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Deal or no Deal?

March 10, 2010 By admin 3 Comments

First there was the Bible.

Then there was War and Peace.

Now there is the “Business Transformation 2010 and Beyond” agreement weighing in at a massive 80 pages. And what a deal it is!

The media are billing it as a victory for the union with posties getting “paid more for working less”. The Mirror says Royal Mail has been forced to offer rises worth up to £5000 per postie as “the price of peace”. The Daily Mail even frothed at the mouth that “militants finally pushed a supine Royal Mail into a disgracefully over-generous pay deal.”

This is the line of our leaders too, as Dave Ward and the negotiating team have finally rematerialised after 4 months calling the deal “a major step forward for the Union and its membership.” Even Royal Mail and Adam “the Axe” Crozier are hailing the deal, calling it “good for the business” – which is exactly what should make posties suspicious and start reading through the small print.

Pay rise…sweated out of us

Lump sums of up to £1000…if your office makes all the cuts required!

A 6.9% pay rise staged over three years, but while the cuts are up front, the carrot is dangled pretty far into the future: 2% this year, 1.4% next and then over half of it (3.5%) three years from now. A gambler wouldn’t put odds on ever seeing that money.

Deliveries will be screwed, with door to door put into ordinary workload and the limit on three per week lifted. Pay will rise by £20 to compensate – but Early shift allowance (£12) is to be cut so that’s £8 net. You can make up to 5 times that delivering on D2D today. Part-timers will be doubly screwed since they deliver the whole lot but get the payment pro-rata. Weight on delivery will skyrocket. This is a massive gift to Royal Mail. No wonder they love this deal!

There will be no rest for the wicked however. After we won the right to a weekend a few years back (or at least one-and-a-half of one by finishing early on Saturdays) Saturdays are slated to become a normal working day. So much for Royal Mail’s family-friendly policy, just say goodbye to your kids, football team, etc.

The consolation prize is one hour off the working week, down to 39 hours. In many offices the managers will just pressure everyone do 40 hours work in 39. The deal also opens the door to extending delivery times.

Not so much a groundbreaking agreement as back-breaking.

Cuts cuts baby

Members in mail centres will have better terms for transport, moving etc if their mail centre closes, but the agreement opens the door to up to half closing – outright surrender by CWU tops.

Royal Mail promises to keep 75% of jobs fulltime but like the 3.5% pay hike in three years, there is nothing really that gaurantees this.

Throw it out

Lots of cuts and workload hikes up front…with lots of jam tomorrow, if your the type that trusts Royal Mail millionaire bosses.

There are a few other benefits – on maternity and paternity pay – but these are minor and the pages of promises about consultation and union ‘involvement” are just thrown in to make CWU bureaucrats happy, they don’t really hold the company to anything.

The CWU states that the PEC ‘overwhelmingly” supported the deal, Royal Mail says the CWU leadership “unanimously” supports it. A poll on Royal Mail Chat shows posties saying they will vote no outstripping yes votes by 403 to 69. Let’s hope that reps and activists mobilise and get the same result in the ballot.

Filed Under 2010 and Beyond Agreement, 35 hour work week, Adam Crozier, Currently Featured, D2D, Dave Ward, National Strike, Pay, Saturday working, Uncategorized, Workload hike Tagged With 2010 and Beyond Agreement, 35 hour week, D2D, Dave Ward, Pay, Workload hikes

A deal in sight – kiss your weekend goodbye?

February 14, 2010 By admin 1 Comment

Remember back to early November 2009? We took two successful national strike days after a big yes vote, the Postal Exec pulled the strike for talks, the Interim Agreement they assured us had strict oversight rules and tight deadlines aiming for a deal by Xmas….

Here we are in mid-February. Deadline after deadline has been broken while the workers have been told nothing. Letters from Roger Poole the ACAS appointed Chair informed us that the talks were continuing while we got nothing from HQ. The PEC disappeared.

The Letters to Branches (LTBs) began to have an odd deja vu feeling to them as the same words “progress… differences… new deadline” kept repeating:

“The interim agreement commits both parties to making significant progress by early December. At a meeting today to review overall progress the PEC has identified the union’s strategic priorities to meet the significant progress criteria.” (18 Nov Dave Ward)

“Progress is being made and agreements are being reached on some issues, or are close to agreement; some topics still have a way to go.” (14 Dec R Poole)

“We have made good progress and many issues are agreed in principle, although there are some important issues still to be agreed. ..so we have allowed ourselves a short extension of the talks …to conclude an agreement by 22 January.” (R Poole, Dec 23)

“It has been agreed to extend talks into next week on the basis of progress made and the recognition of the crucial importance this set of negotiations will have on the future of Royal Mail.” (R Poole, 22 Jan)

“The current position is that whilst there are a few of major issues to finalise, we have made real progress and we want to conclude an agreement very soon and communicate in more detail.” (5 Feb, Dave Ward)

At last, a word from Dave Ward our Deputy General Secretary Postal (remember him?) pops up like a postcard from a long lost relative that’s just been found stuck under a frame. They didn’t even bother to send it out to all the members or even the reps, just an email to the branches to distribute! What have they run out of paper in Wimbledon?

