POST OFFICE: COVID-19 – RECOGNITION: EXTRA DAY’S ANNUAL LEAVE

Branches will be aware Royal Mail is to make a one-off £200 payment with June salaries to our RM members in recognition of their efforts in continuing to maintain services across the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following Royal Mail’s announcement on 15th May, we immediately took the initiative to write to the Post Office to propose a similar recognition payment for our Post Office members who have helped to keep the nation’s Post Offices open. We made this claim as all of our members are key workers and deserve to be fully recognised for the hard work and effort they have been putting in on the front line to deliver essential services under exceptionally difficult circumstances.

Nick Read, CEO, responded negatively to our proposal, as he claimed it would be “cost prohibitive”. It should be noted that the £58m out of court settlement arrived at last December in regards to the Group Litigation Order for the Horizon scandal was conveniently and completely airbrushed out of the narrative within Nick Read’s rejection letter.

However, the Post Office seemingly had a mild change of heart with regards to recognition per se as during Nick Read’s regular video update to employees of 10th June (referred to as the “10@10”) he announced that all Post Office employees would receive an extra day’s annual leave. This position was confirmed by Steve O’Reilly, People Director, Business Partnering, in his “One Update” communication of 10th June in which he stated:

“We felt it was the right thing to do to mark this day as an occasion, and so we’ve chosen Friday 31st July as the designated day for this extra day of leave, as far as this is operationally feasible. Just as we would as if this were a traditional Bank Holiday, we will need to make this work across all our operations to protect the services we provide for our customers and postmasters, and so we’re now going to be working through local arrangements to enable as many of our people to be able to take this precise day of leave as we can.”

Our members, on learning about this “recognition” were naturally unimpressed and underwhelmed by this tokenistic gesture in comparison to a meaningful reward.

Indeed many have commented on social media about how insulted they feel. We believe the extra day’s annual leave is a poor substitute for a tangible monetary payment. Notwithstanding this position, we wanted to ensure the arrangements for taking the extra day’s annual leave were transparent and fairly and consistently applied for all members. As a consequence, we held discussions with the Post Office to agree the practicalities and logistics of our members taking the day’s extra leave and the attached Joint Statements to support our position (one for Crown Offices and one for Supply Chain) have now been published.

Crown Office (Directly Managed Branches) Arrangements

Crown Offices will remain open on Friday 31st July as they provide an essential service to customers. The arrangements to take the extra day off are as follows:

• Members will be able to select their extra day off in lieu anytime between the period of Monday 20th July and Saturday 5th September inclusive
• The key principle being a full attendance will be given as a day’s leave with no claw back of hours for all (including part-timers)
• Those on annual leave, maternity leave, sick leave, paid special leave or a rest day on 31st July will also be credited with an extra day’s annual leave (ideally to be taken within the time frame above where possible).

Supply Chain Arrangements

All Cash Centres, Swindon stock operations and the majority of CViT Depots will be closed on 31st July, enabling the vast majority of Supply Chain members to take this day off as annual leave. There will be a skeleton operation working in some CViT Depots in order to service High Value Mail contracts on behalf of Royal Mail and at the cash management team in Bristol. For those members working on 31st July, the arrangements outlined above for Crown Offices equally apply. In addition:

• No-one will be financially disadvantaged for taking the extra day’s annual leave either on 31st July or on an alternative date. This includes payment for any Scheduled Attendance due to be worked on that day.

Obviously, for all members, work-life balance is important and nobody is going to refuse an extra day’s annual leave, especially during the peak summer period. It is though evident that the Post Office has come up with this idea for an extra day’s annual leave on a cost neutral basis as local managers will be expected where possible to absorb it into the normal operation with the emphasis on no additional costs.

Whilst our members remain disappointed the Post Office felt unable to match the £200 recognition payment in Royal Mail, we felt it necessary to ensure a fair and reasonable application of the extra day’s annual leave by agreeing a sensible approach with Management. Early indications are that members are grateful for the clarity the Joint Statements have provided.

Yours sincerely,

Andy Furey 
Assistant Secretary

LTB 332/20 – Post Office – Covid-19 – Recognition – Extra Day’s Annual Leave
Attachment 1 to LTB 332/20 Joint Statement Crown Offices
Attachment 2 to LTB 332/20 Joint Statement Supply Chain

DGSP Terry Pullinger on Sky News. Please share as widely as possible.

