Dear Colleagues,

OFCOM REVIEW OF THE UNIVERSAL SERVICE OBLIGATION

You will have seen the announcement this morning that the postal regulator, OFCOM have announced they are to undertake a review and subsequent consultation on the USO. The full details of the announcement can be read here https://www.ofcom.org.uk/news-centre/2023/ofcom-to-produce-potential-options-for-the-future-of-the-universal-postal-service

Royal Mail have responded here https://www.internationaldistributionsservices.com/en/press-centre/press-releases/royal-mail/royal-mail-statement-on-ofcom-looking-at-options-for-the-future-of-the-uso/

The OFCOM announcement has been expected for some time and the response from Royal Mail is entirely predictable.

Attached to this LTB is the CWU press release. We encourage Branches to share this with local media outlets and briefings to members.

The Business Recovery, Transformation and Growth Agreement commits both parties to exploring where they maybe opportunities to approach the regulator jointly and examine the potential for expanding the role of postal workers.

The USO has been deliberately run down over a sustained period so that Royal Mail can create the environment for this debate to take place. The dismantling of the USO, destruction of quality of service and the ever-rising price of stamps is part of a strategy to accelerate letter decline. No responsible employer would take this approach.

The CWU is not against change. We have an extensive track record to prove this. We want this review to seek and take on board the views of our members who have witnessed first-hand the running down of the USO. We also want any outcome to be based not on potential shareholder profit but on the protection of the service, jobs, and the future of the company.

In the coming days and weeks, we will be launching an extensive engagement programme on the future of the USO with our own members. This will include live sessions, podcasts, workplace activity and reps’ briefings. We will also be meeting with and briefing politicians at all levels.

This debate is too important to leave to Royal Mail and OFCOM.

Yours sincerely

Dave Ward

Business Recovery, Transformation & Growth (BRT&G) Agreement – Paragraph 6.4 – Attendance Update

Further to LTB215/23, which published the Joint Statement on Attendance we can inform Branches, the first meeting of the Attendance Joint Working Group (JWG) will be held on Tuesday 5^th September.

As part of the joint statement, it was agreed we would renegotiate the Attendance Agreement to incorporate the recent changes.  The first meeting on this will be held on Wednesday 6^th September.

Royal Mail have told us they will not be sending out letters to members affected by the agreed change to the migration process, however, we have been informed the People Case Manager (PCM) system has been updated for those members affected by the agreed changes.

For clarity, the agreed migration arrangements are:

AR1s 

• For employees issued with an AR1 between 31 January 2023 and 30 April 2023, who haven’t had a period of sick absence prior to 1 August, they will be removed from the process. For those employees who have had one period of sick absence during this time, the review period will remain 6 months with the new standards (3 absences or 12 days) applying. This will be subject to a review of absences covered by the Equality Act.
• For employees issued with an AR1 from 1 May 2023 – this will remain in place with the new standards and extended timescales applying.

AR2s 

• For employees issued with an AR2 between 31 January 2023 and 30 April 2023, they will revert back to an AR1 from the date of the original issue with the new standards and extended timescales applying.
• For employees issued with an AR2 from 1 May 2023 – this will remain in place with the new standards and extended timescales applying.

Any enquiries should be sent to the PTCS Department via email to Samantha Nicholas at snicholas@cwu.org

Yours sincerely

Carl Maden
Assistant Secretary     

Attachment1: 23LTB223 – Business Recovery, Transformation & Growth (BRT&G) Agreement – Paragraph 6.4 – Attendance Update

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Joint Communication Covering The National Rollout Of Seasonal Variation – 4^th September 2023: RMG/CWU Business Recovery, Transformation And Growth Agreement – Appendix 1

Branches, Representatives, and members will recall that a number of LTBs (Letter To Branches) have recently been issued in terms of moving forward the commitments contained in the Business Transformation, Recovery and Growth Agreement in relation to Appendix 1, Seasonal Variation, the most recent being LTB 213/23 issued on 21^st August.

However, you will also be aware that over the course of last week, there had been widespread speculation that the planned changes under Seasonal Variation as outlined in these LTBs would be delayed until October and limited to 9 weeks.

