SPECIAL REPORT

 

National CWU Representatives Briefing Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Cambourne Cambridge

 

CWU Deputy General Secretary (Postal) Terry Pullinger called a seriesNational CWU Representatives briefings across the country to update local CWU Representatives on the 2nd phase of the Pay and Four Pillars Agreement (P&FPA) and National issues. The meeting for the CWU Anglia Region was held on Wednesday 27th February.

 

The CWU Vice President Jane Loftus Chaired the meeting with anagenda consisting of updates from Terry Pullinger, Mark Baulch, Davie Robertson, Carl Maden and Andy Furey, followed by Q&A’s from the floor.

 

Terry Pullinger

Terry was frank and honest with his presentation. He openly gave his opinion on what had happened to Sue Whalley which was she was sacked by Royal Mail as a result of the P&FPA she negotiated with the CWU. In short, the agreement came in, the cost of productivity rose, the share price fell, the board of directors asked questions and Sue Whalley left the business. Worse than that, her team of Managers who helped negotiate the agreement have either, also left the business or been moved to different unaccountable roles, meaning the Royal Mail authors of the agreement are no longer available or accountable for it.

Rico Back has been appointed as the new CEO of Royal Mail. He has no experience in the letter industry. He created his own parcel company, sold it to Royal Mail, which became GLS, remained the CEO of them and that’s why he received a £6 million pay offer to become CEO of Royal Mail. Rico does not reside in this country, has been virtuallyinvisible, only met with Terry Pullinger once. Has not met with any other CWU officers. He has reorganised a Management/Director structure like the one which caused the problems and pressures which led to the CWU’s Four Pillars dispute back in 2015/17

Rico and the new Managerial structure are planning a new Royal Mail parcel strategy without consultation with the CWU. This is outside the process of our agreements. Already, it has come to light the business have been tasked with between 4% and 6% budgetary/efficiency savings. This again, is outside the process of our agreements. The CWU accept the business must change to be able to compete in the market, therefore we signed up for the P&FPA because this gives us the opportunity to work together to make those changes in a way which brings the workforce along with them. We cannot be in a position where Royal Mail attempt to make changes without our involvement because this just leads to unrest in the workplace and we’ll find ourselves back where we were three years ago.

We must continue to work to the agreement and if that creates savings then all well and good. This is the reason we jointly signed up to it. Any attempt to introduce change outside of the agreement must be challenged through the industrial relations framework.

Terry went on to say we are awaiting the announcement of Royal Mails new business plan but as they are not talking with the CWU about it cannot comment on what it might be. If it is workable alongside ouragreements, then there would not be a problem. However, at this point of time it is difficult to judge.

 

Mark Baulch (Outdoor)

Mark gave an update on delivery issues. One point he mentioned was the potential the company are considering removing all parcels over the size of a shoebox from core deliveries and creating a new network for LAT delivery. This would have a significant impact on, not only, our delivery duty structure, but mail centres and logistics too. The introduction of super sort centres with parcel sort machine technology which can sort up to 400 destinations would seriously affect the current workplan.

 

Davie Robertson (Indoor)

Davie gave a more in-depth report on the changes within Royal Mails managerial structure and expressed the complications this is causing National negotiations. He reiterated what Terry had said about the importance of sticking to the P&FPA when negotiating resourcing in the workplace. He referred to Peterborough Mail Centre and what we achieved by using the agreement to increase contractual hours for 118 members of staff, 80 of which went part-time to full-time.

He talked about the trials on the Actual Hour Data Capture (AHDC)reiterating it was the CWU who stopped the business using the software to monitor every movement a member of staff would make throughout their shift via an RFID chip placed in their identity card, to just being agreed to monitor entry and exit at the start and end of a shift. The trial is not delivering the expected results and Davie feels the business will be reluctant to invest millions of pounds into the project. Moving onto the trial on the resource schedular, again Davie said this trial was also not producing the expected results. The reason simply being Royal Mail do not appear to able to input the correct information into the programme. Davie finished off by stating we will be expecting another hour towards the shorter working week in October and wonders what the reaction from the business is going to be now the enabling trials are not going to plan.

