New HSE Chief Executive Officer Appointed:

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the Safety regulator for England, Scotland and Wales has announced the appointment of its new Chief Executive Officer‎ – Sarah Albon.

Sarah Albon is the current Chief Executive Officer of the Insolvency Service and will join the HSE organisation on 1 September.

Sarah Albon joined The Insolvency Service in February 2015, and was tasked with implementing its strategy to improve service to its customers, lower its costs, and strengthen the UK’s insolvency regime.

She replaces Richard Judge who resigned on 17 August 2018 after 4 years in charge. Judge himself was a former CEO at the Insolvency Service before moving to the HSE.

An interesting connection here is the fact that the HSE has to waive or abandon intervention fees charged to around a thousand insolvent companies each year costing the HSE around £1.5 Million.

During Judge’s period of tenure and that of his predecessor Geoffrey Podger the HSE’s funding allocation from central Government has shrunk year on year for the last decade‎ under anti-health and safety Governments. Unsurprisingly HSE proactive inspections of workplaces declined as did prosecutions and convictions.

After her appointment announcement Sarah Albon issued a statement to the effect that she was honoured to be given the opportunity to lead the HSE which is an important and hugely respected regulator and was looking forward to working with her new team of colleagues across HSE which has a vital role to deliver on behalf of Great Britain’s workplaces. Her aims will be to focus on continuing to deliver improvements in health and safety performance as Britain’s workplaces move into a future with new challenges and new technologies.

‎Prior to her role at the insolvency service Sarah Albon had previous roles in Government including director of strategy and change at Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service, director of civil family and legal aid policy at the Ministry of Justice, deputy director of criminal legal aid strategy, Ministry of Justice and has also served as principal private secretary to two Lord Chancellors.

The position of the CWU is clear and has been set out in Conference Policy decisions. The CWU wants to see a positive change in direction from the HSE with increased inspector resources, a greater emphasis on inspections, investigations and prosecutions against those employers who fail to comply and meet basic health and safety standards, putting workers in danger of injury, ill-health or death.

Yours sincerely

Dave Joyce
National Health, Safety & Environment Officer

19LTB414 New HSE Chief Executive Officer Appointed

Postal Industrial Conference 2019 – Motion 81

Reproduced below for the information of Branches are the terms of Motion 81 which was carried at the Postal Industrial Conference 2019.

CATEGORY A: COMPOSITE MOTION

Conference notes that despite a membership recruitment bounce resulting from the Four Pillars industrial action ballot there are still over 15,000 non CWU members out of the 128,982 workforce employed across RM group.

Conference further notes that the T&FS section of the CWU held a two-day organising / recruitment forum in Birmingham on 26th / 27th Feb to discuss their strategy for recruitment in the Telecommunications sector.

Therefore, the Postal Executive is instructed to produce a report/strategy on how it intends to recruit some of these 15,000 plus non-CWU members into the CWU.
In order to tackle this issue, there needs to be Postal Executive, Divisional, Area, Branch and Unit Rep co-ordination and involvement to achieve this aim.

The report, along with its recommendations, should be produced within 3 months of this Conference and suitable national / Divisional meetings should be set up to discuss on how the report is to be deployed.

The Postal Executive is instructed accordingly.

The aim of this LTB is to update Branches on the initial activity the DGS(P) Department has been undertaking in order to progress the terms of the Motion. This activity has centered primarily on maximising the number of branches attending the Welcome to Royal Mail (WtRM) sessions.

By way of background, Branches are informed via an email from Royal Mail two weeks prior to any sessions taking place with a further reminder being provided a week before. The information provided also contains the date, location and the room the WtRM meeting is being held in. The CWU session has a fixed timeslot of 11am.

At the Postal Executive meeting held on 2nd July 2019, the analysis of the WtRM meetings that have taken place so far in 2019 (January-May) revealed the lost opportunity of recruiting a potential 950 new members due to CWU Representatives not attending these sessions. Therefore it is clear that the initial activity must be to close this gap.

Consequently the DGS(P) Department, in conjunction with Lynn Browne, Postal Department Senior Organiser, are developing a more robust system to ensure that we maximise Branch/Representative attendance at these sessions. Information relating to this will be circulated to Branches on an individual basis once the work on the new system has been completed.

