Archive

 
 
Page 1 of 111: Next

Wednesday's Highlights from Conference

10th June 2009

Delegates approved resolutions aimed at improving terms and conditions for CWU members working for Quadrant, Romec and POL on a busy opening morning of Postal Constituencies Conference.

Quadrant workers will seek increases to London Weighting Allowances, a shorter working week, improvements to family-friendly policies and an extension of full maternity leave pay from 39 weeks to one year.

London Postal Engineering delegate Cyril Onyejenke proposed a motion expressing concern that bonus payments "have become the overriding factor in driving efficiency and this has been at the detriment of our engineering members in Romec."

Cyril's motion called for a change of focus, limiting the amounts paid under the scheme and, instead, prioritising putting money into basic pay through consolidation, while also ensuring that bonus payments are not used to either avoid recruitment or compromise health and safety.

Area rep Shelley Johnson then moved a proposition asking the postal executive to "seek agreement with Quadrant on developing a health care policy for all CWU graded employees," suggesting that this could be delivered "by the provision of funded personal membership of the Beneden Healthcare Society."

Conference backed two key emergency motions from the postal executive calling on the government to remove the threat of privatisation, facilitate a moratorium between Royal Mail (RM) and the CWU and engage in negotiations over the future of the company.

Proposing the first resolution, deputy general secretary Dave Ward declared that the focus will be on an alternative business model, pensions, regulation, industrial relations and colleague share. "We have got a brand new policy that we think can transform RM," said Dave.
Seconding, Ray Ellis, assistant secretary, called on the government to accept responsibility for the RM pension deficit and also stressed the need to establish a sustainable business model for RM that could survive a change of government next May.

Introducing the next motion, Dave Ward urged members to back the union proposals for a three-month moratorium on industrial action at a time of maximum vulnerability for both the government and RM management.
Dave outlined how talks with RM over recent months had not moved far. "RM are not bothered about what the future of the industry looks like," said Dave, who highlighted mail centres as a key area of disagreement, with the union wanting a national agreement while the company sought to deal with change in a unilateral and piecemeal manner.
The resolution offers a three month-moratorium on industrial action in exchange for a similar commitment from the company over executive action, which the union feels will provide a useful "cooling-off" period, during which both parties can talk seriously over a joint RM/CWU vision of what modernisation really means and resolution of outstanding industrial issues.
Failure to act on this agenda by July 2 will result in a timetable for nationwide industrial action ballots will follow.
Dave pointed to the recent 91 per cent Yes vote for strike action in London, arguing that this vote and others around the country indicated the strength of feeling among members should talks fail. "We are definitely upping the ante for management," said Dave.
Seconding, assistant secretary Terry Pullinger declared that, if RM rejects the proposal then the CWU have to act. "Our members built this industry and have earned the right to shape this industry in the future," he said.

Keep your promises, BT Retail - or there's trouble ahead!

Anger at BT Retail's failure to adhere to a raft of commitments it made under the under the 2006 Resourcing Strategy Agreement erupted into a threat of industrial action at CWU Telecoms Industry Conference today.
Committing the union to consult with members on taking action up to and including strike action, delegates agreed that that all elements of the Resourcing Strategy Agreement urgently need reviewing, especially with regards to the company's failure to adhere to a 90:10 permanent to agency ratio and broken promises on a cap to the amount of work being conducted offshore.
Proposing the motion, Rob Alldritt of Liverpool Clerical told of widespread dismay at the way the company's promises had been successively reneged upon.
At the time, Rob explained, the agreement "all sounded good", though he admitted that from the start the branch had doubts as to the scale of the company's commitment to increase the percentage ratio of permanent resource to at least 90 per cent.
"We also had concerns over the proposal to cap levels of work offshore and the visibility of that work in terms of volumes and work type," he added. "We were particularly concerned that new entrants to the company would pay for this with the creation of a foundation and specialist grades and their respective rates of pay.
"At the time they said the reduced rates of pay were in line with market rates and would be the enabler to keep work in the UK and for them to use permanently contracted staff in order to do it .
"Despite significant initial tranches of agency contract conversions, we don't believe BT has ever got near achieving the percentage rations it said it was aiming for. Indeed a year after the deadline we are pretty much where we started," lamented Rob.
"As if that wasn't bad enough, in discussions currently taking place under Project Holborn, the company now say they can't possibly bring back the customer facing work back to the UK because our members don't cover work the hours that are covered offshore. If we want the work brought back to the UK, we now apparently have to ask our members to agree contractual changes in order to meet the level of coverage currently supplied in India - meaning Saturday and Sunday working and evening work until 11pm."
On the basis of past experience, however, Rob questioned whether the current business plan could be believed.
Clare Wright of South West and Thames Valley branch agreed: "As a branch we, like many others, went out to our members and sold the Resourcing Strategy agreement on the basis that, on balance, it was a good agreement that offered agency members job security and a future in BT.
"It wasn't easy for us to go out to members and effectively ask them to take a pay cut, but that was us carrying out our commitment, honouring our side of the bargain. BT, however, has failed to honour its commitment and has constantly moved the goalposts.
"This is sadly indicative of BT's attitude towards its employees and the CWU. BT likes to talk about the partnership agreement, but what kind of partnership is it when one party is ignored?"
Supporting the motion on behalf of the Executive, assistant Sally Bridge told how when the BT Retail Sourcing Strategy agreement was signed in 2006, the union had been confident that "a great new world" was being entered under which "we could control the amount of work outsourced to India and at the same time provide a real opportunity for our long-serving agency members to secure a BT contract."
Pointing out that the agreement had "come at a cost", however - involving revised salary maximums and the conception of the foundation , core and specialist grades, reducing pay rates more in line with the external market rates - Sally told of an "inherent distrust" stemming from the company's failure to deliver.
"Can BT really blame us when we are cynical and sceptical when the director of employee relations comes to CVWU HQ, as he did last week, saying 'we need to put the credibility back into the resourcing agenda'. Too right it does! 'We need to work together', he said - too right we do!
"We believe we paid a high price for the failure of the Sourcing Strategy and our faith and trust in management has been seriously undermined.
"While we continue to smart from failed commitments on the company side, it would be irresponsible to walk away from the problems we now face in BT Retail on the resourcing agenda. We do, however, still need to rectify the problems derived from the sourcing strategy and we need to deal with huge issues such as attendance, performance, home working, incentivisation.
"If we don't deliver - if we can't deliver - then we will have to come back to you around industrial action- but we are up for that as we keep our side of the bargain, just as we did with BT Retail in the last agreement.

Sally's message for the company was simple: "We'll come to the table,…but we want our pound of flesh as well."