 

Carl Maden (for Ray Ellis) 

Carl gave an update on where we were with the review of the Attendance procedure which formed part of the P&FPA. The main part they are addressing is the contact strategy Royal Mail Managementhave been abusing and the phased return to work-rehabilitation strategy which Management clearly did not understand. He said there will be an LTB released shortly which will include a statement on short term modifications and phased return to work-rehabilitation. This LTB has now been released, it is LTB132/19. Questions were asked from the floor about the part-day sick absence and the line in the sand letters for members of staff who live with disabilities. Carl reiterated what Pete Donaghy had written to us in an email on the part-day sick absence when we raised it to the PEC as a potential problem. With the line in the sand letters, Carl advised members who receive them to put grievances in against the Manager with a view of taking it as far as an employment tribunal.

 

Andy Furey

Andy gave an update on the Crown Post Offices with WH Smith and the Royal Mail Pension Administration Dept being transferred across to Capita the company who won the bid for the work and received £31 million from the Government in doing so.

 

Terry Pullinger

Terry finished off the meeting with an inspiring rally call. Telling the reps how important they are to this union. They are the troops who make this union work. You proved that by the way you got the membership behind us and returned the 90% YES vote in the Four Pillars Campaign which earnt us the P&FPA. He said, no matter much how Royal Mail Management change we’ve got our agreements and if Royal Mail work with us on those agreements we can continue to move forward together.

 

 

 

EJ Orviss

Area Processing Representative

Area.processing@cwue5.org

 

Date 1st March 2019

 

UNI ICTS World Conference – 2019

The UNI ICTS World Conference will take place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 26^th – 28^th August 2019 at the Park Royal Hotel.

Nominations are invited for the CWU delegation to the above named Conference. The delegation size and nomination entitlements are as follows:

All delegates to be elected by and from the Telecom and Financial Services Constituency

1 NEC Member

3 Lay Members
(at least 1 delegate must be a woman and at least 1 delegate must be under the age of 30 at the date of the conference)

The timetable for the election is as follows:

Nominations Open                            4 March 2019
Nominations Close                            18 March 2019 (14:00)
Ballot Opens                                       21 March 2019
Ballot Close                                         4 April 2019 (14:00)

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

19LTB135

UNI ICTS World Conference Election Regulations 2019

UNI ICTS World Nomination Form

Candidates Consent Form

Workers Memorial Day – 28  April 2019

To: All Branches

Dear Colleagues,

The purpose behind Workers’ Memorial Day has always been to “remember the dead: fight for the living” and unions are asked to focus on both areas, by considering events or memorials to remember all those killed and injured through work but at the same time ensuring that such tragedies are not repeated.

That can best be done by building trade union organisations, and campaigning for stricter enforcement with higher penalties for breaches of health & safety laws.

Workers Memorial Day is commemorated throughout the world and is officially recognised by the UK Government.

In 2019 the theme for the day is “Dangerous Substances – Get Them Out Of The Workplace”.

The CWU Health Safety & Environment Department has promoted Workers Memorial Day amongst Branches and Regional Health and Safety Forums via regular reports and LTBs. A CWU Workers Memorial Day poster has been produced and will be distributed to Branches to promote the day, and put up in workplaces. Attached to this LTB is a pdf of the poster.

What you can do:

• Find out what is happening in your area on 28 April. The website below will list all the local activities we know about, but you can also ask your union branch or trades council and other union contacts;
• If nothing is happening locally then get together with some of your workmates or others in the area where you work and organise something. It can be a commemorative rally, a workplace meeting or just a small get-together;
• Organise a minute’s silence in your workplace on the day (because the 28^th April is a Sunday, if your workplace is closed that day you may want to hold it on the Friday);
• Ask your local council, or any other public body, to fly official flags at half-mast on the day. Remember that the day is officially recognised by the government;
• Arrange an event such as planting a memorial tree in a public place, putting up a plaque, dedicating a sculpture, a piece of art, or a bench, to remember workers who have been killed at their workplace or in the community;
• If you are planning any events for the day, or you want to raise awareness about Workers’ Memorial Day on 28 April, then it is important you consider how you can best use local media both before and on the Day.
• Ask local religious centres to include Workers’ Memorial Day in their worship on the day;
• Distribute purple ‘forget-me-not’ ribbons, the symbol of Workers Memorial Day;
• Let people know about anything that happened in your area on the day.

