The Clock Starts Ticking

Pete Keenlyside Postal Executive Member - July 2009 Executive Council Report

Royal Mail Dispute

No doubt everyone is now aware that the Postal Executive have set the date for a ballot for national industrial action. The ballot papers are due to go out on 9 September with the result being announced on 23 September. A dispute became inevitable the moment the Labour Government walked away from dealing with the problems facing Royal Mail, particularly over the Pension Fund. Management saw this as a green light to step up their attacks on the Union and its members. They say it beggars belief that we are going to ballot. We say it beggars belief that they think the way forward is to drive down the service, bully their workforce and attempt to destroy their jobs and terms and conditions and seek to exclude the Union from any meaningful say in the future direction of the company.

It goes without saying that in the run-up to the ballot and beyond we will be making every attempt to reach agreement. We want to get an agreement on modernisation, on pay and reward for change, on shorter working hours and we want a solution to the pensions crisis. But the word has to go out to our members that if they want to keep their jobs, keep their pay moving up, have any say in future in how the job is done in their office or have a Union that is anything more than a tame staff association like the CMA then they must vote Yes when the ballot paper lands on their mat.

Romec Pay 2009

National Officer Ray Ellis reported to the Postal Executive on the lack of progress of the Romec Pay claim, due to be paid in April. Romec claim they can’t make an offer as their contract with Royal Mail is tied to the retail price index and they don’t have any money. The Union has rejected this argument, as we understand they had already budgeted for a 4% rise this year. They have said they might be prepared to consider a one-off non-pensionable lump sum payment in the autumn. The negotiators have therefore tabled a claim for a pensionable lump sum payment of £1000 for this pay year.

Crown Networks

The Postal Executive endorsed an Agreement between the CWU and Post Office Limited aimed at securing the long-term sustainability of the Crown Office Network. This involves removing £10m of costs over the remainder of the financial year, mainly by removing surplus duties in line with the MTSF and ceasing short term and specific event contracts (SEC’s). Any SEC’s with over 12 months service will receive compensation payments dependent on their length of service. As part of the savings, there will be a £2.5 million reduction from the management grades.  

Walk Sequencing

I had a meeting with the manager overseeing the ILSM Project towards the end on July at the Jubilee Mail Centre. It would seem that the machine hasn’t been signed off yet and is still under the control of Solystic. Tests are now going ahead with live mail, using volunteers under the direction of the Solystic engineers. These will continue until September at both Jubilee and the other two mail centres with the machine, Edinburgh and Peterborough. On the day I was there they started using the machine to despatch mail, although previous to that they had only been putting mail through to test the speed. The machine seemed to perform well with DSA mail, but broke down four times in 10 minutes with collection mail. Obviously still having teething problems.

We are still going to have problems when it comes to staffing the machines on a permanent basis. Management seem to want to foist their World Class Mail ideas onto it and pick and choose who goes on it to suit themselves. As far as we’re concerned, the selection process is covered off under the TPM agreement and that’s as far as it goes. We will also need to keep an eye on what operators will be expected to do as regards TPM tasks. The worry is that management will try and get them to do jobs currently performed by engineers and outside of the TPM Agreement. This is a problem also affecting the compact sequencers.

The walk sequencing trials taking place in the Bristol area give an indication of where management would like to end up at. In the absence of any national agreement, they are pushing for later last letter time, later starts and a big increase in part time working on 22.5 hours. Their aim is for these staff to get their mail dropped at their homes and just go out on delivery. As the local Reps there are refusing to agree this, the threat is to bring this in by executive action.

Network 2009

National Officer Martin Collins reported that management had moved back the date they intended to bring Network 2009 in by executive action from July to 7 September. No doubt this is as a result of local opposition, but in the absence of a National Agreement covering all areas, there is no chance of us agreeing to something just involving this. Most of the Distribution units have been involved in industrial action over the past week. Management are seeking to nullify this by opening up new sites in hired buildings using managers and casual staff. They have also started using other haulage companies such as Eddie Stobart. Sign of things to come?

Front Page