To be clear, this speculation was started by Royal Mail who did initiate an approach to the CWU on possible options to delay the development of Seasonal Variation due to some concerns in regard to forecasted traffic levels over the next few weeks. However, following further talks, Royal Mail has moved away from this consideration as it has now been highlighted that any changes in the commencement date of Seasonal Variation at such short notice will generate a number of systems issues that in turn could impact on the accuracy of employee’s basic pay.

However, during this period of discussions both parties have agreed to the attached Joint Communication which reaffirms a number of key aspects of Seasonal Variation.

Clearly, this period of ongoing conjecture has not been a helpful development nor has the delay in issuing this Joint Communication. However, it is now hoped that this further clarification will end any remaining confusion in this regard, alongside reaffirming the wider aims and aspects of Seasonal Variation.

Any issues arising from the local application of Seasonal Variation should be raised via the IR Framework and any questions on the interpretation or application of the arrangements should be fast-tracked to the relevant ROD/CWU Divisional Reps as necessary.

Any queries to the content of the above please contact the Outdoor Department reference 532, email address: njones@cwu.org

Yours sincerely,

Mark Baulch
CWU Assistant Secretary

LTB 222.23 – RM CWU Joint Communication on the National Rollout of Seasonal Variation

RM CWU Joint Communication Covering Seasonal Variation National Rollout (Final 010923)

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BUSINESS RECOVERY, TRANSFORMATION & GROWTH AGREEMENT – SECTION 5

JOINT STATEMENT BETWEEN ROYAL MAIL GROUP AND THE CWU COVERING THE DEPLOYMENT OF PARCELFORCE RURAL PARCEL VOLUMES INTO ROYAL MAIL

Branches and representatives will be aware of the commitments contained in the Business Transformation, Recovery and Growth agreement: Section 5 – Establishing an Optimised Single Parcel Network for Larger Parcels and Section 1.6 of the Parcelforce Appendix 3, moving volume in geographical areas on to a single network (rural areas).

In this regard agreed trial activity has taken place involving the movement of rural parcel traffic from PFW Leeds LD to Skipton DO for delivery to support assessment for a potential future Optimised Single Parcel Network.  Further to a successful outcome of the abovementioned trial, Royal Mail now wish to assess the potential for a further 41 Delivery Offices to deliver PFW items, with the aim to move these volumes before the 2023 peak period.

Discussions have therefore taken place with the business and a Joint Statement has been concluded and endorsed by the Postal Executive to enable the activity to take place, a copy of which is attached for your information.

To make deployment more manageable and to enable any operational or people issues to be addressed during the planning period, the activity is being planned in 5 Waves.  The attached Joint Statement provides detail of the 41 RM Delivery Offices and related PFW local depots involved.

There will be a ‘means test’ performed at the Delivery Offices involved in the activity to ensure that they have the capability to undertake the PFW work to the required standards.  Details of the elements covered are contained in the attached Joint Statement.  Colleagues will note that it has been accepted that it is likely that the ‘means test’ will identify that not all of the 41 Delivery Offices will be suitable to perform the PFW work.  Where this is the case then further National discussions will take place to review or agree alternative Delivery Offices within the catchment area.

CWU representatives will be fully involved in the activity with appropriate Union release time provided to ensure meaningful involvement.  The activity will be further supported by the CWU Area Delivery Representative and Area H&S Representative and Parcelforce Regional Organiser.

Each Delivery Office and local Depot can be deployed independently.  No deployment will commence earlier than w/c 4^th September 2023 and all 5 waves will be targeted to be completed by the end of October 2023.

Any impact on PFW and RM employees will be kept to a minimum wherever possible and will be managed in line with National agreements.  PFW Drivers displaced as a result of the transfer of work to Royal Mail will migrate to vacant alternative substantive C&D routes, or routes covered by Owner Drivers or external resource.  All headcount reduction will be achieved in line with paragraph 3.1.9 of the Job Security section of the Business Recovery, Transformation and Growth Agreement.  Full cognisance will be taken of current earning levels that the affected individuals have signed for, as part of recent Parcelforce revision activity.  Best efforts will be made to match individuals against an alternative C&D duty of equivalent duty hours.

