CWU SPECIAL GENERAL CONFERENCE – 3RD/4TH NOVEMBER 2018

Online Registration

Branches will be aware that CWU HQ has had issues with our IT which has meant that the online registration was not available. This has now been rectified and Branch Secretaries can now register their delegates for the above conference using the password and username previously sent to them in the letter regarding their delegation size.

If you have any issues please do not hesitate to contact Angela Niven on conference@cwu.org who will deal with the enquiry as soon as possible.

Crèche Facilities

If any member of your delegation requires crèche facilities at the above conference they should contact Angela Niven on conferences@cwu.org for a crèche registration form as soon as possible and no later than Friday 21st September 2018.

We require this information as early as possible to ensure that arrangements can be made to provide the correct number of staff to look after the children.

Prayer Room

If a delegate requires a prayer room please send the name of the delegate to conferences@cwu.org as soon as possible in order that arrangements can be made.

Signer Requests

If a delegate attending the conference requires a signer please email conferences@cwu.org as soon as possible and no later than Friday 21st September 2018 stating the conference the delegate(s) will be attending. 

Seating

As in previous years seating will be done by allocation. If a member of your delegation requires an end of row seating due to disability/special needs then please Angela Niven on conferences@cwu.org as soon as possible stating the reason they require an end seat and no later than Friday 21st September 2018.

Any enquiries regarding this LTB should be addressed to Chris Tapper in the Senior Deputy General Secretary Department on telephone number 020 8971 7331 or email ctapper@cwu.org

Yours sincerely

 

Tony Kearns

Senior Deputy General Secretary

18LTB400 – CWU Special General Conference

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Royal Mail Group – Fire Safety Week 16 to 22 July 2018 – Launch of New Royal Mail Group Fire Safety Training Packages

Dear Colleagues,

Here are the final confirmed details of the 2018 Royal Mail Group, Fire Safety Week.

RMG Fire Safety Week is again being deployed this year with the full support of the CWU and will therefore have the full involvement of Area and Workplace Safety Representatives who should now be proactively making contact with PiCs (Persons in Charge) and Area Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) Advisors to plan support and involvement during the week. See attached RMG Royal Mail Property & Facilities Solutions/CWU Joint Statement.

CWU Safety Reps are entitled to be involved, consulted and to input in, Fire Risk Assessment Reviews, Fire Evacuation Plans, Fire Drills etc.

CWU support has been welcomed by the Royal Mail Group Property & Facilities Solutions National Fire Safety Manager, so please make it happen locally.

The purpose of Fire Safety Week is to raise or keep fire safety in focus and ensure fire safety is understood and supported throughout Royal Mail Group.

Royal Mail must carry out fire safety risk assessments for their premises and keep them up to date. This shares the same approach as health and safety risk assessments. Based on the findings of the assessments, Royal Mail needs to ensure that adequate and appropriate fire safety measures are in place to minimise the risk of injury or loss of life in the event of a fire. The assessments need to be reviewed and kept up to date.

The purpose of this year’s forthcoming 2018 campaign is to follow on from the 2017 campaign of raising awareness of the role and responsibilities of RMG Persons in Control (PiCs) who play an important role when it comes to managing fire safety within the areas under their control, with this year’s launch of the new Royal Mail Group Fire Safety Training e-learning and ‘Content on Demand’ plasma screen training Packages. These consist of:-

• Person in Charge (PiC) Fire Safety Training Package (20 Mins). This gives an interactive experience of potential situations in the workplace, giving the participant the ability to make decisions and see the outcome of those decisions.

• Fire Warden Fire Safety Training Package (20 Mins). This is similar to the PiC training package and is an e-learning package accessed via ‘success factors’ on the Royal Mail Group Intranet.

• All Staff Fire Safety Training Package (10 Mins). This training package is available via ‘Content on Demand’ on the Unit’s plasma screen TV.

NOTE: There is a ‘mandatory’ requirement for all staff to undertake Fire Safety Training appropriate to their level of responsibility (as above) e.g. PiC and Fire warden with ALL Staff undertaking the All Staff Fire Safety Training. This is to ensure RMG’s legal requirements are met and to ensure the workforce and visitors to the properties/offices are kept safe at all times. 