Royal Mail & CWU National Joint Statement – Consumer Collections Training Plan

Dear Colleagues,

Branches will be aware of the fact that the highly competitive parcels market continues to grow with customers demanding more from Royal Mail in terms of extra features on the parcels that are carried.

There is a demand from online retailers to have a returns collection offering for their customers. There is also a demand from consumers and marketplace sellers for home collection of outbound parcels – these are prepaid parcels where postage is purchased on-line. This growth in the market is being targeted by competitors. For Royal Mail to compete in the parcels market there is a need to provide a doorstep collection service for customers.

Customers will be able to book a collection on the Tracked Returns Portal; via retailer’s websites; on the Click & Drop shipping system; or on Royal Mail’s app. These items will be collected by the frontline colleagues who are in the vicinity or attending sites for deliveries. The service will be limited to no more than 5 addresses per day/delivery route Mon – Saturday, and items restricted to max 20kg and also size.

There will be further National discussions in regards to the exact operational details of this service taking place with Royal Mail and these aspects will be set out in a further National Joint Statement. The envisaged timescales in terms of the pilot launch of the service is currently being planned for the back end of the Summer/Autumn, however this aspect will also be subject to further discussion and will depend on the current situation in respect of Covid-19 at that time, along with any technical issues being resolved.

However, due to the current situation with Coronavirus it is important Royal Mail commences frontline training in early July to allow for the extended duration of this taking into account social distancing and to ensure that our members are kept safe. The CWU has had full input into the training materials and local CWU reps will also be fully involved with the rollout, the plan is as follows:

• Work Place Coach (WPC) training sessions planned to commence on 6th July and finish by the 7th August 2020.
• WPCs to cascade training to frontline colleagues from 13th July and conclude by 9th October 2020.Training materials consist of – WPC training pack, pocket guides, RMTV “on demand” videos, “how to” deployment guides, frontline operational brief (WTLL) including ‘What to do if’ posters.

Further National Discussions to jointly review learning from the deployment of previous projects such as Age & ID Verification and Inflight Phase 1 to inform the pilot and national deployment of Consumer Collections. This will inform a further National Joint Statement which will set out the approach to pilots, national rollout including the agreed timescales, operational aspects and working arrangements.

Any queries to the content of the above please contact the Outdoor Department reference 600, email address:outdoorsecretary@cwu.org

Yours sincerely,

Mark Baulch

CWU Assistant Secretary

LTB 331/20 – JS for National Consumer Collections Training Plan
JS – Consumer Collections – Training Plan 24.06.20

SOS – Save Our Stan! Appeal

Please find attached an appeal that is currently going on throughout the city of Carlisle for a young boy called Stanley.  Stanley is the son and grandson of two of our members and as you will see they face a daunting task of raising £500,000 for his treatment which is outside of the UK.

Georgia Brecken is Stanley’s mother, a member in Carlisle MC she is currently on a career break to look after her son and her dad Thomas Brecken is also a member in Carlise MC.

I have attached to this LTB the statement from Georgia and Lee which has gone out on social media.  I am sure you can appreciate the immense task this family face in achieving the 500k, so anything you can do to assist would be appreciated. 

If branches would like to make a donation to the SOS – Save Our Stan appeal, please make them payable to the CWU North Lancs and Cumbria Branch using the reference Saveourstan and they will forward them directly to the appeal, the bank details are listed below:
 

CWU North Lancs and Cumbria Branch

Account number:  34000872   

Sort code: 60-83-01  

Reference: Saveourstan

Any enquiries on the above should be sent to the gsoffice@cwu.org.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Ward                                                                                         

General Secretary

LTB 330/20 – SOS Save Our Stan! Appeal

SOS – Save Our Stan

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Coronavirus Update – Changes are coming to the coronavirus policy approach, Reminder – Social surcharges process recommences

23 June 2020

Changes are coming to the coronavirus policy approach

Over the last few weeks we have started to see changes as the Government’s recovery strategy unfolds. We have completed the latest policy review in this context and over the coming weeks we expect to see changes to the policy approaches we have taken.

Our current policy approach and changes are outlined below. We expect the changes to take place from 1^st August, however we will review if public health advice changes.