Adjustments will be made to affected Royal Mail Delivery duties to ensure that the PFW workload can be accommodated within current structures, while retaining manageable workload.

The RM Delivery Offices and PFW Local Depots will need to ensure that the solution developed is focussed on delivering QofS for PFW parcels.  RM DO’s will receive the relevant WIPWH (Weighted Items Per Work Hour) workload values relating to delivery and collection of PFW volumes.

PFW Depot, Regional Distribution and Mail Centre will coordinate, support and distribute parcels to the Delivery Office efficiently including the handling, loading, unloading of Yorks and non-Yorkable items.

The usual provisions have been made in respect of H&S responsibilities.

A PIR will take place following the deployment of all 5 Waves.  However, if any major issues are flagged up during or after the deployment, all parties are committed to resolving them in a timely manner, rather than waiting for the PIR to take any corrective action required.

The outputs and learning points from the PIR will inform National discussions on the next phase of deployments into another 54 Delivery Offices, which have been identified for the transfer of rural workload.  Planning work will progress in parallel with the first phase of transfers so that agreed deployment can commence in January 2024 for completion by the end of March 2024.  Joint activity will also review opportunities to migrate Royal Mail large parcel workload into Parcelforce, where this delivers economic and operational benefits.

Arrangements are currently being finalised for a virtual joint launch meeting to take place with the representatives at the sites involved in the activity and an invite to participate will be sent to those individuals in due course.

Any enquiries in relation to this LTB should be addressed to:

PFW & MCs and Distribution: Davie Robertson, Assistant Secretary, email: dwyatt@cwu.org quoting reference: 054.13.

Delivery Offices: Mark Baulch, Assistant Secretary, email: njones@cwu.org quoting reference: 580.

Yours sincerely,

Davie Robertson                                                                   Mick Kavanagh
Assistant Secretary                                                                 Acting Assistant Secretary

219-23 BRTG Section 5 – Deployment PFW Rural Parcel Volumes into RM 23.08.23

JS Deployment of PFW Rural Parcel Volumes into RM 23.08.23

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ROYAL MAIL GROUP – UNION RELEASE AUDIT

On 24^th August we received a letter from Graham Long, Head of Industrial Relations, providing notice of an internal audit to determine the cost of both paid and unpaid union release time.  Our view is clear; we believe this audit is both unnecessary and inappropriate at this stage particularly as we are in the midst of deploying the Business Recovery, Transformation & Growth Agreement (BRT&G).

The audit is due to be held in September and October and the correspondence was clear in stating there should be no difference in the level of release being granted during the audit period and managers have been briefed accordingly. The timing of this audit is either at worst a continuation of union busting or at best misguided, given we are meant to be rebuilding relationships in line with Section 2.4 of the BRT&G agreement.  It is a total distraction from the real issues of Quality of Service and USO failures.

We have now received copies of four documents management have circulated in the field relating to union leave for industrial relations reps, roles responsibilities and release time, completing the union leave application form and a user guide for the electronic application process.  RMG did not have the courtesy to enclose a copy of any of these management guidelines.

A meeting was held yesterday with Grant MacPherson the Chief Operations Officer, and Ricky MacAulay, Operations Development Director, on a range of important issues.  We did however take the opportunity during the course of the meeting to make it clear apart from the fact the Industrial Relations Framework is totally enshrined within the BRT&G Agreement, the manner in which we had received notification of the internal audit was unacceptable.

We have also expressed in the strongest possible terms that if an audit was required it should be subject to a joint approach and involve joint activity.

Following yesterday’s meeting we will be writing to the company to formally record our concerns and will provide further updates as soon as possible.

In closing should any representatives experience any differences whatsoever in the granting of paid/unpaid leave, the IR framework should be used for registering disagreements, and any points of principles raised directly with us.

Yours sincerely,

Andy Furey                                                                  Dave Ward
A/Deputy General Secretary (Postal)                 General Secretary 

23LTB221 Union Release Audit

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We talk through the progress made this week on the Attendance Procedure negotiations with Andy Furey and Carl Maden.

