National Officer Tony Bouch and Anglia Divisional Rep. Barry Jennings giving an update to Delivery members in Peterborough M.C. on the current dispute with the employer.
National update by Tony Bouch and Barry Jennings Peterborough DO
CWU & RMG Dispute/Protecting the Four Pillars Agreement – Definition of TUPE
CWU & RMG Dispute/Protecting the Four Pillars Agreement – Definition of TUPE
Following the publication of LTB 491/19 circulated to Branches on 14th August 2019, we have received a number of enquiries in the Department and via social media requesting clarification on what TUPE is. For expediency, please see below a link to ACAS offering their explanation of TUPE:
Of course more detailed communications will be shared on how TUPE would be applied in Parcelforce if management were to get their way as we go forward, but in the meantime we hope this will afford our members with an early understanding of TUPE legislation.
Any enquiries in relation to this LTB should be addressed to the DGS(P) Department or Davie Robertson’s Department as appropriate.
Yours sincerely,
Terry Pullinger
Deputy General Secretary (Postal)
19LTB495 – CWU & Royal Mail Dispute-Protecting the Four Pillars Agreement – Definition of TUPE
Eastern No5 Branch Special Annual General Meeting
The meeting is to ratify the new Branch Model Constitution and have an update on National issues
For the immediate attention of CWU Members
It has been clear for some time that Rico Back the Head Of Royal Mail wants to systematically break our national agreements and create a cheaper and more flexible employment model.
This has been demonstrated by his decision to not only not adhere to the commitments made within the Four Pillars Agreement but by the fact that Royal Mail want to review and remove the legal guarantees we got when we were privatised but also by their refusal to commit to protecting the universal service obligation which Of Com intend to review next year.
Rico Back has shown his open contempt to the CWU within negotiations by suggesting that he as the Chief Executive should be able to do what he wants rather than having to negotiate with the CWU.
Royal Mail’s decision to break the Agenda for Growth by deciding to set up a separate profit and loss company for parcelforce from October and TUPE parcelforce members into this company is just the start of his strategy to shrink the company.
What starts with parcelforce might be followed by Logistics LTD , Delivery LTD , Collections LTD , Processing LTD , International LTD as they all become their own profit and loss standalone companies.
Royal Mail’s decision to bring forward the review into the legal guarantees is significant. These legal guarantees stopped Royal Mail from breaking up the company , creating a two tier workforce , stopping them from outsourcing or franchising and stopping them from recruiting zero hour contracts.
Royal Mail believe this these are the barrier to a more profitable company. We need to defend those legal guarantees by all means possible.
In addition Royal Mail want to introduce the following:
1. Introduce their separation of larger parcels from mail centres , RDCs and circa 1000 delivery offices which will lead to thousands of jobs losses.
2. In addition in the circa 300 LAT units they want to collapse one walk in every six to become a late driver delivering larger parcels and their walk will be absorbed by the remaining five duties.
3. Royal Mail want to use PDA’s outdoor to rescouce and perform revisions.
4. Royal Mail want to roll out further Automated Hours Data Capture ( automating signing in and out )and to reduce overtime and they have suggested linking it to pay roll.
4. Royal Mail want to roll out Resource Scheduler which creates different duty sets and tasks for each office as it is linked to traffic , PSP and PDA’s actuals. At the moment Royal Mail and the company who supply the software still have not managed to get the system to work. However if they do it is a game changer and designed to remove the CWU from involvement in resourcing or revisions.
5. They want 20 thousand jobs losses with London and other cities with mostly full time jobs under the most attack.
6. They want each office to improve their efficiency by around 5 percent in order for them to agree the next hour off the shorter working week.
7. They want 30 minute flexibility on every duty 6 days per week.
8. Royal Mail’s obsession of reducing costs is seeing more offices being attacked and causing walks outs. We are seeing a rise in conduct cases and medical retirements and cases against CWUs reps. Royal Mail seem to not want to improve the culture in the workplace.
