TUC Health & Safety Reps Survey 2022:

The TUC has launched the 2022 survey of union health and safety representatives, which the TUC carries out every two years.

This is the fourteenth biennial TUC survey of health and safety reps. It is designed to provide the TUC and individual unions with information about who health and safety reps are, and what their experiences and needs are.

This information is needed so that the TUC and unions can do more to help safety reps, and so that trade union safety reps’ views and experiences are better reflected in public policy debates and the work of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The responses are valuable to the TUC and indicate the issues safety reps are dealing with, and what work the TUC and affiliated member unions like the CWU should prioritise and campaign on in the years ahead.

The TUC will publish the results, and use them to campaign for better health and safety standards at work (including more rights for health and safety reps).

Safety rep responses are crucial to ensuring that this survey provides the information the TUC is seeking. Please answer as many questions as you can – but if they seem irrelevant to your experiences, ignore them.

This survey covers the last two years (from December 2020 to December 2022). Please answer as many questions as possible. The survey is looking at your health and safety work in general over the whole period and includes survey questions specifically about your experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic. Responses will help shape the future health and safety priorities of the TUC and refine how the TUC and affiliated unions support safety reps in future.

This survey is now on-line as it has been for the last few years and will take approximately 5 minutes to complete. Your contribution is incredibly valuable, and it can only be used if you reach the end of the survey and press the submit button.  All responses are anonymised in the final report write-up.

Survey Respondents will have the chance to be added into a prize draw which you can opt in to and the end of the survey.

• 1^stPrize – £200 supermarket voucher
• 2^ndPrize – £100 supermarket voucher
• 3^rdPrize – £50 supermarket voucher
• 4^thPrize – A year’s subscription to Hazards Magazine (all other winners will also receive this)

Collating the responses to this survey will be a time-consuming and expensive task, so the TUC cannot enter into correspondence arising from the survey. However, the TUC does want to know about any successes health and safety reps have had in improving health and safety standards and there is a section in the survey for safety reps to provide details if they wish.

The 2022 biennial TUC Survey of Health and Safety Representatives is now online so please complete the survey at:

https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/we-want-hear-union-health-and-safety-reps

Please complete the survey by Thursday 2 February 2023 when the survey will close.

Yours sincerely

Dave Joyce
National Health, Safety & Environment Officer

22LTB504 TUC Health & Safety Reps Survey 2022

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ROYAL MAIL GROUP DISPUTES – RMG STATEMENT ON NO COMPULSORY REDUNDANCY

Last night RMG published an open letter to employees on job losses and Compulsory Redundancies.  As everybody knows, the Union has been demanding job security commitments for members as part of the resolution to the disputes and we welcome the following statement highlighted in their letter:

“The changes we need to make to this business will NOT involve ANY compulsory redundancies.  Royal Mail has not used compulsory redundancy before. And we’re not going to start now.”

Given RMG wrote to the Union on 28^thNovember seeking our agreement on the criteria for Compulsory Redundancy, the above represents a major shift in RMG’s position which has only come about as a result of our members continuing to show rock solid support for strike action.  This is also proven by the company’s previous “best and final” offer of 22^ndNovember, published to members, stating:

“Royal Mail are prepared to guarantee there will be no compulsory redundancies up to 31^st March 2023. There will be a review of this position at this time.” 

For their no Compulsory Redundancy statement to become a reality, it must form part of a final overall Agreement including the wider Job Security commitments we require in relation to future resourcing models, terms & conditions and working practices.

Notwithstanding the above, the Union remains opposed to the overall scale of job losses linked to unacceptable change.  We also stand by the fact that RMG’s current plans will result in significantly more than the 10,000 job losses announced on 14^th October due to RMG’s expanded plans to “right-size” the company through further major change – confirmed in front of Acas.

It is evident RMG has modified its position on no Compulsory Redundancies, which everyone will welcome.  However, if RMG wants to resolve all issues in dispute, they must act with greater integrity by engaging in meaningful negotiations, rather than making unilateral announcements through an open letter designed to avoid an Agreement.