Sick Pay – employees with less than a year’s service

·        In response to coronavirus and supporting our employees, we temporarily changed the sick pay for employees with less than a year’s service.  Where the absence is related to coronavirus, these employees will receive the same sick pay as employees with over a year’s service.

·        This will be in place until end of July 2020. Our current expectation is that our normal approach to sick pay will apply for employees with less than a year’s service from 1^st August 2020.

Furlough

·        For those colleagues with a Furlough agreement as they are unable to come to work for public health reasons (“shielding self” or “shielding others”). The furlough period will be extended until end of July 2020 providing employees have resubmitted appropriate evidence of the need to continue to “shield”.  After end of July, we anticipate that our approach to furlough will change which is consistent with the Government’s announcement. Colleagues on furlough will be contacted individually.

Colleagues looking after dependant

·        Where a colleague has to look after a dependant, such as a child, our normal approach applies. Colleagues can work flexibly, take holiday or unpaid time off. There are a range of options that can be considered, for example working on a different shift or day, or at a different time. They should discuss and agree with their manager.

Rowland Hill Fund

·        We have provided additional monies to the Rowland Hill Fund in order to give short-term support for our employees. The aim is to help employees who are experiencing financial difficulties as a result of covid-19.

o   Employees can apply by sending an email to rhfhelpline@royalmail.com with their name, pay number and contact telephone number.  An advisor will contact them within 24 hours to discuss their situation with them and whether help is available at this time.

Reminder – Social surcharges process recommences

At the start of the pandemic, we made the decision to stop raising social surcharge fees. This temporary measure was put in place to align with safety measures and government advice, reducing customer visits to our Customer Service Points (CSPs).

Based on changes to government and health guidelines, and safety measures put in place within CSPs, social surcharges resumed from Monday 22 June 2020. This means Processing & Collections colleagues can again extract all items that are underpaid and pass to RP for surcharging. Delivery offices and their Customer Service Points will now start to receive surcharged items.

Customs charge fees have continued to be collected, however customers have been signposted to pay online and book a redelivery of Customs Charge items. This was done by providing CSPs with labels to be placed over the opening hours on the FeetoPay cards. The label contained a message which informed customers to stay home, pay online, collect only if essential and check latest opening hours online or via the RM app. This process should now also be applied to the social surcharge items handled in CSPs.

Download the app

To download the employee app – designed especially for colleagues – visit www.myroyalmail.com/app on your mobile device and follow the instructions. 

The latest version of the coronavirus Q&As is available via the SHE intranet page and on myroyalmail.com/coronavirus. 

There is also a dedicated Coronavirus helpline for managers on 0345 604 3657 and you can send an email to coronavirus.support@royalmail.com.  

Group Communications

RM/CWU – Covid-19 Expansion of Additional Priority Postbox Test Kit Collections

Dear Colleagues,

As previously advised in LTB 251/20 there have been several different Government lead initiatives in regards to Individual Covid -19 Testing services. We have concluded a National Joint Statement with Royal Mail which is a further expansion of the NHS Self testing service from pillar box collections. Due to timescales and circumstances beyond our control it is fairly urgent that representatives in conjunction with the laid down JWG process enter into discussions with local management in order to ensure that the process is carried out in line with those outlined.

The National Joint Statement covers the extension of pillar boxes for the home self-test kits to be collected, from c13,000 to c34,000 priority and identified pillar boxes Monday to Saturday, with further discussion and agreement necessary for any later collections being performed on a Saturday than those currently. The extended list of pillar boxes is attached; however please note these are subject to change.

The National Joint Statement is in similar regard to those that have been communicated to Branches previously in relation to this issue, and includes the necessary safeguards in terms of the appropriate SSOW, full CWU involvement and JWG activity, building on joint pilot activity that has taken place in London and the South Midlands catchment areas that has concentrated in ensuring that the correct standard operating procedures and SSOW are followed in order to improve the process.

Once again the nature of the requested service and pace of change ahead with this is being created is being set by HM Government. The CWU has made representations on the perceived lack of any consistent approach to the whole issue of CV-19 self-testing etc. which is making the operational aspects of the various initiatives linked to this service extremely difficult to deal with whilst also creating understandable confusion.

Accordingly, both departments offer our apologies for the short notice of these changes but once again we have been placed in this invidious position by HM Government at the last minute.

