June 2014 Rebate Breakdown

Reference Details Credit Debit

Rebate – New 34 New Members £240.72

Rebate – Current 1,784 Members £6,604.25

Rebate – Retired 282 Members £362.95

Death Grant Returns 1 Member £732.00

Tutor Cost Return * Att. Proc. Training £200.60

CWU HQ Deduction Honoraria £1,444.68

CWU HQ Deduction Election Costs £1,023.46

CWU HQ Deduction Defence Fund £72.08

CWU HQ Deduction Regional Committee £72.08

CWU HQ Deduction Women’s Comm. £18.02

CWU HQ Deduction Learning Committee £18.02

Totals £8,140.52 £2,648.34

Net Rebate £5,492.18

* Tutor Cost Return – This is the sum paid back from CWU HQ to cover the cost to the Branch of travel and accommodation for a CWU Tutor to attend Peterborough Mail Centre to deliver a training course for Reps on the new Attendance Procedure.

June saw a number of differing expenses than usual which accounts for our expenditure this month seeing a slight overspend of £432.06.

On top of our usual monthly expenses of Reps costs (inc. travel and release (Central Billing), stationary, phones, internet costs and postage, June saw additional costs of 2 Death Grant payments, affiliations to Trades Councils and our quarterly lease payment for the Branch photocopier.

Further down the list of expenses you will see that we have paid £250.00 for Conference 2015. This is a deposit to secure the accommodation for next years Annual Conference. The Branch donations of £500 are as follows; the Branch agreed to sponsor CWU Area Processing Rep Ernie Orviss and Distribution MGV Driver Billy Scales £150.00 each for their forthcoming Lands End-John O’Groats cycle event in aid of the Marie Curie charity. The remaining £200.00 is donations from other Branches to Ernie and Billy’s challenge. However, those cheques were made out to the Branch, we have then had to write cheques to Marie Curie from the Branch and then bank the cheques from the donating Branches into our account. Therefore, next months expenditure sheet will show an additional income of £200.00. If you wish to make a donation to Ernie and Billy’s challenge, please email area.processing@cwue5.org and I’m sure Ernie will give you details of how you can donate.

The payments under Other Expenditure cover off our payments to the Branch Benevolent Fund and also the purchase of items including sympathy cards/get well soon cards which are used at the appropriate times.

As well as providing a report of where our money comes from and the areas in which it is spent, I will also be producing a report of the first half of this years finances which will be included in the next edition of the Branch magazine.

If you have any questions about Branch finances, please email me at cwue5treasurer@gmail.com.

Austin Goldsmith

CWU Eastern No 5

Branch Treasurer

July 2014

The CWU backed the Business, Innovation and Skills select committee report released today (Friday) which stated “the taxpayer has missed out on significant value” because of the botched sale of Royal Mail.

The report highlighted that the government “over-emphasised the risk” of potential strike action which was threatened by the CWU last summer. It continued: “The share price, during and after the union’s acceptance of a pay deal demonstrates that industrial relations were less of an issue for the market than they were for Government.”

“This damning report shows the extent of the government’s incompetence in the privatisation of Royal Mail” Said Billy Hayes, CWU general secretary

The report also points out that many investors were keen to buy shares at a much higher price than was originally offered, which shows that the demand for shares would not have disappeared at a higher offer price.

The report was published in the wake of Business Secretary’s Vince Cable announcement yesterday for a review of government initial public offerings.

CWU general secretary, Billy Hayes, said: “The BIS select committee’s damning report published today shows the extent of the government’s incompetence in the privatisation of Royal Mail. The Committee rightly dismissed the Business Secretary’s assertion that an increase in Royal Mail’s share price was ‘froth’. The only froth came from Vince Cable and Michael Fallon’s allegations that threat of strike action from the CWU last summer affected the share price, which the committee said was ‘over-emphasised’.

“This is the second report which has exposed the government’s bungling of the privatisation of Royal Mail as a political opportunity. Both the National Audit Office’s report earlier this year and today’s BIS select committee report stated that shares were grossly undersold, losing taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds.

“Cable’s announcement yesterday to review the privatisation process of national assets is a cynical attempt at damage limitation. Surely the bodged job the government did on the privatisation of Royal Mail is a lesson in itself – leave the family silver where it is instead of pawning it off.”

Report submitted by Andy Beeby, Political Officer, CWU Eastern 5

PTUC March and Rally – 10 July 2014

In order to support the public sector strikes which tens of thousands of workers are expected to participate in nationally on July 10, PTUC have arranged a march and rally in Peterborough City Centre.

Please assemble from 9.30am outside the Bridge Street Court House for the 10am march to St John’s Square (behind the church on Cathedral Square). When we get to the rally point there will be speakers from Trade Unions.

