Election of:

• Royal Mail Divisional Representatives -2020
• Royal Mail Divisional Representatives (Substitute) – 2020
• Royal Mail Divisional Chair – 2020

Royal Mail Divisional Representatives & Royal Mail Divisional Representative (Sub)

Nominations are invited from Branches within the relevant divisions for the position of Royal Mail Divisional Representative (2 per division) and Royal Mail Divisional Representative (Substitute – 1 per Division) for the following divisions:

Anglia

London

Midland

North East

North Wales/North West

Scotland/Northern Ireland

South Central

South East

South West/South Wales

The term of office for these positions is two years and the successful candidates will take up office at the conclusion of the election (2 March 2020), however candidates should be aware that the above positions and divisions are currently under review by the CWU & Royal Mail and therefore the term of office may be subject to change prior to the conclusion of the 2 year term.

Nomination forms are available on request from the Senior Deputy General Secretary Department. Completed forms must be signed by the Branch Secretary and Branch Chair or accredited deputies and the nomine and should be returned to Tony Kearns, Senior Deputy General Secretary by 10 February 2020 (14:00).  

The timetable for the election is as follows:

Nominations Open:  27 January 2020

Nominations Close:  10 February 2020 (14:00)

Ballot Papers dispatched:  17 February 2020

Ballot Close:  2 March 2020 (first post)

If ballots are required for the positions of RM Divisional Representative and RM Divisional Representative (Substitute) they will be conducted on an individual member ballot basis and the ballots will be run in accordance with the CWU guidelines for Senior Regional/Field Official elections, which are attached for your information.

Royal Mail Divisional Chair

Nominations are invited from Branches within the relevant divisions for the position of Divisional Chair:

Anglia

London

Midland

North East

North Wales/North West

Scotland/Northern Ireland

South Central

South East

South West/South Wales

The term of office for these positions is two years and the successful candidates will take up office at the conclusion of the election (2 March 2020), however candidates should be aware that the above positions and divisions are currently under review by the CWU & Royal Mail and therefore the term of office may be subject to change prior to the conclusion of the 2 year term.

Nomination forms are available on request from the Senior Deputy General Secretary Department. Completed forms must be signed by the Branch Secretary and Branch Chair or accredited deputies and the nominee, and should be returned to Tony Kearns, Senior Deputy General Secretary by 10 February 2020 (14:00).   

The timetable for the election is as follows:

Nominations Open:  27 January 2020

Nominations Close:  10 February 2020 (14:00)

Ballot Papers dispatched:  17 February 2020

Ballot Close:  2 March 2020 (first post)

If ballots are required for the position of RM Divisional Chair they will be conducted on a branch ballot basis and therefore paragraphs 8, 9, 10 and 11 of the attached Guidelines are not applicable on this occasion.

Any enquiries regarding this LTB should be addressed to the Senior Deputy General Secretary’s Department on telephone number 0208 971 7237 or email address sdgs@cwu.org.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Kearns
Senior Deputy General Secretary

20LTB040

Div Rep – 2020- Nomination Form

Div Rep Sub – 2020 – Nomination Form

Div Chair – 2020 – Nomination Form

Regulations 2020

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CWU GENERAL SECRETARY, CWU DEPUTY GENERAL SECRETARY (POSTAL), CWU ASSISTANT SECRETARY (POSTAL) and CWU ASSISTANT SECRETARY (TFS)IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING THE ELECTION OF:

CWU GENERAL SECRETARY, CWU DEPUTY GENERAL SECRETARY (POSTAL), CWU ASSISTANT SECRETARY (POSTAL) and CWU ASSISTANT SECRETARY (TFS)

Dear Colleague,

ELECTION OF CWU NATIONAL OFFICERS – 2020

The NEC is required to determine and publish to branches the procedures and regulations for the election of any CWU National Officer positions that are subject to the 5 year election criteria.

Accordingly please find below the proposed timetable and regulations for the above elections which are due to be held in January–April 2020.

• General Secretary

The General Secretary is the chief negotiator and principle spokesperson for the union.

• Deputy General Secretary (Postal)

The Deputy General Secretary (Postal) is the principle Officer responsible for all issues solely within the remit of the Postal Executive Committee.