I am sure that colleagues will recognise the importance of addressing the current shortfall in our new entrant recruitment process and that this initial activity will help us to develop the wider strategy detailed in Motion 81. In the meantime, I am sure Branches/Colleagues will make every effort to ensure that the WtRM sessions are attended by an appropriate CWU Representative.

Further information on the wider strategy will be circulated to Branches in due course.

Any enquiries in relation to the content of this LTB should be addressed to the DGS(P) Department.

Yours sincerely,

Terry Pullinger
Deputy General Secretary Postal

19LTB408 – Postal Industrial Conference 2019 – Motion 81

NEC, Industrial Executive & Regional Secretary Elections 2019 – Dispatch of Ballot Papers

In accordance with respective election regulations the ballots papers for the above national and regional elections are due to be posted to members from 2^nd July 2019.

The purpose of this LTB is to advise branches that we have received notification from ERS that the ballot papers will now be dispatched from 3^rd July 2019.  This is due to the high level of printing involved in the production of the election material.

A further LTB will be sent out once we have received notification from ERS that the dispatch of ballot papers has been completed.

I would also take this opportunity to advise that the method of posting is Economy Postage.

Election Count/Members Observer

Branches will be aware that it is the policy of the CWU to invite union members to observe the election count at the offices of ERS in London.

The count takes place on 24^th July 2019 and accordingly we would ask that you publicise this to your members. Members wishing to apply must not hold an elected or appointed position in the CWU. 

The two observers will receive two paid days off work, subsistence and expenses and a fee of £100 after tax.

If any members of your branch wish to apply then please ask them to forward their details to Tony Kearns, Senior Deputy General Secretary, CWU, 150 The Broadway, Wimbledon, London SW19 1RX (by no later than 12^th July 2019) or email sdgs@cwu.org

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

19LTB405

JOINT STATEMENT BETWEEN ROYAL MAIL AREA DISTRIBUTION AND THE CWU – PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS DIGITAL TACHOGRAPH CARD DOWNLOAD FREQUENCY

Branches and representatives will be aware of the Joint Statement between Royal Mail Logistics and the CWU – Professional Drivers Digital Tachograph Card Download Frequency, which was applicable in Network and received endorsement from the Postal Executive (LTB 318/19refers). 

Following further discussions with the business it has now been agreed that the same arrangements in relation to tachograph download frequency will also be applied for Area Distribution Professional Drivers.

Therefore attached for your information is a further Joint Statement, endorsed by the Postal Executive, which deals specifically with the policy in Area Distribution.

Colleagues will note that the attached is identical to that agreed for the Logistics Network Professional Drivers, with the exception of the change of title and the Area Distribution Joint Working Group having responsibility for reviewing the activity.

The new policy will be introduced from 8th July 2019 and further communications will be sent out via Area Distribution comms and shared with the ADC’s to assist with the change of policy. 

Any enquiries in relation to this LTB should be addressed to Davie Robertson, Assistant Secretary, email: dwyatt@cwu.org or shayman@cwu.org quoting reference number: 518.02.

Davie Robertson

Assistant Secretary

19LTB402

JS Professional Driver Digital Tachograph Download Fequency Area Distribution 01.07.19

KELLY MARY FAUVRELLE – CROYDON POSTWOMAN MURDERED AT THE WEEKEND

I am writing to advise Branches of the tragic news that the story covered in the media at the weekend, of a pregnant woman who was horrifically murdered, was Kelly Mary Fauvrelle, a postwoman and CWU member from Croydon Delivery Office.

Kelly leaves behind a baby fighting for its life, a family utterly devastated and friends and colleagues at work who are in total shock.

The union will do everything possible to help Kelly’s family and our members during this period and we are liaising with the local Branch on this.

Yet another tragic loss of innocent life is sickening.  It is clear that the gang culture and environment across the UK, but particularly in London, has reached a level where it just cannot go on.  The CWU is calling for an immediate reversal of police cuts in London and the UK as an absolute priority; and we will link up with other organisations to pressure the government and the Mayor to act now.

The streets are no longer safe and this is not a world we should be handing over to our children and grandchildren.

Finally, in conjunction with the CWU Croydon and Sutton Amal Branch, we will set up later today an appeal fund to support the family and further details on this will be sent out in due course.

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

Yours sincerely

Dave Ward

General Secretary

399-19 Kelly Mary Fauvrelle