Yours sincerely

Dave Ward
General Secretary                                                                 

Andy Furey
Acting Deputy General Secretary (P)

LTB 503/22 – ROYAL MAIL GROUP DISPUTES – RMG STATEMENT ON NO COMPULSORY REDUNDANCY

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POST OFFICE: PAY DISPUTE 2021/22 & 2022/23 – NOTICE SERVED FOR ACTION SHORT OF A STRIKE CROWN OFFICES AND ADMIN UNITS

Branches are advised the Postal Executive has authorised action short of a strike for all of our Post Office members working in Crown Offices and Admin Units.  The two-week legal notification has been served on Post Office today as follows:

Industrial action consisting of action short of a strike (specifically a sales boycott in Crown Offices and work to rule in Crown Offices and Admin Units) as follows:

• The sales boycott and work to rule will cover all Crown Office (DMBs) and Admin Unit duties (for the entire duration of the scheduled duty) commencing at or after 07.00 on Thursday 29th December 2022 and before 19.00 on Saturday 14^thJanuary 2023 inclusive.

Summary of all strike action/action short of a strike for PO members

We have now served notice for the following:

Strike Action 

• Crowns – Saturday 24th December
• All members across Admin, Crowns and Supply Chain – Wednesday 28th December.

Action Short of a Strike

• Overtime and Scheduled Attendance ban across Supply Chain from Monday 26th December until Sunday 15th January inclusive.
• Sales Boycott in Crowns and Work to Rule in Crowns & Admin – from Thursday 29th December until Saturday 14th January inclusive

Further developments will be reported.

Yours sincerely

Andy Furey
Acting Deputy General Secretary (Postal)

Attachment 1: 22LTB501- Post Office – Pay Dispute 2021-22 & 2022-23 – Notice Served for Action Short of a Strike – Crown Offices and Admin Units

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Royal Mail Group Disputes 2022 – ‘Grounds of Complaint’ for Individual Claims against the company due to Unlawful Deduction of Sick Pay

The department have received enquiries from Representatives, Branches and Members about what seems to be a vindictive policy from Royal Mail to stop sick pay for any members who have been / are taking strike action.

The reports we have received have included members who have been stopped sick pay for many instances including, preparing for operations as requested by their hospital / surgeon, being sick with an asthma attack, members who are sick with COVID, some have even stated they have had to come to work with COVID as they were threatened by their manager, members who have had accidents on duty, plus people who were already off on sick leave who have had the whole absence deducted.

We have made representation to Royal Mail and have been told there is no central policy, however, there seem to be too many cases for there not to be some sort of coordination.

Royal Mail did put out a communication yesterday stating the normal sick pay rules apply. However, if this was the position previously, we don’t understand why some managers have gone to the lengths they have to stop sick pay and therefore don’t believe this will cease.

The actions of Royal Mail are also breaking their own guidelines. They produced a document – Managing IA People Guidelines. Within this document it states: –

“We want to treat everyone fairly, so if you’re in any doubt, please take further advice before acting.”

“Of course, we must make sure we pay everyone who comes to work, is on a rest day, on holiday or off sick.”

“Normal procedures apply. For those employees already on self-certificated or medical certificated sick absence, it should be regarded as continuing absence.”

“If an employee is already on certificated sick absence on the first day of industrial action such absence should be regarded as continuing until the final medical certificate expires.”

As stated above, we don’t believe the communication from Royal Mail will cease this practice and we are now calling on all members who have been stopped sick pay to put in a grievance and also use the online claim form for detriment of being associated with a Trade Union and unlawful deduction of wages using the link below. The form takes less than 5 minutes to fill in.

https://www.cwu.org/rmg-ia-claim

Should you need any assistance with the process / filling out the form, this is laid out in Letter to Branches 379/2022 and 383/2022. The responses will be gathered from these forms centrally and then circulated to Branches. The Branch Secretary or Legal & Medical Secretary will then need to submit the details gathered to Acas for early conciliation as soon as possible. All the details required for Acas will be provided on the form. Postal Executive members Rob Wotherspoon, Saf Khan and Luke Elgar will be acting as the liaison points between the DGS(P) Department and Branches, and providing assistance where required.