For resources on Workers Memorial Day including ribbons and car stickers please contact the Greater Manchester Hazards centre at: mail@gmhazards.org.uk.

More details are at: https://www.tuc.org.uk/workers-memorial-day-0

Yours sincerely

 

Dave Joyce
National Health, Safety & Environment Officer

19LTB133 Workers Memorial Day – 28th April 2019

06110 Workers Memorial Day Poster 2019

View Online

Have Your Say Surveys. Please see below from last Year from Moya Green:

“Completion of the survey is not mandatory although we would highly encourage all employees to take the opportunity to give their view.

As this is a work-related survey, employees have been allocated time at work (during their WTLL) to complete the survey, rather than expecting employees to fill in their survey at home in their own time. This process of completing the surveys at work is standard practice in many companies.

Each survey should have been given out in an envelope as part of a pack. Each pack contained the survey itself and a pre-paid envelope with Ipsos MORI’s address for returning the survey once completed. Ipsos MORI is an independent research company conducting the survey on RMG’s behalf. All employees can be confident that their answers will be treated in complete confidence. Ipsos MORI promises that surveys will never be linked to an individual. Ipsos MORI is a member of the Market Research Society. As a member, they are bound by its Code of Conduct not to identify individual respondents’ views.

Surveys should not have been handed back to managers without being sealed in the pre-paid/pre-addressed envelope. Managers should collect the sealed packs and return them in bulk via recorded delivery to Ipsos MORI (ideally using the bags that they arrived in). If employees specifically wish to, they can take the survey home and complete it and then return it in the post in the pre-paid and pre-addressed envelope direct to Ipsos MORI.

We ask people to take part in the survey so that they can share their views in a fair and consistent way, we also give people the opportunity to do this in a confidential environment. The survey gives people the chance to say what they want without being concerned about people finding out what they individually said. Also, only by surveying everyone in RMG will we get an overall view of what people think and be able to respond to that at a corporate level.

I hope I have provided some reassurance but please let me know if I can help further.

Kind regards

Jane

Jane Ogden

Chairman and Chief Executive Office

JustSayIt

100 Victoria Embankment LONDON EC4Y 0HQ

Important London CWU communication 

Royal Mail have recently wrote to the National Union laying out their new parcel strategy.

This involves removing parcels labelled 3 & 4 ( ie parcels above shoe box size ) from the core delivery and deliver these in the Afternoon up to 19:00 along with the LAT. This parcel stream is one of the fastest growing stream.

They want to automate the larger parcels in 3 RDC/parcel centres. One will be Warrington , one in the midlands and one in the South.

The aim will be for all parcels branded 3&4 will be machined to the 302 Current National LAT hubs.

By doing this , these parcels will by pass the inward mail centre and will only need to be cross docked.

Royal Mail say they believe by taking these parcels out of normal delivery , that they could reduce potentially from 60 thousand deliveries in the UK to 52 000. 

This is based on collapsing 1 walk in every 6 duties. One duty in six would become a afternoon driver who would deliver the larger parcels and LAT. 

The remaining 5 duties would than be expected to absorb the duty which becomes the afternoon van duty. 

The impact is even worse in those delivery offices who are not part of the 302 LAT offices as you simply will not receive any parcels branded 3/4 and therefore would simply lose that work altogether.

Royal Mail are proposing that they do not have to wait to the automation is up and running and are proposing to trial in an LAT unit and collapse one walk in 6 and for that walk to become a PM driver and the 5 to absorb the 6th walk and if successful roll it out to other units and than nationally 

Royal Mail have clearly changed their strategy and potentially their commitment to the 4 Pillars Agreement.

For years Royal Mail have said that they only make money when they deliver letters and parcels together on the core. Their decision now to remove a growing stream of work from the core is worrying and signals they are not committed to protecting the USO and work on the core delivery. 

Whilst it is important that we grow the parcel streams including the LAT , it should not be by moving work from the core but offering services which attract new parcel growth including same day etc.

It is important to recognise that The CWU nationally have not given agreement to this proposal and believe that this proposal breaches the 4 Pillars Agreement.

