sure trade union values are embedded within Momentum which is bringing through a new generation of activists.
We are aware that there are some people within the Labour Party who have raised issues about Momentum and understand that in some areas of the country there have been disagreements which some of our members will be concerned about. However, we do believe that Momentum has helped Labour to reconnect with voters and that we should be working to shape the organisation from the inside.
As part of this, we would encourage branches to get involved in the campaigning Momentum is now leading in new marginal constituencies to target a number of prominent Conservative MPs through www.unseat.co.uk. We would also encourage branches to develop links with local Momentum groups in order to promote CWU candidates and policies in local constituency Labour Parties (CLPs).
Finally, through our relationship with Momentum, we are working with The World Transformed on a series of trade union focused sessions at its festival alongside Labour Party Conference in Brighton this year. This is an important platform for the union which we will be using to promote our key campaigns. Further information about the union’s activities at TUC Congress and Labour Conference will be sent out shortly.
Any enquiries on the content of this LTB should be sent to gsoffice@cwu.org
Yours sincerely
Dave Ward
General Secretary
The NPC has called its annual Lobby of Parliament for Wednesday 18 October 2017. Please find details on this link: http://npcuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Lobby-Flyer-2017.pdf.
We also need to inform our supporters that after 25 September, the NPC will no longer be based at Walkden House (as a result of the HS2 development programme). Details of our new address will be issued shortly.
Owing to staff holidays there will also be no Campaign! Bulletin for September.
Best wishes
Neil Duncan-Jordan
National Officer
NPC
CWU Eastern No5 Branch 