PiCs are required to complete the following key tasks:-

1 Undertake the new PiC Fire Safety Training.

2 Update and close out the Fire Risk Assessment Actions using the new Operational Fire Risk Assessment when rolled out in 6-8 weeks’ time.

3 Check Fire Evacuation Plans and Personal Evacuation Plans.

4 Ensure that all Fire Wardens and Employees have received their fire training.

5 Carry out a fire alarm evacuation exercise before the end of August.

NOTE: Where Unit Managers are not the nominated Person in Control (PiC), then it is the responsibility of the Unit Manager to ensure the PiC is aware of Fire Safety Week and support them with completion of the tasks required of them.

PiCs will involve and consult with CWU Area and Workplace Safety Reps about: –

• The New Fire Risk Register.

• New Operational Fire Risk Assessment (to be introduced in 6 to 8 weeks’ time when RMG has changed over to Windows 10).

• Proposals for improving fire safety.

• Informing and instructing staff on fire risks and precautions.

• Nomination of Fire Wardens.

• Any Fire related issues or risks identified which might affect the safety of the employees and proposed remedial action.

The Work Time Learning should be used to ensure the workforce understands their duties and responsibilities toward fire safety, for example: understand emergency evacuation procedures, good housekeeping or where unacceptable working practices have been identified.

Any non-RMG occupants e.g. Quadrant, external tenants should be briefed on any changes of a joint fire evacuation plan.

Attachments:

1 RMPFS Fire Safety Week WTLL.

2 RMG Fire Precautions Guide.

3 Fire Safety Good Practice Guide.

4 Fire Safety Check List.

5 RMG Induction to Fire safety.

6 RMG Fire Safety Week 2018 Joint Statement.

Raising Faults or Queries

Raise faults or queries by contacting the Property & Facilities Helpdesk on 0844 800 9191.

Fire Related Queries and Further Assistance

Any Fire related queries and further assistance can be obtained by email to: fire.safety@royalmail.com

Yours sincerely

Dave Joyce
National Health, Safety & Environment Officer

18LTB399 Royal Mail Group – Fire Safety Week 16 to 22 July 2018

WTLL Brief Fire Week 2018

Fire Precautions Guide Rev 2 0514

Fire Safety Good Practice Guide

Fire Safety Check List

Induction hand out notes V1 130213

RMG Fire Safety Week 2018 Joint Statement

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CWU Conference 2019

The date and venue for next year’s General and Industrial Conferences are as follows:

• Sunday 28th April – Thursday 2nd May 2019

Conferences will be held at the Bournemouth International Centre, Bournemouth.

Further details will be issued regarding the timetable, registration and submission of motions to the relevant conferences in due course.

Any enquiries regarding this Letter to Branches should be addressed to Chris Tapper in the Senior Deputy General Secretary Department on telephone number 020 8971 7331 or email ctapper@cwu.org

Yours sincerely,

Tony Kearns

Senior Deputy General Secretary

18LTB398 – CWU Conference 2019

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National Agreed Terms of Reference for the Trial of Parking Platforms

Dear Colleagues,

Some time ago Royal Mail Nationally approached the Union with a view to trialling a new initiative that would potentially alleviate some of the problems being experienced on delivery sites with regard to the parking of Official OMV’s, as well as cramped yards that create health & safety problems as a result.

In line with joint commitments in BT2010 and Agenda for Growth and Stability and the guiding principles national agreements, we have been exploring this initiative with the company, including on site demonstrations at external companies.

Key components of the joint approach and agenda going forward include reducing the cost of off-site vehicle parking – both in terms of the ongoing hire costs and the operational costs of operating with off-site parking. Providing on-site parking will support improving local employee relations as the aim of the parking platforms is to provide access to vehicles and loading facilities in a way that supports leaving the office without delay and waiting for these to be available. The platforms could also support relieving health and safety issues in cramped yards, where double-stacked parking could improve access, egress, parking and loading conditions.

