CWU National Briefing on Trade Union Bill27th January 2016

Congress House

 

The branch sent a delegation of 7 to this briefing which out lined the Trade Union Bill which is at this time progressing through the House of Lords.

Dave Ward CWU General Secretary opened the briefing by stating that this bill is more far reaching than anything that Thatcher’s government had tried to do to curtail the trade union movement.

And for this reason it is vital that both the Political and IR sides of the union must unite and work together as one union

Some of the measures in the bill include

➢ Public Service Unions having to gain an 80 % return in any ballot all abstentions will count as NO votes

➢ Facility Time and Check Off, the bill will give the government the power to bring in regulations to 1) cap the amount of facility time in the public sector (release for reps) 2)end check off in public sector this is where union subs are deducted from your wages.

These will the CWU believe are likely to cover The Post Office, other CWU employers should currently be exempt.

The Labour Party Involvement Dave said it was refreshing that the new Leader of the party Jeremy Corbyn has made it clear that when Labour are elected they will repeal the TU Bill.

It was also refreshing that the party for the 1st time in years given its support to the Trade Union movement.

The Trade Unions must work with the party to come up with a strategy to make the bill fail.

John Hendy QC

John is a Trade Union lawyer who works with the CWU and many more unions, he talked us through the legal side of the bill which included

Industrial Action

➢ A requirement for 50% turnout in all industrial action ballots

➢ A four month time limit from the date of which industrial action can be taken

➢ An increase in the notice period from 7 days to 2 weeks

The government also want to allow employers to bring in agency workers as strike breakers.

Picketing

The bill will require Unions to

➢ Appoint a picketing supervisor, who is familiar with the code of practice on picketing and who must wear some form of identification, such as an arm band.

➢ Give police the name and contact details of the picketing supervisor

➢ Give the picketing supervisor a letter of authorisation which they must show to the employer or anyone acting on their behalf on request.

Alongside the bill, the government is also strengthening the code of practice on picketing to restrict the use of social media ( Facebook & Twitter )

Political Campaigning  

On top of the existing requirement for the existence of a political fund to be balloted on every 10 years the bill would require.

➢ Members to opt – in to paying into the fund individually, in writing every five years

➢ From the date the bill becomes law, unions would have 3 months to get existing levy payers to opt-in before their contribution to the fund would cease.

Certification Officer  

The bill will change the role of the CO which can currently only act to uphold a members compliant. It will give the CO the power to run its own investigations into how unions operate and to fine the union up to £20,000 if we fail to comply with various technical legal rules. Together with other unions we will have to pay a levy – likely to cost us tens of thousands of pounds to fund the CO.

 

We then heard from Chris Webb the new head of Communications at CWU HQ’s, Chris said that we need to simplify the message to members and link the Political and IR sections of the union, as what happens politically comes into IR.

Tuesday 9th February branches are being asked to take part in the TUC big workplace meeting which can be found on social media.

Thursday 11th February branches are encouraged as in the National Postal Workers Day celebrations have photos of members holding posters, leaflet drop railway stations, send out a press release which will be pre written by HQ’s and will be included in a representatives briefing pack.

Nationally a letter will be sent to the home address every member of the CWU, press releases will be sent out and National Officers will be visiting workplaces.

Terry Pullinger SDG (P)  

Terry said that we mustn’t be naïve we must recognise that there is a link between political and IR and we must link the Peoples Post campaign and the TU Bill together as a joint campaign.

Summing Up Dave Ward said we must make the message to workplaces real, this is the first opportunity we have had to act as one union, we will beat the Bill but not at the first hurdle, we must turn their attack on us around and attack them to rebuild the Trade Union Movement.

 

Andy Beeby

Branch Political Officer

 

    

POST OFFICE: PENSIONS – DEFINED BENEFIT SCHEME – PROPOSAL TO CLOSE THE SCHEME
 The Post Office has today announced a 60 day member consultation, from Friday 5th February until 5th April, in respect of its plans to close the Post Office (Defined Benefits) Section of the Royal Mail Pension Plan (RMPP).
 
Post Office Proposal
 
The Post Office recently advised us of its plans to close the Defined Benefits (DB) pension scheme, which will affect those members who joined the scheme prior to 1st April 2008. Under the proposals, the DB scheme would be closed to any new benefit accrual and members would build up benefits in a new Defined Contribution (DC) scheme from 1 September 2016. The new DC scheme will also include members of the current DC scheme.
Despite our strong objections to the unnecessary haste of commencing the 60 day members’ consultation in relation to the plans, the Post Office is pressing ahead and members will begin to receive documentation and information from this morning on the plans.
 Our key objections to the Post Office’s plans are as follows:
 
The Post Office is rushing into “consultation” with members of the DB scheme without meaningful dialogue with the Union. Just two formal meetings on this issue have been held and in both of these meetings we were presented with what seemingly is a fait accompli. In our view, the Post Office is conducting a tick box exercise in its “consultation” with both the Union and the members of the scheme and is determined to press ahead with closure of the scheme, whatever the outcome of the “consultation”.