Please share the contents of this podcast with all members.

https://spotify.link/QZMoqsLywCb

ORGANISING AND RECRUITMENT – BUILDING THE UNION

Attached to this LTB is a letter we would ask you to use to engage every new entrant. It is crucial that we ensure every new employee joins the CWU.

The letter should be handed to new entrants, but CWU representatives should also use the arguments within it to encourage employees to join the union face to face as well.

We fully understand the pressure local branches are under at this point in time, but we need this work to be a priority in order to maintain our traditional workplace strength.

Alongside the above activity, Branches will be provided with as much information as possible from the postal department to:

• Assist you in producing Branch plans to recruit new entrants.
• Provide recruitment materials and joining forms (if needed).
• Ensure that recruitment is an agenda item at every branch, regional and divisional meeting.
• Map all workplaces.

Nationally we will be supporting this with a full communications plan. We will also be developing messaging to target long term employees who are not at this juncture members of the CWU. We will also be working on materials for business units and grades across Royal Mail Group.

All this work is an immediate intervention aimed at recruiting new entrants and building membership density across Royal Mail Group.

Additionally, the NEC and our Industrial Executives are urgently reviewing our overall recruitment strategy considering the impact of the pandemic, GROW campaign and industry defining disputes. Branches will have the opportunity to input into this review.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Yours sincerely

Dave Ward                                          Andy Furey
General Secretary                           A/Deputy General Secretary (Postal)

23LTB220 ORGANISING AND RECRUITMENT BUILDING THE UNION

07023 – New entrants letter

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BUSINESS RECOVERY, TRANSFORMATION & GROWTH AGREEMENT – SECTION 5

JOINT STATEMENT BETWEEN ROYAL MAIL GROUP AND THE CWU COVERING THE DEPLOYMENT OF PARCELFORCE RURAL PARCEL VOLUMES INTO ROYAL MAIL

Branches and representatives will be aware of the commitments contained in the Business Transformation, Recovery and Growth agreement: Section 5 – Establishing an Optimised Single Parcel Network for Larger Parcels and Section 1.6 of the Parcelforce Appendix 3, moving volume in geographical areas on to a single network (rural areas).

In this regard agreed trial activity has taken place involving the movement of rural parcel traffic from PFW Leeds LD to Skipton DO for delivery to support assessment for a potential future Optimised Single Parcel Network.  Further to a successful outcome of the abovementioned trial, Royal Mail now wish to assess the potential for a further 41 Delivery Offices to deliver PFW items, with the aim to move these volumes before the 2023 peak period.

Discussions have therefore taken place with the business and a Joint Statement has been concluded and endorsed by the Postal Executive to enable the activity to take place, a copy of which is attached for your information.

To make deployment more manageable and to enable any operational or people issues to be addressed during the planning period, the activity is being planned in 5 Waves.  The attached Joint Statement provides detail of the 41 RM Delivery Offices and related PFW local depots involved.

There will be a ‘means test’ performed at the Delivery Offices involved in the activity to ensure that they have the capability to undertake the PFW work to the required standards.  Details of the elements covered are contained in the attached Joint Statement.  Colleagues will note that it has been accepted that it is likely that the ‘means test’ will identify that not all of the 41 Delivery Offices will be suitable to perform the PFW work.  Where this is the case then further National discussions will take place to review or agree alternative Delivery Offices within the catchment area.

CWU representatives will be fully involved in the activity with appropriate Union release time provided to ensure meaningful involvement.  The activity will be further supported by the CWU Area Delivery Representative and Area H&S Representative and Parcelforce Regional Organiser.

Each Delivery Office and local Depot can be deployed independently.  No deployment will commence earlier than w/c 4^th September 2023 and all 5 waves will be targeted to be completed by the end of October 2023.

