ColleagueShare and new bonus payments to CWU members
13th June 2012
CWU members working for Royal Mail Letters will receive an extra
£100 in their June pay packets as a result of an agreement
reached between the union and the company.
Also from next year, Christmas Bonus payments will be boosted by
at least £100, while national talks on a new incentive scheme,
providing opportunities for members to boost their pay further are
set to begin soon.
The Royal Mail Group has accepted that there will now be further
and final independent valuation of both the legal and financial
aspects of the ColleagueShare scheme. Importantly, it has also been
agreed that the output from this piece of work will be shared with
all employees.
CWU deputy general secretary Dave Ward
explained: "There are a number of reasons for the difficulties
we've had on ColleagueShare, but the largest factor has been
the fact that this was an agreement between the Government and
Royal Mail - not the union.
"As such, it was underwritten by strict and inflexible
legal and valuation criteria and there was nothing we could do to
change the 'nil' valuation that the company announced last
March.
"And our efforts since then have focused on securing what we can retrieve for members from this and on an alternative incentive payment for members going forward."
Full details of the agreement can be read in this
joint statement from both the CWU and Royal Mail.
Summing up, Dave said that the union has "taken the right
position on ColleagueShare throughout and has achieved what we feel
is a strong deal for members given that a lot of the circumstances
are beyond our control.
"We safeguarded £1,000 for all Royal Mail Group employees that would have otherwise been lost and we pursued and achieved a good ongoing settlement, plus a commitment to replacement incentive schemes that will be concluded as part of our imminent national talks. This will give a further opportunity for our members to earn additional payments," he added.