 
The DB scheme is not in deficit – there is sufficient surplus with £136.1m as at 30th September 2015 to allow the scheme to continue until 2022. This surplus was created by members giving up benefits and should be viewed as members’ money.

 
We estimate the Post Office will save over £5m a year under the proposal as the current contribution is 17.1% per member into the DB scheme, compared with a greatly reduced contribution into the proposed new Defined Contribution scheme.

 
We understand that after closing the scheme, the Post Office intends to de-risk it by moving into very low yielding assets or even by buying out the benefits with an insurance company. This will remove the scheme from the Post Office’s balance sheet.

 
We do not accept the Post Office’s case for the scheme closure and believe members’ money should be spent on benefits, not used to subsidise the business.

 
Steps we have taken thus far are as follows:
 
Dave Ward, General Secretary has written to Baroness Neville-Rolfe, the Post Office Minister BIS, seeking an urgent meeting regarding pensions and the future of the Crown Office Network.

 
We have written to Neil Hayward, Group People Director, Post Office, raising our concerns over the Post Office’s plans, and in particular, the unnecessary haste to commence a fait accompli “member consultation”.

 
A letter has been sent to Chris Hogg, Chief Executive, Royal Mail Pension Trustee, seeking an urgent meeting and also raising our objections to the Post Office’s plans. In this regard, a meeting has been arranged for later this week.

 
Hilary Salt, specialist pensions advisor from First Actuarial has been instructed to provide advice and guidance to the Union. We will continue to seek Hilary’s advice as matters progress.

 
Next Steps
The Postal Executive is receiving documentation at its statutory meeting today. Following this meeting we will issue a further LTB reporting on Postal Executive Policy on this important and complex issue.
 
Members will be receiving a Union communication to home addresses this week, outlining our serious concerns with regards to the Post Office’s attack on their pensions. A copy is attached for your information. In the meantime, Branches are urged to encourage members not to react to this news by leaving the DB pension scheme.
Further developments will be reported at the earliest opportunity.
If you have any questions in relation to this LTB, please contact Lea Sheridan – lsheridan@cwu.org.
Yours sincerely
  
Andy Furey
Assistant Secretary
 
Email Attachments – Click to download
LTB 063/16 Post Office: Pensions – Defined Benefit Scheme – Proposal to close the Scheme

Attachment 1 Pensions Under Attach

NATIONAL DISCIPLINE COMMITTEE: PROPOSED REVISED BYELAWS
Over the past 18 months the National Discipline Committee has dealt with a number of cases which have highlighted the room for some improvement in the NDC byelaws.
These cases typically involve allegations of bullying and harassment and have multi-member parties and multiple witnesses.
The current NDC byelaws require all parties, representatives and witnesses to be in the same place at the same time. They also require both parties and their representatives (and on occasion, a witness) to be in the same room at the same time.
This arrangement has caused a variety of challenges for the committee – it only takes one party/representative/witness to be unavailable for a proposed hearing to be postponed and the tension that is created by having both parties in the same room at the same time sometimes can be problematic and could even conceivably be prejudicial to a fair hearing.
When cases are postponed there is a financial consequence in terms of costs that cannot be recovered, and the delay in resolving cases also causes stress for the parties.
The proposed revised byelaws are intended to deal with these problems in the following way:
A. It modifies the procedure so that the NDC is able to interview the parties and witnesses all separately from each other.
B. Notes of the discussions with witnesses become part of the agreed bundle and are therefore open to scrutiny and challenge by the parties and their representatives.
C. The revised byelaws include timescales to ensure, as far as possible, that there is no unreasonable delay in the process from start to finish.
The NDC believe that the revised byelaws will make the NDC process more cost effective and less stressful. It also believes that there is an arguable duty of care upon the union to ensure that in bullying and harassment cases in particular, the complainant is not compelled to be in an uncomfortable or even intimidating situation during the course of the case.
As colleagues will be aware, NDC byelaws need to be agreed by the NEC and then presented to the next available General Conference for ratification. The attached byelaws were endorsed by the NEC on 28 January and a motion endorsing the terms of this LTB will be submitted to General Conference. If approved, the new byelaws would become operative for all cases lodged under Rule 14 following the close of General Conference.
The Committee would welcome any observations or questions for clarification. These should be addressed to my office at CWU HQ.
Yours Sincerely,
Simon Sapper
Assistant Secretary
Email Attachments – Click to download
LTB 60/2016 – NATIONAL DISCIPLINE COMMITTEE : PROPOSED REVISED BYELAWS