Unions already declared include Unison, NUT and GMB with Unite and PCS declaring their ballot results tomorrow (Monday) and many other TU’s expected to participate.

Please spread the word and make every effort to join us if you can. You can keep up to date via the website, and via Twitter @peterboroughTUC and the Facebook Page.

In Solidarity,
Hazel Perry
PTUC Secretary

As a result of the Trade Union Act 1984, to maintain a political fund, the union has to renew our political fund resolution every ten years. Our current resolution expires on 11 November 2014. Therefore, we have to renew our resolution and obtain authority from CWU members in England, Scotland and Wales to maintain a political fund. This entails carrying out an individual members ballot and achieving a majority yes vote. 

In the first place, the union has to agree the rules of the ballot and the timetable with the certification officer. We have been in contact with the trade Union certification officer (CO) and have achieved preliminary agreement of our proposed rules for the ballot. In addition, we have reached agreement with the CO on the timetable. The NEC has today, endorsed the proposed rules and the timetable.

The proposed rules, although being preliminary agreed with the CO, now have to be submitted for final approval. However, the proposed ballot rules are attached.

The timetable for the ballot is:

BALLOT OPENS – 6TH October 2014
BALLOT CLOSES – 28TH October 2014
Counting of ballot commences ​ – 29th October 2014

There will be substantial campaigning required to ensure that we secure the yes vote. CWU HQ has established a steering group to manage the campaign consisting of members of the Political Fund Management Committee, General Secretary, Head of Communications, Deputy General Secretaries and SDGS.

We will communicate further on the details of the campaign and how best to utilise all of our activists in working toward a Yes vote. We will be discussing regional and Branch campaigns, in the first instance, with Regional Secretaries.

However, a skeleton outline of the proposed campaign and timetable is attached. More details will follow and the campaign is likely to be preceded by a members poll to inform our communications.

Ahead of Parcelforce Worldwide’s introduction of Sunday deliveries this weekend, the CWU today (Thursday) announced successful negotiations which are sensitive to staff concerns about the new seven-day service. 

Following high level intensive negotiations with Royal Mail Group’s express parcels business Parcelforce regarding the introduction of Sunday deliveries and seven-day service, the union is pleased the following commitments have been made by management:

Commitment resourcing will be on ‎a voluntary basis

Current Sunday working pay rates will apply

Commitment no individual will work seven continuous days

Commitment from management to timetabled formal talks over potential new and innovative shift duty patterns

The delivery company is the first national parcel carrier to deliver seven-days a week and is designed to offer improved flexibility for online shoppers.

Terry Pullinger, CWU national officer, said: “Negotiations with Parcelforce management were fruitful and we are pleased that the move towards Sunday deliveries is not at the expense of our people but with our people. Staff are alive to the need for Parcelforce to respond to changing customer demands and the competitive challenge relating to a seven-day service in order to continue to be a leading provider.

“We’ve worked hard to ensure working on Sundays is voluntary for staff and we’ve got a commitment from management to timetable formal talks over potential new and innovative shift duty patterns, while still maintaining previously agreed principles, if this seven-day working is rolled out on a permanent basis.
“The talks with Parcelforce management established a very important principle as far as employment security is concerned and we are delighted that we have had an assurance that permanent employees will be used to deliver this new exciting innovation to customers.”

Dear Colleagues

Britain Needs a Pay Rise London Demonstration- taking place on Saturday October 18th 2014.

This March and rally will take place 7 months before the next general
election and it is crucial that we get as many people onto the streets
to demonstrate against the dominant view that austerity is the only
answer. What the people of this country need are decent living
standards achieved by proper jobs on wages that don’t create poverty.

The 18th of October is our opportunity to add our voices to an
alternative that offers hope to millions and not just the few.

The Britain Needs a Pay Rise demo has been organised by the TUC and
is calling for a properly enforced minimum wage, higher wages from
employers who can afford to pay, increased commitment to the living
wage and a crackdown on excessive executive pay.

The march will assemble on the Embankment from 11am and move off at
noon heading to a rally at Hyde Park via Northumberland Avenue,
Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly. The march will not be passing
Westminster or Downing Street as it is a slightly shorter route than
previous marches this is to allow as many people as possible to get to
Hyde Park in time for the rally.

Any enquiries should be forwarded to the SDGS Department
at sdgs@cwu.org quoting reference GS13.5

Yours sincerely
Tony Kearns
Senior Deputy General Secretary 

Its official – Unison’s local government workers have voted to strike on July
10th against the ConDem pay freeze (read here –
https://www.unison.org.uk/media-centre/local-government-workers-vote-for-strike-action).

