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A two-day meeting took place with Royal Mail on the 2nd & 3rd September 2009.
Some progress was made with the company now clearly accepting that there is a requirement to negotiate further national agreements that will shape and take forward modernisation. Both parties explored, in more detail, the various elements that needed to be part of new national agreements. Royal Mail has also now recognised that the whole issue of what constitutes a fair day’s workload is a crucial part of finding a solution.
The talks also covered, at length, the urgent need for both parties to agree ground rules that would ensure a fairer approach to local deployment of change, including offices where managerial executive action has already taken place. Again, whilst there is a consensus for the need to set out fair and succinct ground rules, the company remains hesitant to stand down planned executive action because they believe this would signal to our branches an acceptance of no change.
To try and move this forward the union took the initiative and put forward a proposal that would break the current cycle, end all current disputes and conclude phase 4 national negotiations by the end of September ’09. We exchanged views on this proposal and Royal Mail called for an adjournment which lasted three hours. Subsequently position papers were exchanged and the intention is to build on this in meetings later this week.
Having given further consideration to all the issues raised at the meeting the union wrote to Royal Mail on the 4th September summarising our position and detailing a formal offer that would achieve the following:
- Immediately restore customer confidence by bringing an end to all current local disputes.
- Ensure Royal Mail and CWU can both re-engage in the Industrial Relations Framework with a fairer approach to deployment of local change – in accordance with all existing national agreements.
- Introduce at pace the transformation of the business by concluding phase 4 negotiations and reaching further national agreements by the end of September ’09. A positive outcome to these talks would resolve any potential national dispute.
For the purpose of complete clarity, we are setting out the detail and rationale behind the union’s offer.
CWU Fresh Offer
- All planned managerial executive action and local strike action should be immediately suspended.
- In offices where executive action has already taken place, fresh negotiations should commence immediately to reach acceptable agreements. Our regional / divisional and area teams should support the local parties in resolving their differences.
These negotiations should review the changes Royal Mail has made and ensure new local agreements are reached in accordance with ground rules agreed by the national parties and in line with all existing national agreements.
- There would be a process of parallel talks which would allow both parties to re-engage initially with area level teams overseen by our regional / divisional parties. Meetings at area level could then take pragmatic and informed decisions on the best way to proceed and facilitate positive local outcomes. This would also avoid immediate disagreements over what stage our respective local parties have reached in the IR Framework.
- To assist local solutions, parameters should be set by the national parties which state unequivocally that maintaining earnings and innovative attendance patterns must be part of local agreements. These are key principals within existing national agreements including the 2007 Pay and Modernisation deal.
- Voluntary redundancy must only be offered in line with the MTSF agreement. This should be spelt out by sequencing the proper process for voluntary redundancy so that there can be no further misunderstandings.
- The level of savings targeted for local revisions must also be negotiable. This should take account of a joint assessment of workload, the impact of any volume loss, safe working practices and ultimately what people can cope with. The subject of what constitutes a fair day’s workload is proper for national phase 4 talks. Local parties should be encouraged to take pragmatic decisions on what can be achieved in the short term prior to the introduction of new automation. In the meantime, national negotiation should resolve the substantive workload issues in a way which everybody accepts is fair and objective.
- In order to facilitate a fairer approach to local change, agreement should be reached on a new mechanism to incentivise local change.
- Guidelines should be agreed by the national parties that would assist the local parties on what is relevant to local discussions and what is out of bounds for local parties because it is part of phase 4 national negotiations.
- Both parties should clear diaries and commit to concluding phase 4 by reaching further national agreements no later than the end of September ’09. Key issues should be prioritised and we should accept that a successful outcome requires the legitimate concerns of both parties to be resolved simultaneously.
Conclusion
It is clear that the pressure of local industrial action is now having an impact on Royal Mail both in their approach to negotiations and in the substantial build up of work as we come out of the summer period and enter what is traditionally a higher traffic period.
However, we must also acknowledge that key to making genuine progress is that Royal Mail must abandon managerial executive action and accept that change by diktat has no place in a modern industry. This issue is holding back genuine progress and as every week goes by further executive action, including the imposition of Network ’09 duty arrangements, makes finding a solution more complicated.
It is important that branches convey to our members the initiatives the union are taking to resolve the dispute and that our latest offer represents an entirely reasonable position.
In the meantime we must maintain the pressure on the company by doing everything possible to secure a “yes” vote in our forthcoming national industrial action ballot.
Further meetings are planned on the 9th & 10th September and we will advise you of developments in due course.
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