The latest on the sorry saga:

“Talks with Royal Mail were adjourned on Tuesday 9th February…The union is currently awaiting what Royal Mail have described as their final offer on some elements of the package under negotiation. The next meeting under the independent process will take place on Friday 12th February.” (11 Feb, Dave Ward)

The general theme has been “making progress, differences in major areas remain”. Have they really made any progress at all? The only leak we did get from PEC member Pete Keenlyside’s monthly letter wasn’t good, Royal Mail wouldn’t even accept a net 35 hour week (where hours are cut mostly by breaks going unpaid). Other reports are that they are digging in on Saturdays as a normal work day, finishing as late as 4 pm.

That kind of deal is one we can do without! Activists need to get ready to get their branches to reject any deal that steals our weekend after we won it only a few years back. No to closures and a worse public service, for the shorter working week with no loss of pay!

Filed Under 35 hour work week, Currently Featured, Dave Ward, Interim Agreement, National Strike, Saturday working Tagged With 35 hour week, Dave Ward, Interim Agreement, Saturdays, Workload hikes

Support London’s call to restart the national strike

November 21, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

“This is a national agreement they’re breaking, it’s a national union, therefore it requires national action.”

London division officials are demanding the PEC restore the national strike, under pressure from their own members. Finally! It will surprise nobody that London Royal Mail managers have refused to budge on cuts or dismantled scab mail centres.

London postal activists, reps and branches should demand that the calls to lobby the PEC are put into effect by calling a demonstration at the PEC to show national leaders a little bit of the anger – and determination to fight – that exists among posties in London and further afield.

Branches all around the country, especially the 500+ that balloted before the national action began, should send in emergency resolutions to back up London and make sure that we stay united. Royal Mail will try to say, “this is a London thing, the militants are trying to sabotage the agreement”.

Nothing could be further from the truth, all the reports from Bristol, Glasgow and elsewhere show that Royal Mail is not retracting cuts or dragging its feet. The lack of progress after 3 weeks has even leaked out into the press, with one source close to the secret national talks has said “So far, it’s been a case of talks about talks.”

The London call for restarting the national strike has come late but is a welcome move that the rank and file need to push forward. If the PEC does not heed the call, London workers should vote with their feet and walkout.

A wasted month – let’s recover lost ground

The same London officials were quick to line up behind Dave Ward and the PEC to sell the Interim Agreement (IA) three weeks ago. They have argued that the deal isn’t a “sell out”, the local and national ballots are still live, and Xmas strikes could still hit the Royal Mail if it would not seriously negotiate its 2009 local cuts and 2010 modernisation plans. Well if proof was needed, now it’s here!

The truth is this is spin. The London CWU leaders by backing Dave Ward’s strategy have wasted a precious month. The IA has stopped the national strike’s momentum, and undermined the magnificent action of London postal workers who have led the CWU with 18 to 23 days of unpaid strike action. While many London officials have defended the deal, the term sell-out is unavoidable:

1. Royal Mail just wants to play for time

If this agreement came at any other time it would still be wrong because it has allowed the backlog to be cleared in many parts of the country. However this is not just any old six week period. Dropping the strikes at Christmas time, when we are strongest, is downright destructive. Even if the PEC calls a strike this Tuesday, the earliest we will be out is 1 December – four weeks wasted.

In other words, as many postal activists argued, Royal Mail has used the process as they always intended: to delay. Momentum has been broken and a demoralising near silence from the leadership, just like in August-September 2007 where negotiations saw nearly 6 weeks without a peep from the tops. A month has been thrown away to “explore” whether Royal Mail could be trusted. Thousands of angry CWU members, especially in London, have been proven right.

2. The agreement has built in divide-and-rule

The IA is meant to divide London from the rest. RM will bend over backwards to avoid confrontation in some areas, so it can point the finger at London as militants obstructing “modernisation”. If strikes are back on this will be a key part in a media offensive against our union. Some postal workers were already nervous about Christmas strikes thanks to the hysterical squeals by journalists, business groups and government ministers. The pressure will be even worse this time.

The question is, after surrendering once, will our national leaders all of a sudden discover their backbone and call the whole union out in such an atmosphere, especially when some regional officials will no doubt argue behind the scenes against being called out again?

The danger is that we will go back to the situation before the national strike, with stronger areas like London going it alone. That is why it is so important that every branch piles on the disagreement and calls on the leadership to immediately revive the national strike.

What about trust?