We will keep you updated of further developments.

Yours sincerely 

Martin Walsh Mark Palfrey John Simkins 
London Divisional Reps 

Dog Safety – High Impact Units (HIU) Joint Royal Mail/CWU Campaign

Dear Colleagues,

This LTB is being issued as an important follow up to LTB No. 573/2018, dated 10 October 2018.  Would all ASRs please give this matter their urgent attention.

A review of the RM/CWU Dog Attacks, National Joint High Impact Units (HIU) Campaign strategy has demonstrated that the Phase 1 aspect of the approach has been proving to be successful in those units where the ASRs have attended. This is great news which has resulted in an agreed action from the National Joint Dog Attacks Working Group for Phase 1 to continue with the aim of completing as many of the identified HIUs by the end of March 2019.  Please continue into April if need be but in order to take the maximum opportunity from the joint approach we want to maintain the penetration of the campaign and the RMG SHE Advisor will be feeding back to the National Dog Attack Working Group in May when it meets.

The campaign visits to the High Impact Units is clearly raising awareness and raising the profile of the issue amongst Delivery staff and it’s important that it continues.

Phase 1:

As a reminder, the agreed Phase 1 approach part of the campaign requires the CWU ASRs to attend the identified HIUs within their constituency areas, as per the previous LTB No. 573/2018, issued on 10 October 2018. ASRs will then set up flip charts or comms boards, hand out the CWU ‘Dog Attacks on Postal Workers Booklets’, then talk to staff either via collective ASR led WTLL sessions, one to ones or through other engagement opportunities and share the various Dog Attack information within the HIU pack with the workforce, discussing how to avoid a dog attack, focussing in particular on the effects of a dog attack by using the graphic materials from the publication ‘Dog Attacks on Postal Workers’. Additionally the sessions will cover the importance of reporting and recording incidents.

Phase 2:

This involved the SHE Advisors and ASRs following up the previously visited Phase 1 HIUs and deploying the use of the dog training video using the ‘Virtual Reality Kit’. All the instructions for phase 2 were contained in the attachments to LTB 572/18‎. Utilising and involving the CWU Workplace Safety Reps is also key to this part of the campaign initiative.

Full support and involvement of CWU ASRs in this campaign would be much appreciated and indeed is fully agreed and sanctioned by Royal Mail HQ.  The provision and use of the ‘Virtual Reality Kits’ will continue until further notice. We have requested the provision of additional kits. A laptop version of the Dog Training Video is also available.

Would all ASRs please give this priority attention and contact your RMG SHE Advisor to discuss taking the above programme forward ASAP.

Attachments:

• 18LTB573 Dog Safety – High Impact Units HIU Joint Royal Mail CWU Campaign
• Campaign Board Header
• OPL – Delivering Parcels – AVOID being attacked on the doorstep
• OPL Dog Behind Letter Box)
• OPL USING P6705 STICKER v1.1
• Royal Mail Virtual Reality Facilitation Guide_v1.0 (3)
• SWAN SYSTEM (Return Letter Receptacle) v1 2
• Virtual Reality Attendance Sheet

Yours sincerely

 

Dave Joyce
National Health, Safety & Environment Officer

19LTB130 Dog Safety – High Impact Units (HIU) Joint Royal Mail CWU Campaign

18LTB573 Dog Safety – High Impact Units HIU Joint Royal Mail CWU Campaign

HIU Campaign Board Header

OPL – Delivering Parcels – AVOID being attacked on the doorstep

OPL Dog Behind Letter Box)

OPL USING P6705 STICKER v1.1

Royal Mail Virtual Reality Facilitation Guide_v1.0 (3)

SWAN SYSTEM (Return Letter Recepticle) v1 2

Virtual Reality Attendance Sheet

POST OFFICE: “SAVE OUR POST OFFICE” CAMPAIGN – PARLIAMENTARY EVENT 11TH MARCH

Further to LTB 017/19 dated 15th January. 

