Midlands Division
Defending The 4 Pillars Agreement – Reps Brief
What is the dispute About?
In a sentence, it’s about defending our National Agreements.
How has the dispute come about?
The previous Chief Executive, Moya Greene, retired and the RMG Board chose a new Chief Executive, Rico Back. He was the Managing Director of GLS the European Parcel arm of RMG.
The Board has now announced that they intend to create a new company for Parcelforce, which will be outside of the existing Royal Mail Group. There is no commercial reason for doing this, the only logical explanation is that this is in preparation for the sell off of Parcelforce.
If the company can do this to Parcelforce who’s next?
If we don’t stop the company now, we will all be looking over our shoulders in the future.
The company has also formally triggered a review of our legally binding job security protections. They are not doing this because they want to keep them!
The company is also failing to honour the 4 Pillars Agreement; refusing to implement the next 1-hour reduction in the shorter working week and failing to tackle the culture of bullying are two examples.
What is the timetable for the ballot?
The ballot will be of the entire CWU membership in Royal Group.
Ballot Opens:24th September 2019
Ballot Closes: 8th October 2019
Ballot Result:8th October 2019
It is crucial all CWU members vote in this fully postal ballot.
What will the Union do with a ‘YES’ vote for industrial action?
A massive ‘YES’ vote can only strengthen the hands of our national negotiators in seeking a resolution to these issues.
A massive ‘YES’ sends the clearest possible message to Rico Back and the Board that:
What happens next?
The Union and Royal Mail will shortly be commencing National Mediation.
We want an agreement that resolves all of the issues in dispute.
But we have to prepare for the possibility that there will not be an agreement reached in the mediation.
The company needs to know how serious we and you are about these issues. That is why we need to ballot members for industrial action.
We will never abuse the trust you place in us.
When we balloted members for strike action in the dispute which resulted in the Agenda for Growth Agreement, which contains our legal protections, CWU members did not lose any pay, as we used the YES vote to negotiate the national agreement without members having to take industrial action.
When we balloted members for strike action in the dispute which resulted in the 4 Pillars Agreement which contains our pay, shorter working week and pensions solution, CWU members did not lose any pay, as we used the YES vote to negotiate the national agreement without members having to take industrial action.
We will use this YES vote in exactly the same way.
Stay United – Vote YES
CWU Eastern No5 Branch 
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