Mark Palfrey, a leading London official recently interviewed by the Commune before the IA, laid out how Royal Mail bosses were completely untrustworthy: “Basically, RM completely went back on an agreement they had made – there’s no other way of putting it. They’ve broken their own agreement. They’ve broken the terms of the existing national agreement, and they’ve broken large numbers of the local agreements our branches have… They’ve done this by what they call executive action, which means without agreement.” So why have the same London officials wasted the last few weeks backing Ward’s arguments to give Royal Mail a chance to rebuild trust? Royal Mail was never going to change its spots for the IA – it wasn’t required to!

Palfrey also said, “There’s a war going on…We’re in a war with Royal Mail, a war that we must win.” But what general supports a truce without concessions from the enemy, when our side had the upper hand and was giving them a pounding? The fact is Ward and PEC are looking for any way out of a strike they never wanted to call in the first place.

The London Division leaders have defended the Interim Agreement out of loyalty to Ward – just like they did for the 2007 Pay and Modernisation deal. Their support was crucial to allowing the IA to go ahead. But this has put a dent in the national strikes’ momentum and threatens to divide the union – it therefore hits the interests of their London members most of all.

Just as they have led the national action, it is London posties who will have to develop an independent rank and file movement to force the national strike back on track, with or without the leaders, and take back our union from the bureaucrats in order to lead it to victory. London branches against the IA can take the lead and call a national meeting to kick start such an initiative.

Lobby the PEC on Tuesday: restart the national strike!

Filed Under 2007 Pay & Modernisation Deal, Dave Ward, London, National Strike, Rank & File Control, Royal Mail, Uncategorized Tagged With Dave Ward, London, Rank and File Control, Royal Mail

Enter the Ward & Crozier Glen of Tranquility

October 14, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

…er sorry that’s the “period of calm” Dave Ward is offering Royal Mail “to avoid a national strike.” This is a lovely way of saying they’ll ban strikes, and bin the tremendous 76% strike vote we just worked our a*ses off to achieve.

Ward’s proposal is that Royal Mail agrees to negotiate on its business plan (with the union pledged ahead of time to agree cuts), and we agree the strike ban for negotiations to “resolve all current local disputes”…which means agreeing more cuts! If this is what success looks like…

If any such agreement is struck it will be a blow to morale. It will make it much harder to restart a strike when Royal Mail dropped talks like it did in 2007. Let’s face it, Royal Mail is about as likely to withdraw the massive cuts they’ve made since Spring and jack in their business plan without a fight as Ward and Crozier are to be whisked away to Brigadoon to feast with the fairy people. Time to bombard them with protest emails or ring em up at the Wimbledon HQ. Get your branch to make the protest official.

In a way, you can’t help but be touched by Dave’s faith in Royal Mail: “If Royal Mail really is sincere about reaching an agreement we expect them to take up this offer.” Let’s not forget that the leadership’s lame excuse for the 2007 Pay and Modernisation Agreement that got us into this mess was that if Royal Mail had sincerely interpreted the agreement in the spirit it was meant, it would have been an OK deal! Royal Mail bosses sincere?! Crozier, Higson and Co must have laughed when they heard that and thought “Blimey, it’s like stealing candy from a baby.”

This shows more than ever that we need to urgently develop a rank and file control of our own struggles and the union itself – this won’t be the last time Hayes, Ward and the PEC wobble.

The CWU offer:

- That Royal Mail will reveal its business plan for the whole of the planned transformation programme. This will create an open environment that will allow Royal Mail and CWU to reach a 3 year agreement aimed at providing long term stability for the business, employees and our customers.

- That Royal Mail recommit to the key principle which underpinned the 2007 Pay and Modernisation Agreement i.e. that “change will be introduced by agreement”. This means Royal Mail will unequivocally agree planned 2010 change, including the rollout of new walk sequencing machines.

- That we agree, in principle, that improved Job Security arrangements and a new benefits package that rewards postal workers for delivering success for the business will form part of the final agreement.

- That Royal Mail agrees the principle that budgets should not drive staffing levels and that what constitutes a fair day’s workload will be based on transparent and agreed standards with the Union. We should jointly consider utilising independent experts in the field of work measurement to facilitate a resolution to all workload issues.

- That Royal Mail is prepared to step back from imposed change and resolve all current local disputes by agreement.

- That Royal Mail agrees to an independent enquiry into the bullying and harassment of postal workers and immediately ceases the use of unagreed HR procedures.

- That Royal Mail is prepared to jointly approach the Government on the urgent need to find a resolution to pensions and regulatory issues.

- That the national parties clear our diaries to allow for an intense period of negotiations to resolve all outstanding issues and conclude a comprehensive national agreement.

Filed Under 2007 Pay & Modernisation Deal, Dave Ward, Rank & File Control Tagged With Dave Ward, Pay & Modernisation Agreement 2007, Rank and File Control, strike committees