With this objective in mind, Royal Mail Property and Facility Solutions have obtained funding to introduce parking platforms at three sites; North London (N18), (subject to planning permission), Southwark and Canterbury Delivery Offices. The platforms allow vehicles to be parked one above the other using a hydraulic platform to raise/lower one vehicle.

We have therefore agreed a terms of reference for the trial of parking platforms which has been endorsed by the Postal Executive. This document outlines the key areas of activity which will be jointly undertaken in order to evaluate if further roll out of this concept will be of benefit to Royal Mail delivery operations.

Prior to concluding the terms of reference regarding this initiative, this has been subject to confirmation and full involvement from the Health, Safety and Environment department along with Dave Joyce. The H, S&E department has also carried out joint visits and assessments at each of the three trial site locations and have confirmed that they are satisfied all of the concerns in regards to the issues which are pertinent to their department have been addressed, and more importantly that the commitment of further and full involvement during the course of the trial is in place.

The trial is for a period of 12 weeks and along with full CWU involvement, the introduction of the parking platforms will be subject to a P.I.R. at each of the sites involved. This will involve the project manager from Property & Facilities management, the project manager from operations, local management team from the sites involved and local/national CWU I.R. and H&S representatives as designated by the CWU.

It is not anticipated that there will be any changes necessary to the current agreed and existing duties within the sites and these effects will be minimal. Any issues that are raised during the trial and the P.I.R. will be addressed locally by the appropriate manager and CWU IR Representatives and will be subject to the use of the IR Framework.

All learning and good practice established as part of the initial deployment process will be captured and shared, so it can be used in any subsequent deployment. Any future expansion of this trial or roll out beyond the offices stated will be subject to further discussion and National agreement.

Any queries to the content of the above, please contact the Outdoor Department, reference: 300.02, email address: outdoorsecretary@cwu.org.

Yours sincerely,

 

Mark Baulch

Assistant Secretary

LTB 396.18 – National Agreed Terms of Reference for the Trial of Parking Platforms

CWU_RM Terms of Reference Covering the Trial of Parking Platforms

Royal Mail/Dimensions Uniform ‘Roadshow’ Workplace Visits

Dear Colleagues,

We have recently been advised by Royal Mail of its plans to hold a number of Uniform Roadshow events at various sites during July and August 2018.

These site visits, which are being undertaken jointly with Dimensions (Royal Mail’s uniform supplier), are planned to give individual members more information on uniform matters, including ‘how to self-order uniform’, ‘how to return unwanted items’ and the ‘process to follow for orders which are over the individual member’s uniform allocation’.

The workplaces due to be visited are:

• Rotherham DO – 11th July (07:00am-10:00am)

• South Midlands Mail Centre – 18th July (11:00am to 15:00pm)

• Preston CDO – 24th July (7:30am to 10:00am)

• North West RDC – 24th July (11:30am to 15:00pm)

• North London Workshop and Kentish Town DO – 31st July (06:00am-10:00am)

• Barnsley DO – 3rd August (6:00am to 10:00am)

• Lincoln DO – 10th August (6:30am to 10:00am)

Attached is a copy of the workplace poster which will be used to advertise the site visits locally.

We understand that if these workplace visits prove to be popular and successful, then further visits will be arranged in the future.

Whilst the details of this LTB are self-explanatory, any enquires should be directed to the Outdoor Department, reference: 500, email address: outdoorsecretary@cwu.org.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Baulch

CWU Assistant Secretary

LTB 395.18 – Royal Mail_Dimensions Uniform Roadshow Workplace Visits

RM Dimensions Visiting Poster

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New CWU Magazine Supplements 

In the most recent issue of The Voice we have launched two new sector magazines. These cover equalities which has gone to all members alongside the retired members pullout which landed with our retired membership.

We hope you enjoyed them and if you haven’t had the chance to take a look yet, here they both are to enjoy at your own leisure

Equalities supplement

Retired members supplement

#TheCWU 

CWU/RM – Joint Statement – Delivery Unit Checklist Update

Dear Colleagues,

Further to LTB 301/18 which contained the Resourcing and Quality Unit checklists, please find attached a Joint Statement agreed between Royal Mail and CWU in relation to an update on the exercise.