Any queries to the content of the above please contact the Outdoor Department reference 600 email address: outdoorsecretary@cwu.org.

Processing, Area & Distribution: Davie Robertson, Assistant Secretary, email: dwyatt@cwu.org quoting reference: 014.14.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Baulch – CWU Assistant Secretary

Davie Robertson – CWU Assistant Secretary 

LTB 329-20 Expansion of Additional Priority Postbox Test Kit Collectionse

JS – Covid-19 Expansion of Additional Priority Postbox Test Kit Collections

Affixing Priority Post Box label – handout_v1.4COVID 19_priority post boxes_Operational Brief_v1.3Copy of Priority Boxes as at Mon 22nd June – basic listing

COVID Priority Post Box Collection_FAQs

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STATE PENSION – TRIPLE LOCK – LETTER TO MP’s

As you will be aware it is the policy of the CWU, developed through the Retired Members Committee the Retired Members Conference and CWU General Conference to support and campaign for the retention of what is called the Triple Lock on the state pension.

The Triple Lock is the mechanism that guarantees the state pension will not lose its value in real terms, and that it would increase at least in line with inflation.  In order to make this guarantee secure, it includes three separate measures of inflation and this is where the term “triple lock” comes from.  The way it operates in practice is that each year the state pension would increase by the greatest of the following three measures:

• Average earnings
• Prices, as measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI)
• 2.5 per cent

This is extremely important for pensioners, as it guarantees that the state pension increases over time thus preserving its value in real terms against price increases.  As we know retirement can be a period of 25 years or even more, and over such a length of time prices can increase dramatically.  For example, 25 years ago a litre of petrol cost only around 50 pence.  Having this guarantee then is extremely important and especially so when you consider the low size of the UK state pension (only £9,110.40 a year in 2020/21).

There has been an increasing amount of speculation recently on the future of the triple lock.  This has arisen, seemingly, over a debate around how “the country” as it’s being termed, is going to pay for the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Various reports in the media have clearly suggested that the Government would or is considering ending the use of the triple lock mechanism.

It has been widely reported in the press and media that despite the Conservative Manifesto pledging its continuation and also recent pronouncements by the Prime Minster to the same the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak is now actively considering removing the triple lock protection.

Cleary this is a move we would oppose and we will be raising this with the Labour Party as part of our political campaigning work.

However, the pensioner vote in UK elections is a sizeable constituency and we would like as many of our members, retired or otherwise to write to their MP asking them to defend the triple lock.

Attached to this LTB is a template letter that we would ask Branches to circulate as widely as possible to all members asking them to send to their MP, whatever political party they belong to, to seek their support to defending the triple lock.

We cannot allow the government to begin to make vulnerable sections of our society pay what would be a heavy price as they look to address failings in the economy.

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,

Dave Ward – General Secretary

Tony Kearns – Senior Deputy General Secretary

20LTB328

Suggested Draft Letter Template

ROYAL MAIL: FINANCE SERVICES & HR SERVICES – ANNUAL BONUS SCHEMES 2019/20 – PAYMENT IN JUNE SALARIES

I am now able to report that for our members in both Finance Services and HR Services Royal Mail has made the decision to pay 50% of the maximum 2019/20 bonus potentially available. For CWU members in Finance Services this amounts to £500 and for members in HR Services £375. These payments, which are pro-rata for part-timers, will be made with June salaries (a month earlier than last year).

These bonus payments are being announced in advance of Royal Mail’s publication of their financial accounts which is planned for Thursday 25th June. Accordingly, I am pleased that Royal Mail has recognised the hard work and commitment demonstrated by our members both during 2019/20 and over the exceptionally challenging last three months.

Obviously, it is only natural for members to want a better bonus. However, in the prevailing circumstances, and in particular the Covid-19 pandemic and the inevitable impact on finances, this is a reasonable outcome. Crucially it is also an improvement on last year’s payment which was only a discretionary 30% of bonus potential due to the EBITDAS targets not being met.

If you have any questions in relation to this LTB, please contact Lea Sheridan – lsheridan@cwu.org.

Yours sincerely

Andy Furey 

Assistant Secretary

20LTB327 Royal Mail – Finance Services & HR Services – Annual Bonus Schemes 2019-20 – Payment in June Salaries