Unagreed Introduction of Delivery Duty Sets Tool (DDS)
Towards the end of last year Royal Mail informed the union that they were replacing the Mini Duty Builder (MDB) with a new tool called Delivery Duty Sets (DDS).
The reason for this was that their managers were finding it difficult to use the MDB when amending / changing hours from the last revision and did not have the level of skill to reflect these changes by revising their current Duty Builder. (Their words not ours)
This was despite the CWU nationally being given an earlier assurance that the new Revision Managers on request from the DOM would be available to update the current Duty Builder with hours and duty schedules that had been agreed locally as part of any PIR or future revision activity.
Having being taken through the DDS it was clear to the CWU that it was more than a simple hours recording aide, and our view was that it should be a part of the agreed revision toolset as it imported the last Model Week to provide a reference point for calculating future indoor hours and generated a new TM1.
It was also evident that although the DDS records any agreed changes in hours against the appropriate RCS codes, unlike the Duty Builder there is no provision to turn these changes into duty schedules (Delivery Details) or as they are generally known – P318’s.
In essence what this means is that unless you are undertaking a full structural revision assisted by a RM Revision Manager who would produce a new Duty Builder incorporating the daily duty schedules, any other type of revision activity (unit led or local changes agreed in WRM’s) using DDS will not be able to schedule the work to individual duties, only the total amount of hours for each task.
For example, if you start at 06.00 and finish at 14.00 you may undertake IPS, Portering, Prep, Double Prep, Delivery, etc, but without a duty schedule you will not know the times worked on each task or in what order you should undertake them.
Reps and DOM’s will have no base information in RTW / Forecasting meetings to determine whether to flex their IPS / Prep resource up or down as necessary if they do not know how many people are on each task and at what time within the agreed duty structure.
This position is not acceptable to the CWU as in the absence of updated duty schedules members will not know the amount of time they should take on each task or when they should be performing that task, and reserves will have no reference point when covering duties, resulting in chaos management and a probable negative impact on the units efficiency.

We believe this is the start of a process to remove duty schedules in delivery offices and leave the daily alignment of hours to workload down to the DOM on the basis of a daily forecast from Pipeline Production Control (PPC).
The CWU has made further representation to Royal Mail on the basis of introducing a facility/process to schedule any changes of hours as a result of PIR’s or further revision activity into new duty schedules/patterns or alternatively agree a parallel process that will enable this to be done locally in line with DDS.
Royal Mail has refused this offer from the CWU as they do not see this as a problem going forward as they are already using the DDS to record changes in hours and have not received any disagreements on this issue.
As a consequence of this intransigence on the part of Royal Mail we are asking all reps that are currently involved in revision activity where DDS is to be used to record the agreed hours, to abstain from agreeing any hours/revisions or a revision implementation date until this issue is brought to a satisfactorily conclusion, using the IR Framework where necessary.
Branches will be provided with updates in due course.

Any enquiries to Bob Gibson’s Office, quoting reference 230.03

Email address: outdoorsecretary@cwu.org

Email Attachments – Click to download
LTB 061/16 Unagreed Introduction of Delivery Duty Sets Tools (DDS)

ELECTION OF NATIONAL DELEGATIONS – 2016 
Wales TUC         

The NEC has agreed the 2016 election arrangements for the National delegations listed above. Accordingly please find enclosed the regulations and nomination forms for these elections.
 
The details of the Conferences are as follows: 
Wales TUC / 24 – 26 May 2016, Llandudno, Wales 

 
The Timetable for the elections is: 
      Nominations open: 2 February 2016
      Nominations close: 16 February 2016 (14:00)
      Despatch ballot papers: 19 February 2016
      Ballot closes: 4 March 2016 (14:00)
 
Any enquiries regarding this LTB 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
 
Email Attachments – Click to download
LTB 057/16 – Election of National Delegations 2016 – Wales TUC

Attachment 1 – Wales TUC 2016 – Regulations

Attachment 2 – Wales TUC 2016 Nomination Forms

Attachment 3 – Wales TUC – Candidate Consent & Biographical Details

ELECTION OF NATIONAL DELEGATIONS – 2016 
STUC         

The NEC has agreed the 2016 election arrangements for the National delegations listed above. Accordingly please find enclosed the regulations and nomination forms for these elections.
 