Any impact on PFW and RM employees will be kept to a minimum wherever possible and will be managed in line with National agreements.  PFW Drivers displaced as a result of the transfer of work to Royal Mail will migrate to vacant alternative substantive C&D routes, or routes covered by Owner Drivers or external resource.  All headcount reduction will be achieved in line with paragraph 3.1.9 of the Job Security section of the Business Recovery, Transformation and Growth Agreement.  Full cognisance will be taken of current earning levels that the affected individuals have signed for, as part of recent Parcelforce revision activity.  Best efforts will be made to match individuals against an alternative C&D duty of equivalent duty hours.

Adjustments will be made to affected Royal Mail Delivery duties to ensure that the PFW workload can be accommodated within current structures, while retaining manageable workload.

The RM Delivery Offices and PFW Local Depots will need to ensure that the solution developed is focussed on delivering QofS for PFW parcels.  RM DO’s will receive the relevant WIPWH (Weighted Items Per Work Hour) workload values relating to delivery and collection of PFW volumes.

PFW Depot, Regional Distribution and Mail Centre will coordinate, support and distribute parcels to the Delivery Office efficiently including the handling, loading, unloading of Yorks and non-Yorkable items.

The usual provisions have been made in respect of H&S responsibilities.

A PIR will take place following the deployment of all 5 Waves.  However, if any major issues are flagged up during or after the deployment, all parties are committed to resolving them in a timely manner, rather than waiting for the PIR to take any corrective action required.

The outputs and learning points from the PIR will inform National discussions on the next phase of deployments into another 54 Delivery Offices, which have been identified for the transfer of rural workload.  Planning work will progress in parallel with the first phase of transfers so that agreed deployment can commence in January 2024 for completion by the end of March 2024.  Joint activity will also review opportunities to migrate Royal Mail large parcel workload into Parcelforce, where this delivers economic and operational benefits.

Arrangements are currently being finalised for a virtual joint launch meeting to take place with the representatives at the sites involved in the activity and an invite to participate will be sent to those individuals in due course.

Any enquiries in relation to this LTB should be addressed to:

PFW & MCs and Distribution: Davie Robertson, Assistant Secretary, email: dwyatt@cwu.org quoting reference: 054.13.

Delivery Offices: Mark Baulch, Assistant Secretary, email: njones@cwu.org quoting reference: 580.

Yours sincerely,

Davie Robertson                                                                   Mick Kavanagh
Assistant Secretary                                                                 Acting Assistant Secretary

219-23 BRTG Section 5 – Deployment PFW Rural Parcel Volumes into RM 23.08.23

JS Deployment of PFW Rural Parcel Volumes into RM 23.08.23

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CWU REPS BRIEFING

ISSUE 2: UPDATE ON TALKS WITH ROYAL MAIL GROUP

TO ALL CWU REPS

Following on from Issue 1 of the CWU Reps Briefing we are now able to give an update on discussions that have been taking place with the employer on a range of issues.

We ask that you share the information within this briefing with all members.

ATTENDANCE PROCEDURE

We are pleased to report that significant progress has been made that removes Royal Mail Group’s executive action and two joint statements have been issued. Full details were shared via LTBs 215 and 216 and the CWU has secured:

• An improved migration process from the old standards to the new – benefitting thousands of CWU members.
• A delay in the implementation of the statutory sick pay arrangements until October 1st (originally August 1st).
• The right to appeal and have CWU representative at those appeals for AR1 and AR2 warnings.
• Ongoing discussions and reviews of the policy through the national joint working groups.
• A commitment from Royal Mail to negotiate a new Collective Agreement by the end of September.

Briefings on the changes will now be prepared for all CWU representatives.

MAIL CENTRE SURPLUSES

The discussions on surpluses have been ongoing and are now at a crucial stage. We have made progress and further talks are scheduled this week. We fully recognise the urgency of the situation for the members involved and have made this clear to Royal Mail. We will report further developments as soon as we have them.

BUSINESS RECOVERY, TRANSFORMATION AND GROWTH AGREEMENT

Quality of Service across the UK is at its worst level ever. Nothing will change until Royal Mail stop attacking their best asset – the workers. You feel it in the offices every day, the media cover it constantly, customers cannot rely on Royal Mail anymore and mass reputational damage is being done to the company.