• Assistant Secretary (Postal)

The above position is currently responsible for dealing with the following Royal Mail Group businesses; Mail Centres, Area Distribution Units, Royal Mail International, Air Network, Parcelforce Worldwide, Quadrant, RMSS, WBCs, Royal Mail Logistics, RDCs and VOCs.

• Assistant Secretary (TFS)

The above position is currently responsible for dealing with the following companies; BT Property & Facilities, Catering BTUK, Compass Eurest (BT Account), Elior (BT Account), Connect 44, ISS Eaton (Telefonica O2 UK Account), Manpower UK (BT Account), Telefonica O2 UK.

The timetable for the National Officer elections is as follows:

Nominations Open:  30 January 2020

Nominations Close:  20 February 2020 (14:00)

Ballot Packs finalised for dispatch:  6 March 2020 

Dispatch ballot material on:  10 March 2020  

Close of ballot:  31 March 2020 (first post)

Result:  2 April 2020

The election regulations stipulate that a copy of the regulations for these elections must be distributed to all branches in advance of the nomination process. A copy of these is therefore attached and I would be grateful if you could ensure that the election timetable and regulations are brought to the attention of the members of your branch.

The regulations will also be published on the CWU website and a copy will be issued to all candidates nominated to stand in the Elections.

Further information regarding the election, including the Nomination Forms will be sent to all relevant branches during w/c 27^th January. However branches are reminded that in order for nominations for the above positions to be valid then they will need to be submitted on the appropriate CWU HQ issued nomination form(s).

Elections Prize Draws

Branches are reminded that in order to protect the integrity of these very important national elections and more importantly, ensure that the union is legally compliant with the relevant legislation covering such elections, that election prize draws should not be conducted under any circumstances unless written authorisation has been given by the Senior Deputy General Secretary.

Any enquiries regarding this LTB should be addressed to Senior Deputy General Secretary Department, CWU HQ, for the attention of Peter Metcalfe, telephone: 0208 971 7368, or email:pmetcalfe@cwu.org

Yours sincerely,

Tony Kearns

Senior Deputy General Secretary

20LTB037

Election Regulations 2020

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Time to stand with your union against Royal Mail introducing unagreed change

Dear Colleague

Today Royal Mail have announced executive action in 15 different offices across the UK.

At the moment no London Offices have been selected by Royal Mail for executive action.

The types of executive action they have chosen to take ranges from CSS machine closures , MPU closures, Post Box Strategy Revisions to Mail Centre alignments.

Executive action is Royal Mail introducing their plans or revisions without agreement.

In addition Royal Mail informed the union that they will be introducing a trial of parcel separation in the Swindon catchment area. This means that all larger than shoe box parcels will move to later in the day .

In Swindon they previously made all LAT duties Full time by making the front part a normal delivery and the back part delivering LAT products.

Royal Mail’s executive action means that the LAT duties will now perform all the larger parcels for the Swindon Office Catchment area and the delivery routes they are currently performing than gets absorbed by the walks who no longer have the larger parcels to deliver.

If Royal Mail believe this trail works, their plan is to roll it out in other areas. The difference being is that one duty in 6 will become a late driver delivering parcels above shoes box size and the remaining 5 duties would be asked to absorb the workload of the duty which was now delivering larger parcels.

In addition Royal Mail have announced they will be introducing Automated Hours Data Capture by executive action.

Their aim on this is that it records all hours from when you enter your office , every time you leave the floor and when you return. We understand Royal Mail want to link it to what you are paid in both pay and overtime.

They did a trial at Christmas of Agency staff at the Greenford Christmas Outhouse and believe it saved them hundreds of hours by only paying according to the data linked from when you enter and when you exit the building according to your actual duty and overtime times.

We have been informed this executive action is the first phase of an aggressive attack on the CWU.

We understand that they are also looking at moving all Delivery workers to a 0700 start time and removing improved attendance patterns.

Royal Mail have clearly decided to improve their communications and we now have almost daily updates in the way of videos.

Royal Mail are paying Facebook money and supplying employees data to ensue their message gets on employees timelines.

There message is designed to be soft and appealing. There say they are up for talks and are honouring National Agreements.

