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2007 ANNUAL ADMINISTRATION SECTION REPORT
PAY – ROYAL MAIL LETTERS
2007 saw us involved in a long drawn out dispute over pay. Gordon
Brown announced that we had no right to be on strike and told us
all to get back to work and Royal Mail were adamant that Letters
LAs were not going to be included with the OPGs this year -in fact
they were not even offering us a pay rise – of course this
was all part of their continuing ‘separate and isolate the
admin grades to make them more weak and vulnerable and then we can
rid of them’ policy.
In the end, the LAs were included with the OPGs as usual and we
now have a pay rise.
PAY – CUSTOMER SERVICES
The situation for our Customer Service members is even more appalling
than it was for our LA grades: our colleagues in Customer Services
were due a pay rise in March 2007 and are still waiting. Royal Mail
refused to discuss Admin pay throughout the Royal Mail Letters and
POL disputes.
The executive officer with responsibility for Customer Service members
has now held two meetings (19th & 29th November) with Helen
Rolph (P&OD Director – Royal Mail Central Functions) to
discuss pay for the following sections; Customer Services, Finance
Operations and P&ODS. Insufficient progress has been made at
these meetings to date to reach an agreement and CWU HQ have promised
to report developments as they occur.
In my opinion the percentage increase for our members in this business
unit has to be in double figures (to cover a two year period –
talks for the 2008 pay rise are due to commence in three months
time) and there should be an additional payment of several hundred
pounds per person for the inconvenience and upset the business has
caused to our members.
This is a shocking way to repay our members who have always worked
hard for the business and who are well known for their conscientiousness
and commitment. It tells you that your efforts are not appreciated.
PENSIONS
Royal Mail is now attacking our pensions (having revealed that this
would save them £850 million a year) by trying to make us
pay for their past mistakes and because the owner of the business
(the government) has introduced competition – obviously this
is with a view to privatisation and follows the example set by Margaret
Thatcher - who is openly admired by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
The government has conveniently hampered the business by making
Royal Mail employees do much of the work for the competition –
interestingly, the competition do not pay our members anything for
sorting and delivering all their mail which means that the competition
can charge cheaper rates and make lots of money. Incredibly, this
is one of the reasons being given as to why our pensions must suffer.
The intriguing position in which the owner of Royal Mail (the government)
now finds itself relates to the serious consideration it is giving
to the nationalisation of a private company, i.e. Northern Rock.
We are now being expected to pay for the mistakes of a private business
aswell as those of Royal Mail and the government.
Furthermore, the government is now saying that it will compensate
any other banks that help Northern Rock and has pledged a further
£57 billion of taxpayer’s money.
The government owns the Royal Mail; we are government employees
and yet our employer has introduced the competition which it is
saying that the employees must now pay for by losing out on our
pensions.
Our employer also decided to take a pension holiday and says that
we must now pay for this too by losing out on our pension. Our employer
claims that it cannot put money into the business to make sure that
its own employees do not lose out but, astonishingly, it can put
huge amounts of tax payers money into private businesses to ensure
that private shareholders do not lose out.
The key point to all this is that Northern Rock share holders were
not guaranteed anything – they were subject to the rise and
fall of the stock market – it crashed. But Royal Mail employees
were promised the sort of sums which appear in their annual pension
illustrations. We are entitled to that money.
Each one of us is due to lose money under Royal Mail’s pension
proposals - some of us more than others (it varies according to
age and length of service) but class C members would lose the most
as they’re furthest away from retirement.
In addition, it is being proposed that future pensionable pay increases
will be updated in line with inflation but only up to 5% so if inflation
rises above 5% we will not see that rise reflected in our pay, which
means that we would be taking a pay cut and our pensions would suffer
again. Twenty-five years ago inflation went up to 15% but the business
has looked only at inflation levels over the last fifteen years,
which, crucially, avoids those times when inflation was above 5%.
The other very annoying thing for the business is that we are living
longer, but I’m sure every effort will be made to put a stop
to that!
It is important for members to make the business aware that they
do not want a change to current pension arrangements and this should
be made clear either, in any meetings on the subject; by phoning
/ Emailing Alan Leighton; by contacting the pensions helpline that
has been set up; by writing / phoning / Emailing Chesterfield; by
contacting your M.P..
Please let me know too because I will be going to disagreement on
it.
WORK DONE BY THE LA GRADE
Two groups of people are interested in getting heir hands on our
work; these are the CMA grades and the OPG grades.
Royal Mail are giving LA work to CMA grades to keep them in employment.
CMA grades are paid far more than the LA grade.
The OPGs are interested because LA work keeps them in jobs –
but they are paid less than the LAs for doing it.
There are two important points here:-
1) The work belongs to the CWU by national agreement so a CWU grade
should do it.
2) Lower grades performing LA work should at least receive the same
pay as LAs, but if the business is prepared to pay managers to do
subordinates work and even argue about the responsibility attached
to it then maybe we should look at getting more pay for the LA grade
and making it something that OPGs can aspire to under career progression
without losing other benefits such as overtime opportunities.
At the moment the CMA are not losing members on VR because their
managers are often performing fulltime LA roles.
BULLYING & VOLUNTEERING TO SORT MAIL AT XMAS
Every year the business asks for volunteers from the admin grades
to sort the mail.
What does the word ‘voluntary’ mean? The Oxford dictionary
defines it as,
‘Acting or done of one’s own free will and not under
compulsion’.
It all appears straightforward enough: anyone wishing to ‘volunteer’
can complete an on-line form and if you are asked you can legitimately
say ‘no’.
However, some managers have taken it upon themselves to instruct
members to sort mail, which conflicts with the national policy.
Obviously, members feel threatened by this stance and believe that
a refusal would lead to discipline. The managers involved can produce
no agreements or rules to support their action but they do know
that they are intimidating our members and causing them distress.
Furthermore, no manager has been able to tell me what the conduct
charge would be if a member refused to sort the mail at xmas.
The Royal Mail policy statement on Bullying & Harassment describes
bullying as ‘intimidation’ and describes a bully as
someone who ‘misuses his or her power, position, or knowledge’.
The style of management which some Royal Mail managers display appears
to rely heavily on fear and intimidation and directly conflicts
with the official Royal Mail policy on bullying and harassment.
It is totally unacceptable to the CWU.
It is supposed to be unacceptable to Allan Leighton too.
And where does our employer (the government) and Gordon Brown stand
on this? Well, what do you think?
POLITICAL LEVY
A lot of members have said that they no longer want to pay the political
levy which, as we all know, is separate from the subs we pay to
the union; but the response from CWU Headquarters is that the political
levy is used to fight for jobs. I always believed that the role
of the union was to fight for jobs anyway; however, in this instance
‘fighting for jobs’ means such things as, sponsoring
Labour M.P.s who are then expected to argue for us in parliament
and paying for members/reps to lobby M.P.s at the House of Commons
when issues arise.
Marisa Clarke
Area Administration Representative
December 2007
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