The details of the Conferences are as follows: 
STUC / 18 – 20 April 2016, Dundee, Scotland

  
The Timetable for the elections is: 
      Nominations open: 2 February 2016
      Nominations close: 16 February 2016 (14:00)
      Despatch ballot papers: 19 February 2016
      Ballot closes: 4 March 2016 (14:00)
 
Any enquiries regarding this LTB 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
Email Attachments – Click to download
LTB 056/16 – Election of National Delegations 2016 – STUC

Attachment 1 – STUC 2016 – Regulations

Attachment 2 – STUC 2016 – Nomination Forms

Attachment 3 – STUC 2016 – Candidates Consent & Biographical Details

RE: Fleet & Maintenance Services – Territorial Representatives 2016
Election of:
Further to LTB 017/16 dated 13 January 2016, at the close of nominations at 14.00 on 29 January 2016 the following were received:
West Territory
Andrew Austin Greater Mersey & South West Lancs *Elected
East Territory
Peter Concannon London Regional MT *Elected
North Territory
Crawford Johnstone Scotland MT Branch *Elected
Network Territory
Michael Nicholson Midlands MT Branch *Elected
Technical Territory
Michael Purnell S.E Wales Amal *Elected
Any enquiries to PTCS office, quoting reference PTC/RE/dj/238. 

Email address: djeffery@cwu.org
Yours sincerely
 
Ray Ellis,
Assistant Secretary

RE: Romec: Joint Review of Pay Processing
Please find attached to this LTB a joint statement concerning a review of pay processes carried out by Romec and the CWU.
The review came about as the result of queries concerning pensionability of elements of pay from a number of CWU members. This revealed wider payroll discrepancies leading to a joint review of payroll.
Branches and reps will wish to note the agreed steps being taken to resolve the problem going forward and address any under / over payments.
Romec and CWU have agreed the right amount due for each element of pay, including overtime and any allowances and the conditions attached to each of these elements. All this will be included in a pay compendium which will be published so people can check it if they wish.

Romec and CWU have reconfirmed which elements of pay are counted towards pension for our various pension schemes.

Where current employees are being paid less than they are due on an ongoing basis, their pay will be adjusted to the right level.

Where people are currently being paid more than they are due, their pay will be adjusted to the right level going forward.

We have agreed and implemented new procedures to ensure that any changes to pay in the future are accurately captured and calculated so that people can be confident their pay remains accurate going forward.

It was agreed to review individual earnings back to April 2008. This has identified some under and over payments. It has been agreed that Romec will make a lump sum payment to make good any underpayment, and they will not recover any overpayment. Anyone whose pay will change as a result of this exercise will be written to individually by Romec.
The next phase of the joint review will deal with a resolution to pension issues arising from payroll discrepancies.
Romec is dealing directly with HMRC who have confirmed that there will no requirement for individuals to contact them directly in relation to any changes arising out of this review.
Any enquiries relating to Engineering and Admin Grades should be addressed to PTCS department, quoting reference PTC/RE/dj/301. 

Email address: djeffery@cwu.org
Any enquiries relating to Cleaning Grades should be addressed to Outdoor department, quoting reference: 120.12

Email address: outdoorsecretary@cwu.org
Yours sincerely

Ray Ellis Bob Gibson           
Assistant Secretary Assistant Secretary
Email Attachments – Click to download
LTB 052/16 – Romec: Joint Review of Pay Processing

Attachment 1 – Joint Review Pay Processes

Post Office: Your Views Count Survey
I wish to bring to the attention of Branches, Representatives and members, the Post Office are holding a Your Views Count survey throughout February with the closing date being 26th February. It is conducted by an external and independent company Hay Group.
The outcome of the survey cannot be underestimated as Post Office senior management see the results as very significant and use the engagement scores as a measure to highlight to the Government how they have won the hearts and minds of their workforce promoting high scores as an endorsement of their leadership. Their own document describes the survey as ‘a vital management tool that measures our impact as leaders on our people’; and Paula Vennells, Chief Executive, in her statement contained in the Annual Report & Accounts 2014/15, said the following:
“…improved engagement with our people is also a key part of our strategy. And so it was heartening in a tough year that engagement scores in the business rose by 4 points in 2015 to 62%”
The current backdrop to this survey, with the recent announcement of further Crown Office franchising, job losses arising from workplace closures within Supply Chain and Admin units, gives our members the opportunity to have their voices heard and documented. Therefore it is important that members are encouraged to complete the survey in an honest and candid way.
Members must complete the survey online using where necessary the line manager’s computer so there will be members that may feel concerned with regards to confidentiality and therefore may be reluctant to be upfront. Also previously it has been reported that managers have completed the survey on behalf of members by calling out the questionnaire whilst completing the electronic form themselves. This is unacceptable and any attempt to replicate this course of action should be reported to the Area Representative as this practice could easily be seen as a blatant attempt to dilute any negative feedback.
Branches are asked to encourage members to complete the survey honestly and openly and also reassure them that the survey is confidential and anonymous and nobody within the Post Office will have access to individual responses.
If you have any queries in regard to this LTB, please contact Lea Sheridan lsheridan@cwu.org or 020 8971 7361

Yours sincerely
Andy Furey
Assistant Secretary
Email Attachments – Click to download
LTB 050/16 Post Office: Your Views Count Survey