You are here: Home / Interim Agreement

Send out a search party for CWU leaders

February 26, 2010 By admin 1 Comment

Negotiations have dragged on for so long now the CWU tops have just stopped issuing deadlines! When was the last time we heard from them anyway? Hopefully they are still alive and havent been roasted and eaten in snowbound Berkshire by starving Royal Mail managers. Or maybe Roger Poole will get suspicious that they’ve been quiet so long and find it like the Marie Celeste, an empty negotiating room with seats and cups of tea still warm…

In reality its the members who have been left in limbo with no idea of when we will hear about the deal. The rumours we do hear are pretty scary. According to Royalmailchat.org.uk admins its running over 60 pages and our Great Leaders have hit new lows:

“Despite the media black out we have the latest info leaked from the talks, as we have done for some time now.

A supplement for D2D’s which will be included in our workload,the supplement will be made up of 3 parts,your early shift allowance if you still get it,a share of the current cost of delivering D2D’s,and new money,the supplement will be paid for 52 weeks of the year.

Later starts due to walk sequencing machines,park and loop,later Saturdays,but less Saturdays worked,a shorter working week,75%-25% full time / part time ratio,a 3 year pay rise deal,and 2,3 or is it 4 lump sums,and much more.

…Latest info today the 22nd is there is no agreement but it’s very close, Divisional reps, regional secretaries called to a briefing this Thursday at the TUC which will also be addressed by Mark Higson.”

Did the briefing take place? Did regional secretaries attend? Does Mark Higson exist? The answer to these and many more questions will be given…”very soon”!

If the rumours above are true, it makes you wonder what can be so bad in the 5% they can’t agree on! Suggestions welcome.

Filed Under Currently Featured, Interim Agreement Tagged With Interim Agreement

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

How did Jane Loftus vote?

November 8, 2009 By admin 1 Comment

The postal CWU does not have a rank and file movement, or even an organised left like many unions. However it does have Jane Loftus, CWU president, Chair of the Postal Executive Committee, and member of the Socialist Workers Party.

The problem is, the CWU website states “The Postal Executive unanimously endorsed the attached agreement.” Loftus is on the PEC – did she vote for the Interim Agreement, and pulling the national strike for a fake period of calm?

If instead she was absent, then she ducked a fight on the key issue on which the CWU’s fate hinges, the strike going forward. She dropped the opportunity to lead a union-wide resistance against this betrayal from her high-profile, national post – hardly better.

The SWP is silent on the question, even though Loftus wrote a piece in the paper as recently as the 24 October edition. As the SWP calls on postal workers to join them, they need to explain where their leading PEC member stands.

Loftus has never actively organised against any of the crap agreements that the CWU leadership have cut over the last few years, signing away our jobs and conditions for a bit of extra pay. But SWP members have always defended Loftus, stressing she has at least voted the right way and is able to argue on the PEC against sell-outs and backward steps.

But just sitting and voting on committees is what a left-wing bureaucrat does. The Socialist approach, as the slogan goes, is to “Educate, Agitate, Organise” for workers’ interests and against those who would sell them short, not just vote the right way. And this isn’t the first time Loftus has voted the wrong way, since she voted for the 2003/4 Major Change agreement.

Along with the stop-start failure of the SWP front Postworker over the years, the failures to hold Loftus to account shows up the holes in the SWP’s strategy. Without consistently fighting for rank and file control of the strike and the union, they fall into a broad left strategy and an uncritical bloc with leftwing officials – and their own member turns into one.

For instance, not once over the last year of Royal Mail executive action have they sought to use their base to call a conference of the fighting wing of the union, so that we could develop an alternative leadership and avoid just this sort of sell-out occuring.

Now the SWP says nothing about Loftus, and lamely argues that “The only course of action is for union activists to put up the most determined resistance at a local level, while arguing hard for the return of national action.”

In 2004 when two SWP members on the civil servants PCS union executive voted with the Socialist Party to accept a rotten pension deal, the SWP demanded they disown their vote or get kicked out. Loftus is no different.

Of course we should argue for a return to action in our branches, regions and at the upcoming National Briefing for local officials and reps. But these structures are not enough, the militant wing needs to organise itself nationally, and decide on a course of action. Will the SWP and Loftus use their leverage to call and build a conference of every member, rep and branch against the Interim Agreement?

Such a national meeting could debate a strategy to restart the national strike and take it out of the hands of Hayes, Ward, the PEC – and Jane Loftus too unfortunately. The Anticapitalism event next weekend is one place to start such a debate.

Filed Under Interim Agreement, Jane Loftus, SWP, Uncategorized Tagged With Interim Agreement, Jane Loftus, SWP