Royal Mail and CWU are due to go to external mediation in line with what the High Court Judge ruled during the Four Pillars Dispute and that the CWU had to do prior to balloting for industrial action.
There is little optimism that external mediation will resolve the significant differences between Royal Mail and the CWU.
It is therefore our opinion that we are heading for a significant and defining industrial dispute with Royal Mail.
This will be a dispute which will shape whether Royal Mail will get their way of becoming a cheaper and move flexible employer.
This is a time when all members needs to support the CWU and make sure we send a clear message to Rico Back and the other senior Directors that we are not going to stand by and let him wreck the business and our members terms and conditions in their desire to reward themselves with more shares and bonuses.
It is time for action! it is time for CWU Members to stand up and say enough is enough
We must protect our jobs and our futures.
A statement by the London Divisional Committee
Election of CWU National Trustees – 2019
Election of CWU National Trustees – 2019
Further to LTB 464/19 dated 31st July 2019, at the close of nominations on the 14th August 2019 the following have been received.
Any enquiries regarding this Letter to Branches should be addressed to the Senior Deputy General Secretary’s Department on telephone number 020 8971 7237, or email address sdgs@cwu.org.
Yours sincerely,
Tony Kearns
Senior Deputy General Secretary
Parcelforce Worldwide Future Strategy – Representatives’ Briefing – Wednesday, 21stAugust 2019
Parcelforce Worldwide Future Strategy – Representatives’ Briefing – Wednesday, 21stAugust 2019
Branches and Representatives are informed that we are in the process of mailing individually addressed letters to our Parcelforce members to update them on the current issues involved in the disagreement relating to Parcelforce’s future strategy, an advance copy of the letter is attached for your information.
The Briefing referred to in the attached correspondence has now been arranged for Parcelforce Worldwide Representatives and will be held in:
The Holiday Inn Liverpool City Centre,
Lime Street, Liverpool,
L1 1NQ.
beginning at 11:00am and concluding no later than 15:00pm. Tea and coffee will be available on arrival.
To clarify, the following Representatives are invited to attend the Briefing:
Postal Branch Secretaries with Parcelforce Worldwide Members
PFW Regional Organisers
PFW Depot and Hub Representatives
PFW Engineers
Travel and subsistence claims will be in line with National arrangements.
Any enquiries in relation to this LTB should be addressed to dwyatt@cwu.org quoting reference 111.18.
Yours sincerely
Davie Robertson
Assistant Secretary
Attachment 1 – Member Letter – Parcelforce Future Strategy 14 08 19
National Briefing – Thursday 22 August 2019
National Briefing – Thursday 22nd August 2019
Branches are advised that a National Briefing will be held on Thursday, 22nd August to provide colleagues with an update on latest developments in the Royal Mail Group dispute and set out the Union’s next steps.
The Briefing will be held in The Liner Hotel, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, L3 5QB beginning at 11:00 and concluding no later than 15:00. Tea and coffee will be available on arrival.
To clarify, the following Representatives are invited to attend the Briefing:
- Postal Branch Secretaries (or their substitute)
- Divisional Representatives (Including Technical Services)
- Regional Secretaries
- Parcelforce Regional Organisers
- Royal Mail Property and Facility Solutions Cleaning Regional Representatives
- Royal Mail Property and Facility Solutions Engineering Regional Representatives
- Royal Mail Property and Facility Solutions Engineering National Representatives
- Area Delivery Representatives
- Area Processing Representatives
- Area Distribution Representatives
- Area Safety Representatives
- Area Admin Representatives
- Customer Experience Representatives
Branches should note that in line with our proportionality requirements and previous attendance arrangements at National Briefings, it is requested that in addition to the above each Branch send two Unit Reps to the Briefing, one of which must be a woman.
Any enquiries in relation to this LTB should be addressed to the DGS(P) Department quoting reference 24000.
