LTB 488/18 – Royal Mail Group – Flu Inoculation Voucher Campaign

No. 488/2018

29 August 2018

Our Ref: C1/18

 

Royal Mail Group – Flu Inoculation Voucher Campaign

To: All Branches

Dear Colleagues,

Last year a large number of Royal Mail Group workers were unfortunate enough to catch flu causing them great pain and discomfort and time away from work. This meant that in addition to people being unwell the service to customers was affected.

This year Royal Mail Group has agreed to offer all employees a free flu inoculation which will be available from mid-September through to 31st December.

The CWU is encouraging members to seriously consider taking up this offer which will be available from a leading high street pharmacy and dispensing chemist company via a voucher that will be sent out to all employees in September with the Courier and other staff magazines‎.

Last year over 31,000 employees were affected by flu/flu-like symptoms which was a 31.2% increase on the previous year with 127,256 days lost to flu or flu-like symptoms which was a 42.1% increase. ‎The estimated cost to the Royal Mail Group was over £41 million.

Motion 38 was carried at the 2018 CWU Postal General Conference in the name of Newcastle Amal which reads as follows:

38 CATEGORY A: This Conference notes that this year’s flu jab offering

from Royal Mail was too little, too late; and that WTLL sessions and offers of a flu

jab in January 2018 were too late to combat an already flourishing flu epidemic.

Conference therefore instructs the Postal Executive to seek agreement with Royal

Mail Group to ensure that the provision of flu jabs is both communicated and

administered as early as possible prior to the onset of winter.

Newcastle Amal

It has been agreed that there will be a joint campaign promoted by Royal Mail, CWU and Unite/CMA to combat the Flu which can be a painful viral infection.  ‎In September there will be a major communications campaign including WTLL, RMTV and an article on internal screens. There will also be a short video showing how easy it is to spread the Flu Virus.

There will be posters for display outlining

  • Catch It, Bin It, Kill It
  • Hand washing
  • How to get the voucher

This “Free Flu Jab” offer is open to all Royal Mail employees‎ and the vouchers for the free Flu jab will be sent to employee home addresses either by a direct mailing or as an insert in Courier or other staff magazines depending on which part of the RM Group individuals work in. The voucher can be redeemed at a major high street pharmacy company as long as it’s produced with the employee’s Royal Mail Group ID card.  The vouchers will be redeemable from September through to February however it is advised that inoculations are given in September and October before the main Flu virus becomes prevalent. Employees will have to arrange the Flu jab in their own time and there will be no on-site clinics.

To update and inform CWU ASRs of the process and to answer any questions, it has been agreed that RMG will set up conference calls for Area Health and Safety Reps so that they can understand what will be happening and be in a position to promote and encourage members to take up this offer. The dates for the calls are shown below and electronic invitations have already been sent out:-

–          Thursday 30th August at 13:00

–          Friday 7th September at 09:30

The numbers you require for the call are:

Dial in: 0800 012 1445

Participant:    2474154#

Please dial in before the start time so that we can have a prompt start.

Yours sincerely

 

Dave Joyce
National Health, Safety & Environment Officer

18LTB488 Royal Mail Group – Flu Inoculation Voucher Campaign