This raises the prospect of well over a million public sector workers striking
together in a ‘Coalition of the Willing’ unions that could also include Unite,
GMB, PCS and the NUT. It is possible that the FBU, who were again on strike
last Saturday could also take part on the biggest day of co-ordinated strike
action since N30 2011.

That 2-million strong strike against the Government’s attacks on public sector
workers’ pensions was arguably the biggest single day of strike action since
the 1926 General strike. It could and should have been the platform for the
decisive action that could have won a victory on pensions which would have
blown a hole in Cameron’s austerity offensive.

Instead, particularly the leaders of Unison and the GMB with the support of
the TUC and its then general secretary the now Sir Brendan Barber stopped the
struggle in its tracks. Undoubtedly, that loss of momentum only emboldened the
ConDems to unleash the most vicious package of cuts since the 1920s. The NSSN
along with militant unions like the RMT, PCS and POA attempted to build rank
and file pressure to maintain this action.

Nevertheless, in the process, the ConDems have created a huge anger and
frustration that would make the July 10th strike the most popular thing the
unions could ever do.

This is the lesson of the tube strikes which had massive public support for
the RMT because in the midst of all political parties signed up to austerity,
workers want to see someone fighting back. That is why the unions should
organise public strike rallies on July 10 to bring behind them all those
suffering from these brutal cuts. The N30 demonstrations that took place in
virtually every town and city were massive and these could be bigger.

But the main lesson that has to be learnt from N30 is that they have to be the
start not the end of sustained action that takes in all the public sector and
spreads to the private sector and even those workers currently not organised
in the unions. Just over the last months we have seen a rash of disputes from
workers in Doncaster Care UK and Safety Glass in Tyneside to One Housing and
the indefinite strike in Lambeth College. These along with the big protests by
the legal profession against the cuts to legal aid, the protests and stoppages
by construction workers and the people that were attracted to Saturday’s
Peoples Assembly march show the potential that the unions could realise if
they put themselves at the head of this movement. The 750,000-strong TUC
demonstration on March 26th in 2011 as well as the mass mobilisation of N30
that year shows once and for all the authority that the unions have when they
act decisively.

The 8th annual NSSN conference is meeting on July 5, five days before the pay
strike. I appeal to all activists in the trade union and anti-cuts movements
to come along to discuss how to build the biggest strike possible on July 10
and how to sustain it into the autumn and beyond to win what could be a
decisive victory against this fat cat government.

Rob Williams NSSN national chair

Responding to the announcement by Royal Mail today (Friday) that they have called on Ofcom to bring forward a review of the direct delivery market, Dave Ward, the CWU postal deputy general secretary, said: 

“Ofcom’s primary duty is to protect the universal service which allows us to send a letter to Belfast, Bristol or Brighton all for the same price. If Ofcom does not carry out an immediate review of the impact of direct delivery on universal service, it will have failed in its duty.

“The ability of TNT to be able to choose when, where and what they deliver has a profound impact on the sustainability of the universal service. Not surprisingly, TNT is cherry-picking big city deliveries only, where profits are maximised.

“This is unfair competition with little benefit to customers or the British public. In a shrinking letters market having two posties following each other up the same garden path is inefficient.

“The government needs to wake up and realise the implications Ofcom’s lack of action will have on Royal Mail’s ability to deliver the universal service obligation. TNT is not introducing new jobs, they are just replacing decent and well-paid Royal Mail jobs with minimum wage employment and supporting the growth of a low-pay economy. In the end, workers everywhere will suffer through this race to the bottom.” 

Retired CWU members attended the annual National Pensioners Convention (NPC) Pensioners’ Parliament at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool this week to debate, rally and network with fellow pensioners. 
Hundreds of retired and soon-to-be-retiring people from across the country gathered in the seaside town to listen to key speeches from Dot Gibson of the NPC, AgeUK’s Caroline Abrahams, and columnist and left-wing commentator Owen Jones.
Joining the dozens of CWU delegates on the pre-conference march was Margaret Greenwood, Labour Parliamentary candidate for Wirral West who, with the union’s support, is looking to oust sitting Tory MP Esther McVey at the 2015 general election.

Carl Webb and Margaret Greenwood support retired members at the annual National Pensioners Convention Pensioners
Carl Webb, North West regional secretary, commented from the event: “We are proud to march side by side with our retired comrades who are fighting against cuts to the NHS and for dignity and respect in retirement.
“We are not only fighting for today’s pensioners, but also tomorrow’s pensioners. Don’t forget we all aspire to be a pensioner,” he added.
Over the course of the Pensioners’ Parliament delegates discussed key topics including the future of the NHS, tackling loneliness, dignity in care and how to fight back against cuts to bus services around the UK.