CWU LOCAL REPS BRIEFING – ISSUE 1: THE FUTURE OF ROYAL MAIL

CWU LOCAL REPS BRIEFING

ISSUE 1: THE FUTURE OF ROYAL MAIL

 

TO ALL CWU REPS

Following the endorsement of the Business Recovery, Transformation and Growth agreement and last week’s National Briefing, the union committed to developing a strategy that re-engaged our members and representatives, countered Royal Mail’s hostile approach and crucially produces CWU led solutions to the major challenges our industry faces.

As part of this, welcome to the first in a series of CWU local reps’ briefings. This is a new format that we will use in the coming weeks and months and in each of these Briefings we will aim to deliver three things:

  1. Information that you can relay to our members in local meetings and face to face discussions in the workplace.
  2. Practical support that will enable you to deal with managerial meetings and hold Royal Mail to account for unacceptable actions.
  3. Refocus the whole union on the work we must collectively undertake to make the National Agreement work for our members and ensure we are as strong as possible to shape the future.

 

UPDATE ON CWU NATIONAL OFFICER’S AND ROYAL MAIL SENIOR MANAGEMENT 2 DAY SUMMIT MEETING

We held a 2 day summit meeting this week with Royal Mail’s Senior Management Team because the company are continuing to do exactly the same things that has brought Royal Mail to the brink of collapse.

As well as their own financial crisis, Royal Mail faces huge self-inflicted problems on resourcing, quality of service, the USO and staff morale.  As a result there are a host of pressing issues to resolve.

To cap it all, despite the agreement, our members and reps are not seeing any change in management attitudes and it appears the company are incapable of moving away from the war footing (it’s our business to run) they adopted during the dispute. The current leaders of Royal Mail seem to have no solutions or new ideas to the very real challenges that threaten our future.

This was the background to the 2 day summit meeting during which we have covered the following issues:

  • The critical need to improve industrial and employee relations at all levels.
  • The ongoing USO and quality of service failures.
  • Managerial Executive Action on the attendance procedure
  • Supernumeries in Mail Centres.
  • Fleet
  • The Lord Falconer review.
  • The need for a co-ordinated approach to all joint working group activity.
  • Solutions to how we secure the future of the USO and expand the role of postal workers.
  • The need for a different approach to local revision activity.

Some progress has been made, particularly on resolving the managerial executive action over the attendance procedure and further talks will continue on this next week.  Similarly, more focused discussions will take place next week to find a way forward on Mail Centre supernumery issues.

At the conclusion of the meeting, it is fair to say talks were constructive and it appears that for the first time Royal Mail management has recognised that if they keep doing the same things the company will not survive.  For our part, the CWU accepts that the company are in a very difficult situation and we are keen to explore genuine ways of solving the problems that exist in our workplaces.

We ask you to make members aware of these developments and that we will be issuing fuller updates as these talks proceed.

 

YOUR ROLE AS CWU REPRESENTATIVES

Local CWU representatives are the backbone of the union’s structures, and we understand there are massive pressures on you in the workplace.

These briefings aim, over time, to give you greater support in the role you undertake – as well as taking on board your ideas and opinions.

It’s important that the whole of the union’s structures including at National, Divisional, Branch and Area level, operate in a co-ordinated way to ensure we can give you the maximum support possible.  This will include sharing of CWU best practice and ideas on revision proposals and attendance patterns etc.

As we said at the start of the brief, each update will contain actions for you as CWU representatives. Today we have two and they are very simple:

  1. Engaging our members.

Please use the information within this brief to ensure all members are fully updated.

  1. Recruitment.

We need to maximise CWU membership in your office. We ask you to approach new entrants, long term colleagues and anyone not in the CWU and ask them to join. The discussions in the coming weeks and months on operational change, including start and finish times, dedicated parcel duties and attendance patterns, will shape the future of our industry and members working lives forever – every member strengthens our hand in those local talks.

 

COMMUNICATIONS AND SUPPORT

We know you need as much information as possible to be able to carry out your role. This is why we have taken the decision to create an online portal to share updates on the Business Recovery, Transformation and Growth Agreement. The new site will enable reps and members to see real time updates on the various joint working groups and any key other aspect of the agreement. We hope to have this platform operational by the end of August.

We are also in the process of producing a mass engagement strategy containing a mix of written workplace communications, online briefings, workplace visits, live sessions, digital content, written briefs and more. It is time for us all to grab hold of this agreement and the industry and shape it into what we want it to be. 

 

SUMMARY

We will finish by once again saying thank you for all your hard work and assuring you that the absolute focus of the whole union is on delivering as much support as possible to the workplace.

It’s time to reset. It is time to rebuild. Your role in that is vital.