Yours sincerely
Terry Pullinger
Deputy General Secretary (Postal)
CWU & Royal Mail Dispute/Protecting the Four Pillars Agreement
CWU & Royal Mail Dispute/Protecting the Four Pillars Agreement
Further to recent video updates circulated to Branches in LTBs 454/19 and 456/19, the purpose of this LTB is to inform colleagues that the situation with the employer is now at a very serious level.
RMG have now formally confirmed that we are in dispute and about to enter the final stage of the resolution process, external mediation, in an attempt to find a way forward. However, the mood music and attitude from the current RMG Board is very much adversarial and confrontational. So whilst we always travel in hope, we must seriously begin to prepare to defend our Four Pillars Agreement.
Over the next few weeks we will ensure that all aspects of this dispute are fully explained to you and our members, but with immediate effect it is essential that all Branches and Representatives, at all levels, ensure membership information is returned to the Senior DGS Department at CWU HQ (LTB 469/19 refers).
It is equally important that Branches are prepared for the eventuality that this dispute may not be resolved by negotiation alone and as a priority should begin to arrange visits/gate meetings at all units to make members aware of the current issues, as well as the gravity of the situation and that once again they may have to pick sides.
We genuinely believe that all aspects of our Agreement, the employment, standard of living and retirement security of our members and the very future of the Great British Postal Service is again under threat from the new RMG leadership who played no part in negotiating the 2018 Agreement.
There will be a National Briefing next week for Parcelforce and Senior Reps/Field Officials across Royal Mail Group (details will follow in separate LTBs).
Update videos on the current situation have recently been released by Davie Robertson (National Officer) and myself and can be viewed via the links below.
Any enquiries in relation to the content of this LTB should be addressed to the DGS(P) Department quoting reference 24000.
Yours sincerely,
Terry Pullinger
Deputy General Secretary (Postal)
Royal Mail One Plan (Resource Optimisation Project)
Royal Mail One Plan (Resource Optimisation Project)
Dear Colleagues,
As a result of a number of recent enquiries into the Outdoor Department, this Letter to Branches has been published to provide Branches and Representatives with clarification on the CWU’s position in relation to “One Plan”, which is also referred to by Royal Mail currently as “Resource Optimisation Project”.
One Plan is not a new initiative, indeed it first surfaced some time ago in 2016, it was at this time when World Class Mail came to an end that some managerial resource was diverted and channeled into One Plan. This Royal Mail initiative was developed totally without any CWU involvement or agreement, and whilst discussions were held with Royal Mail at that time by the Department, Royal Mail advised the Union that this is a management initiative and as such they did not see any need to seek CWU concession or involvement into its roll out.
Whilst activity on One Plan has been sporadic over recent years, Royal Mail have recently advised the Department that they will be re-engaging in a new phase of activity on One Plan (or Resource Optimisation Project), which will seemingly concentrate on those delivery units which the company describe as lower efficiency units. According to Royal Mail, “this is in order to understand the gap in productivity whilst supporting better standardisation to the use of agreed tools so that they can better align hours to workload and understand why there are gaps.”
The CWU has never supported or seen the need to actively participate in One Plan, which is more about a management compliance initiative linked to the Royal Mail management mantra of ‘continuous improvement’, to which there are no National agreements with the CWU within the Delivery function.
The CWU position towards One Plan (or Resource Optimisation Project) therefore has been, and remains that this is an unagreed initiative, accordingly any issues, outputs or proposals presented to CWU Local Representatives resulting from these activities should be dealt with fully in line with our National Agreements, including the IR Framework where necessary.
Any queries to the content of the above please contact the Outdoor Department, reference 230.03, email address: outdoorsecretary@cwu.org.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Baulch
CWU Assistant Secretary
LTB 489.19 – Royal Mail One Plan (Resource Optimisation Project)
CWU Eastern No5 Branch 