Royal Mail are trying to con you. How can there be important negotiations when they are introducing unagreed revisions and their strategy?

Royal Mail have decided that they can only introduce their business strategy if they weaken the unions influence.

Remember if this was to happen than they would introduce in the future all their plans by executive action.

The CWU will be balloting Nationally for strike action and will be supporting local industrial action ballots where Royal Mail take executive action.

The London Divisional Committee which represents all CWU members in the London Post Code Area are meeting on Friday to 24th January to discuss our next steps.

However we can assure you and Royal Mail that we will be conducting the biggest ever campaign for industrial action and if they take executive action on any London office than we will unite in London to oppose the executive action and we will not leave that office isolated.

All members need to answer the following question !

Are your jobs and terms safer with a strong union or weaker ?

If you accept that you are safer, now is the time to stand with the CWU and oppose Royal Mail’s strategy to introduce their strategy by executive action and weaken the CWU .

We will update you further when we get further information.

Unity really is strength !

A statement by the London Divisional Committee

Here is a link to the recording of our live session with Terry Pullinger DGSP. Please share as widely as possible

https://fbwat.ch/1yLBEi0vE3h2clJ7

South Central Division

Divisional Reps

Terry Jackson

Dermot Fuller

Sub Divisional Rep

Paul Garraway

DISPUTE UPDATE 22nd January 2020

Yesterday Dermot attended the national briefing for senior field officials at CWU HQ.

There will be a follow up conference call with senior field officials early next week.

Discussions were had exploring the inevitability of exploring enacting a reballot. To this end it is imperative that all Branches must ensure their membership records are robust and up to date.

It is important to provide our Representatives with some feedback:

In the New Year Terry Pullinger and Ray Ellis met with Royal Mail to seek to discuss a format for talks to resolve our ongoing dispute.

At this meeting RM said the company was in a difficult financial position and were under shareholder pressure to accelerate change.

Previously both parties had committed to a period of calm to allow meaningful discussions to take place, but now RM have said that they have honoured all existing agreements with the CWU and are now free to implement trials that are on hold or in dispute, and any initiatives where the I/R Framework is exhausted.

On trials they are keen to implement dedicated Parcel Deliveries (currently a unilateral modelling exercise in Swindon DO), Resource Scheduler and AHDC (effectively clocking in and out). On I/R issues, there are currently over 700 issues at joint national intervention, and their intention is to start introducing their position by Executive Action.

Within our Division we have been notified by the respective SDLs of RM’s intention to proceed with a “live” Parcel Trial in Swindon commencing next Monday and CSS proposals in Slough and Fareham. This is the thin end of the wedge. As and when we hear of further executive action we will notify the relevant Area Representatives. It may be prudent for the affected units to prepare themselves for requests for local ballots.

Despite having given managers a large pay rise and bonus, RM are refusing to review the 2019 CWU pay deal or talk about our 2020 pay deal.

The CWU pay deals should contain joint commitments from the 4 Pillars Agreement to a Shorter Working Week. RM are refusing to honour their side of the bargain on either the next hour off (which is already overdue), or the movement to a 35-hour week by 2022.

Joint commitments to address the appalling culture that exists in many RM workplaces are not on the employer’s agenda.

It is anticipated that RM at present can only break-even at best in this financial year, despite a great Christmas and the extra revenue from the General Election. In all likelihood it will become loss-making.

The same people who have got us in this position, now propose wasting more resources on their flawed plans for the pipeline and their proven failed technology initiatives.

The CWU are the only party looking for common-sense change that carries the whole of the organisation forward with a shared vision.

We will re-ballot to resist the RM inflammatory stance. We will use every ounce of our energy to get a massive YES vote to drag them back to the negotiating table.

There is no doubt that RM are adopting an aggressive stance. They are looking to marginalise your union. They may be even looking to break or de-recognise the CWU. WE will not let this happen.

Over the next couple of weeks there will of course be correspondence and LTBs that elaborate on the CWU position.

As a Division we aim to call a meeting to discuss our position and fully develop with Branches a shared strategy. This will be an opportunity to provide more in-depth information.We would ask all branches and representatives to assist us, and allow us to assist you, over what will undoubtably be one of the most challenging times in our great Union’s history.

Thanks

Dermot

Terry

Paul