As Branches are aware, we have been gathering signatures for a national petition against the franchising of Crown Post Offices to WH Smith and with the support of our activists, politicians and the public we are now on our way to gaining our target of c.100,000 signatures. With a final push over the next ten days we can reach this total and we are now asking Branches to make every effort to gather as many signatures as possible. The petition is attached to this LTB or can be signed using our Microsite: www.saveourpostoffice.co.uk

Our plan is to deliver these petitions to 10 Downing Street on 11th March and we will also be holding an event in Westminster on this date which we are expecting a number of MPs and key stakeholders to attend. The details are as follows: 

Save Our Post Office Campaign – Event in Parliament

Monday 11th March 2019

• 1.30-2.30pm Meeting in Committee Room 6, House of Commons with Dave Ward, General Secretary addressing the rally and with other speakers tbc. Dot Gibson from the National Pensioners Convention is an early confirmed speaker. 
• 2.30 – 2.45pm Photo Opportunity on Parliament Green
• 2.45pm – 3pm MPs and a small delegation of 6 including Dave Ward and Andy Furey walk to 10 Downing Street and deliver petitions.

Regional Secretaries, Branch Secretaries, Branch Political Officers, all Branches, and Representatives (employed by Post Office) are encouraged to show their support by attending the rally in Committee Room 6 on 11th March, and to be a part of the photo on Parliament Green. Your support in this important campaign to secure the future of the Crown Office network is appreciated. 

All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Post Offices

A meeting of the APPG, chaired by Gill Furniss MP, Shadow BEIS Minister was held late yesterday afternoon. Andy Furey, Assistant Secretary and Natasha Burgess, Political Advisor were in attendance. MPs from the three largest parties – Labour, Conservative and SNP – heard evidence from Citizens Advice, the Association of Convenience Stores, the Countryside Alliance and the Federation of Small Businesses, about the impact on high streets and rural areas of losing Post Offices.

Andy Furey questioned Citizens Advice about the toothless code of practice they have with the Post Office with regard to franchising.

MPs left in agreement that their suspicions and concerns about franchising had been confirmed by the evidence they had heard and they are looking forward to questioning the Minister, who has said she will attend a future meeting of the APPG.

Following the APPG, Gill Furniss provided the following statement:

“The Post Office APPG has developed into an extremely worthwhile and effective activity. The progress made by this forum has been truly amazing and the engagement with parliamentarians from across the various parties together with representatives from the key stakeholders is first class.

I was particularly pleased to see the involvement from the Federation of Small Businesses, Association of Convenience Stores, Citizens Advice and the Countryside Alliance at our recent meeting. It was also satisfying to hear how much the Post Office is cherished as an institution that should be protected and developed for the use of everyone in society”

Securing the Future of the Post Office – Post Bank

As discussed at the National Briefing last year, it is crucial that alongside our campaign against the franchise/closure programme we shift the debate onto a positive vision for the Post Office for the future. As part of this, the Union has commissioned an independent report building on the pledges in Labour’s manifesto for a Post Bank and for other elements of a new system of public banking (such as a National Investment Bank).

The report will provide a thorough analysis of the current problems within the UK banking system and set out how a Post Bank has a key role to play in addressing these. It will also set out how the commitment on a Post Bank would fit together with the other proposals Labour made in its manifesto, which is an important piece of work that would be needed for this to be moved forward if we can secure a Labour government. The aim is to publish the report with a launch event prior to or during annual conference and further details will be provided to Branches at the earliest opportunity.

Local Campaigning Activities

Branches are encouraged to email details of any relevant local campaign activities, photos etc. to Natasha Burgess, Political Advisor, GS Dept – nburgess@cwu.org who is liaising with our Communications Dept in terms of gaining as much publicity as possible via our website, Microsite and social media. We are planning to update the Save Our Post Office Microsite to include information on all local activities against franchising, press and media coverage etc. If Branches require the assistance of a Postal Executive member at public meetings, please email lsheridan@cwu.org

Thank you for your continued support in this crucial campaign and once again we would urge all Branches to do everything possible to increase the number of signatures to the Save Our Post Office petition prior to 11th March. 

Yours sincerely

Andy Furey – Assistant Secretary                           

Terry Pullinger – DGS(P)           

Dave Ward – General Secretary

19LTB129 Post Office – Save Our Post Office Campaign – Parliamentary Event 11th March

Attachment 1 to LTB129-19 – Petition