The purpose of this joint statement is to ask all CWU Representatives to maintain the effort and attention on closing down all of the actions which have been jointly agreed locally as quickly as possible. This will help to ensure that the Unit is operating in a consistent and standard way and adhering to the joint commitments that have been agreed between Royal Mail and CWU in National Agreements and Joint Statements.

Royal Mail will be issuing an overall summary position for each of their Delivery Leaders and their teams so that they in turn can brief their CWU Divisional Representatives through their normal joint engagement sessions and these can then be cascaded to the Operations Managers and CWU Area Representatives for their respective Units.

In addition, Royal Mail have confirmed that all managers can log back onto the share point site at any point in time to review the actions that have been agreed and a new button will be published on the sharepoint site to allow the system to indicate when the actions have been closed. Actions should only be shown as closed when both the manager and the local CWU rep agree that this is the case.

We would like to thank our Representatives for their attention in undertaking the exercise and for ensuring that the agreed action plans are also implemented in all Units in order to create the right environment and to also ensure each Unit is adhering to the relevant national agreements and standards.

Any queries to the content of the above, please contact the Outdoor Department, reference: 230.05, email address: outdoorsecretary@cwu.org.

Yours sincerely,

 

Mark Baulch

CWU Assistant Secretary

LTB 394.18 – CWU_RM – Joint Statement – Delivery Unit Checklist Update

Checklist Joint Statement

CWU/RM – Joint Statement Collections – Shorter Working Week Introduction October 2018

Dear Colleagues,

Branches and Representatives will be aware that contained within various sections of the 2018 Guiding Principles Agreement is reference to the reduction of the working week by one hour from October 2018, which for Collection Hubs/Units was contained within section 16.2.3.

RM & CWU have been in discussion to agree how this reduction will be introduced in relation to Collections; taking into account the level of complexity created due to the fact that Collections is no longer a specific function within RMG, with employees aligned to various operational functions. Therefore both parties accept the vast majority of employees will receive the relevant reduction in the working week due to the processes that have been agreed for Delivery, Mail Centres/Processing and/or Area Distribution through being tagged to a parent office in those functions.

As a result of analysis of data that is held from previous reductions in the working week, Royal Mail believes there are 104 Designated Collection Hubs/Units (Annex A) that are required to undertake a review of current arrangements to enhance efficient resourcing to workload, which will cover all current resourcing solutions and comply with existing agreements across the relevant functions. Both parties have accepted that the total figure and the offices listed in Annex A could change as a result of local knowledge.

As such we have agreed the attached National Joint Statement which will allow for local discussions to commence immediately with a target completion date of the 27th July 2018 to produce a jointly agreed outcome.

The Collections Manager and CWU Representative at each site will document and sign off the agreed arrangements for the deployment of the 1st hour reduction in the working time and the jointly agreed approach is as follows:

• All current revision activity planned within PBS2 Phase 1 units will have the 1 hour reduction included within those revision proposals.

• In addition to the above all units not in Phase 1, will complete a review of workload via existing P107 line charts and establish how and where the one hour reduction can be made against all full time duties. Both parties have agreed it should not be necessary for full scale revisions to ensure the reduction of the hour and that adjustments can be made based on local knowledge and through local variations to the working days across the week.

• It is anticipated that in most cases the reduction in working time will be applied to the start of duty time, however adjustments may be made to the end of duty times where this is considered to be mutually beneficial and is agreed locally. Where consideration is given to the reduction in working time being applied to the end of the duty, both parties have agreed where this could impact on individual allowances then other solutions should be found to ensure this isn’t the case.

Where either party is unable to agree, the matter will be progressed and resolved by means of the IR Framework as a matter of urgency and any issues with the interpretation, application and deployment of this Joint Statement will be raised with the signatories for resolution.

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

Or:

Davie Robertson, Assistant Secretary, reference: 722.01, email: dwyatt@cwu.org or shayman@cwu.org.

Yours sincerely,

 

Mark Baulch – Assistant Secretary

Davie Robertson – Assistant Secretary

LTB 393.18 – CWU_RM – Joint Statement Collections – Shorter Working Week Introduction October 2018

RM_CWU JS SWW Introduction Collections Final