We will continue to make representations to Royal Mail on this matter and any further developments will be reported.

Any enquiries about this LTB should be addressed to the PTCS Department quoting reference 401, email: khay@cwu.org.

Yours sincerely,

Carl Maden
Assistant Secretary

LTB 500.22 Royal Mail Group Disputes 2022 – ‘Grounds of Complaint’ for Individual Claims against the company due to Unlawful Deduction of Sick Pay

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https://youtu.be/8L1dzozUTDw

POST OFFICE: PAY DISPUTE 2021/22 & 2022/23 – NOTICE SERVED FOR NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL ACTION

Further to LTB 493/22 dated 12^thDecember, Branches are advised the Postal Executive has authorised national strike action for all of our Post Office members working in Crown Offices, Admin Units and Supply Chain.  The two-week legal notification has been served on Post Office today as follows:

• The strike will cover all duties (for the entire duration of the scheduled duty) commencing at or after 00.00 on Wednesday 28^th December 2022 and before 23.59 on Wednesday 28^thDecember 2022.

Whilst informal talks are still being held, the Union remains available for formal negotiations, either directly with Post Office or via Acas.  Hopefully Post Office will agree to meaningful negotiations, which is evidently required to resolve this dispute.  As members would expect, we are treating this as a priority.

It should be noted that the action described above has been discussed with our full-time IR Reps who fully support the strategy of combining strike action with action short of a strike tailored to the different grade groups.

Further developments will be reported.

Yours sincerely

Andy Furey
Acting Deputy General Secretary (Postal)

22LTB499 – Post Office – Pay Dispute 2021-22 & 2022-23 – Notice Served for National Industrial Action

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Ahead of the strike action by RMPFSL members tomorrow here is a vital update from national officers Mark Baulch and Carl Maden.

Please make sure all relevant members in your branch and office have watched it.

Facebook https://fb.watch/hpJPHotDny/

YouTube https://youtu.be/uHGxad-XZAU

ROYAL MAIL PROPERTY FACILITIES SOLUTIONS LIMITED (RMPFSL) – DISPUTE ON PAY AND ASSOCIATED ISSUES

Further to LTB (Letter To Branches) 486/22, issued on 7^th December which updated Branches, Representatives, and Members alike on the union’s attempts to seek further talks to progress an acceptable resolution and agreement to the dispute with Royal Mail Property & Facilities Solutions Limited (RMPFSL).

As a further update, talks did indeed take place today in the hope that RMPFSL management would formally set out a further improved offer that reflects what the union had believed was progress at the meeting held on the 7^th December. Sadly, this was not the case and RMPFSL is yet to formally set out an improved offer against what they labelled as their ‘full and final offer’ which was outlined in LTB 434/22, issued on the 4^th November.

Whilst the failure of RMPFSL to seek to use our meeting today as a genuine attempt to seek an acceptable mutual agreement which can be placed in front of the members is disappointing, the union has still provided RMPFSL management with the opportunity to bring forward an improved offer and made ourselves available for further negotiations, building on the talks which were held on the 7^thDecember.

However, given the current position with no acceptable agreement, the strike action planned for our members employed by RM Property & Facilities Solutions Limited will go ahead as planned on the 15^thDecember.

In order to provide our members and representatives with a more comprehensive and fuller update we are in the process of arranging a Facebook Live session which all RMPFSL members are encouraged to join via a link the details of which will be communicated shortly.

Any queries regarding the content of this LTB should be addressed to the PTCS Department quoting reference number 312 – email khay@cwu.org or the Outdoor Department, quoting reference 120.12 email address: njones@cwu.org

Yours sincerely,

Mark Baulch                                                         Carl Maden
CWU Assistant Secretary                                          CWU Assistant Secretary

LTB 498-22 Dispute on Pay and Associated Issues

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Update for Royal Mail Group members ahead of strike action #StandByYourPost for those who were unable to watch live tonight

https://fb.watch/hoyvJiOcPC/