Long term staff are leaving, new entrants are walking straight out of the door and the industry is rife with agency staff. If Royal Mail are to survive then now must be the turning point. Please be assured that we continue to raise these issues at the highest level of the business.

The company have indicated to us that they would like to jointly engage the regulator to discuss USO compliance and initial discussions have taken place between us and Royal Mail Group. At this point there is nothing significant to report other than the CWU will ensure all members input into our strategy in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we would urge members to ignore any rumours on this subject. If there are any developments, we will report them to you straight away. Be assured though – we are not in the market for letting Royal Mail off the hook on quality and USO compliance. Any discussions on the future of the USO will be fully in line with the agreement i.e. what is the best way to secure its future, whilst also recognising the need to develop our joint project on expanding the role of postal workers.

NATIONAL BRIEFING

An online briefing was held on 21st August This briefing updated your Branches on the issues above as well as recruitment and the Lord Falconer Independent Review. We have asked Branches to update you locally.

YOUR ROLE AS CWU REPRESENTATIVES

As with issue 1 of the briefing we ask that you share this information with your members in person, via office WhatsApp groups and social media pages.

Representatives should also be prepared for your Branch to commence intensive recruitment activity in the coming weeks aimed at targeting new entrants to the business. We would encourage you to pick this up in the workplace with immediate effect so we can hit the ground running.

Resources and materials will be available to support this later in the week

RM Property & Facilities Solutions Limited (PFSL) & CWU Joint Statement On The Cleaners Incentive Scheme

Branches and members will recall that the Royal Mail Property & Facilities Solutions Limited (RMPFSL) & CWU National Joint Statement Covering Pay and Associated Issues – 2022/23 & 2023/24, as detailed in LTB 044/23 (Letter To Branches) included a joint commitment to develop a one-off incentive scheme for cleaners.

Whilst initial progress was made in terms of concluding the full and final details for the scheme following the memberships endorsement of the Pay and Associated Issues Agreement, this stalled recently as a result of secondary trigger points sought by RMPFSL to its profit targets. Subsequently, and to seek to move the matter forward, both parties agreed to independent arbitration facilitated by ACAS.

Following this arbitration, we are now able to confirm that a Joint Statement has been agreed on the full details of the Incentive Scheme and which have now been endorsed by the Postal Executive. These details of the scheme are set out in the attached Royal Mail Property & Facilities Solutions Limited (PFSL) & CWU Joint Statement on the Cleaners Incentive Scheme 2023/2024.

Whilst the scheme is self-explanatory, it is confirmed that these finalised aspects and aims of the bonus scheme remain as initially set out, which are: –

• The scheme will be worth up to 2% of base pay in total (pro-rata for part-time workers)
• The scheme is based on two possible 1% payments during the year period of 2023 to 2024 (planned payment dates of December 2023 and June 2024)
• That the scheme is based on achieving objectives linked to increasing waste recycling

However, during the ACAS process, both parties did agree to amend the target points and whilst the scheme is linked to RMPFSL’s ‘cleaning’ profit targets, which is the self-funded aspect, more importantly, both parties further agreed to amend the recycling trigger points based on two overall scenarios.  This also includes bonus payments being generated in full or part and against lower overall recycling levels. This in summary moves the scheme away from being a ‘pass or fail’ process to one which offers more opportunities to generate bonus payments.

Alongside this Joint Statement and the ongoing monthly reviews which will take place to monitor the scheme’s progress, the CWU and RMPFSL have agreed to undertake further joint communications among members on the nature and recycling target mechanism for the incentive scheme.

The conclusion of this Joint Statement and the establishment of this incentive scheme for cleaners, is a further aspect of the Pay and Associated Issues Agreement and Branches, Representatives, and members will be kept informed of ongoing progress in terms of the bonus scheme.

Any queries to the content of the above please contact the Outdoor Department reference 120.12, email address: njones@cwu.org

Yours sincerely,

Mick Kavanagh
Acting CWU Assistant Secretary

LTB 218-23 – RMPFSL Joint Satement on the Cleaners Incentive Scheme

RMPFSL and CWU Joint Statement on the Cleaners Incentive Scheme 2023 2024

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