Postal workers say NO to privatisation

Ballot result – postal workers say no to privatisation

19th June 2013

The Communication Workers Union can today (Wednesday) announce the result of its consultative ballot which closed yesterday. Ballot papers were distributed to 112,000 postal workers in Royal Mail (not the Post Office or Parcelforce) asking four questions. 

The results, on a 74% turnout, are: 

Q1: Do you oppose the privatisation of Royal Mail? YES 96% Q2: Do you support the boycott of competitors' mail? YES 92%
Q3: Do you support the CWU Pay claim? YES 99% Q4: Do you support the policy of non-cooperation? YES 92% 

Ballot papers were collected, counted and verified by independent scrutineer Popularis. 

Billy Hayes, CWU general secretary, said: "No-one has yet asked postal workers what they think about privatisation. Today postal workers have spoken loud and clear with a massive 96% roundly rejecting the government's plans to privatise Royal Mail. The workforce does not support the government or Royal Mail on selling the company. This company is flourishing in public ownership as the recent doubling of profits proves. It's becoming less clear what this policy is about. Why privatise this profitable company? 

"Today's ballot result shows we have resounding support for all the union's policies. This is a strong message to take forward action in each area to improve the working lives of postal workers and protect the services and jobs which customers and communities value." 

Dave Ward, CWU deputy general secretary, said: "This ballot result is a damning rejection of the tired old government privatisation policy and the actions of the Royal Mail board in support of this. Postal workers have worked incredibly hard to turn the fortunes of the company around. Royal Mail is not a financial basket case and they know privatisation is only benefitting vested interests. 

"Postal workers are not going to sacrifice their souls for a so-called 10% stake when they know their jobs, pensions and conditions are once again under threat. 

"The government and Royal Mail have completely alienated the workforce and it's time for serious negotiations to find a solution that really can align the interests of workers, customers and the company. If not, then prolonged industrial conflict is inevitable.

"On a mail boycott, Royal Mail workers have shown they understand the threat to the universal service from unfair competition and the race to the bottom on their own terms and conditions. The way competition is being introduced does not benefit customers, small businesses or postal workers in whatever company they work for."

CWU response to the ballot result in more detail: 

Q1: Privatisation

Royal Mail isn't a financial basket case; it's not a burden on the state and doesn't take any grants. Selling the company only benefits those with vested interests. Privatisation is about taking profits out and not reinvesting in the service. Royal Mail is successful in public ownership and is modernising. There is no need for privatisation to secure access to capital. Network Rail - also a public body - has borrowed billions on private capital markets without it adding to the public debt or causing the government to "choose between funding hospital and schools" or the business, as it has claimed in respect to Royal Mail. 

Q2: Mail boycott

Ofcom and Royal Mail have no strategy for dealing with the threat that end to end competition poses to the universal service. 

The government and Ofcom need to act to address the rigged competition system which threatens to destabilise the universal service. This is made more urgent given TNT's announcement yesterday that they are expanding their street deliveries in SW London and intend to create 20,000 jobs. They will only do this by paying low wages and by pulling work from Royal Mail which will destabilise the company's ability to deliver post to all addresses - rural and urban. TNT is being allowed to deliver what they want, where they want and when they want with no quality of service standards. They are being allowed to get away with this by a government and regulator which either don't understand or don't care about the postal service. 

Q3: Pay

A pay rise for Royal Mail workers was due on the 1^st April 2013. The CWU has set out clearly what we want - an above-inflation two-year pay deal to ensure the workforce is fairly rewarded for their hard work in contributing to the success of the business, which includes recent profits in excess of £400 million.

Q4: Workplace issues and non-cooperation

The workforce has supported difficult change and over the last three years has successfully turned the fortunes of the company around. This has been with, not despite of, the workforce. Now, because of privatisation, we're seeing unrealistic budget cuts which are putting too much pressure on postal workers in many workplaces. 

Next steps

The union's postal executive will meet in the near future to decide how we will take all these issues forwards

O2 strike withdrawn

TO ALL MEMBERS IN TELEFONICA UK O2: Strike ballot withdrawn.
Dear Colleague, 
RE: VOICE TRANSFORMATION-CWU REACHES AGREEMENT
As you are aware, since the 21st May the CWU has been in intense negotiations with Telefonica and Capita on the terms of transfer including job security and the protection of pay and terms and conditions of employment. The Unions aim has always been to avoid a dispute and reach an agreement. However, given the extremely short notice and the lack of assurances we were left with no alternative but to ballot members for industrial action. 
Since the ballot opened, Telefonica and Capita have intensified discussions with us in an attempt to reach an agreement and to avoid industrial action. Today we have concluded negotiations on a package which includes job security; pay protection; protection on terms and conditions of employment; redeployment and Union recognition. We believe we have made considerable progress in seeking assurances and employment protections. Given the position, that an agreement has been reached with the Company, it is not normal practice for an industrial action ballot to continue in these circumstances.
As such, the CWU has informed the Electoral Reform Society to withdraw the ballot with immediate effect. It will be our intention to issue a full report tomorrow as well as arrange consultative meetings on site to explain the detail of the agreement.
Yours sincerely,
Sally Bridge
Assistant Secretary

More Post Office strikes

14^th June 2013

 For immediate release

 Post Office strikes number 6 and 7

 CWU has served notice for a further two rounds of strike action next Thursday 20 June and Saturday 29 June in an ongoing dispute over closures, job security and pay. Talks have made no progress despite the Post Office preparing to announce a £94 million profit, smashing its target by £10m which CWU expects will mean large bonuses for senior executives. CWU is now calling for Paula Vennells the Chief Executive to get involved to resolve the dispute.

The Post Office wants to close and/or franchise 76 Crown offices, 20% of the network and cut up to 1,500 jobs. These main offices comprise 3% of total post offices but handle 20% of all customers and 40% of all financial services sales making them the powerhouse of the network. Staff at the 373 Crown Post Offices have not had a pay rise since April 2011 while all other staff represented by CWU in the Post Office have had two pay rises totalling 6.75% in this period.

  

Dave Ward, CWU deputy general secretary, said: “This dispute can’t be resolved while the CEO Paula Vennells remains aloof and absent from talks. We’ve had informal talks this week which allowed a good exchange of views and discussion on various options, but there’s no change, no new offers and no movement from the Post Office.

“We will be writing to the Chair of the Board, Alice Perkins, regarding the lack of engagement from the CEO on this serious and longstanding dispute.

“We will also be holding a parliamentary event to galvanise the already significant political support we have. We will highlight that the Post Office plans are a closure programme by stealth which will drastically affect the network and the services which communities rely on.

“It’s time that Paula Vennells got her hands dirty and engaged with this dispute which affects the post office network’s biggest branches. It’s no good hiding in the shadows and hoping we’ll go away.”

  

Strike action will take place from 2pm on Thursday 20 June and all day on Saturday 29 June. It will affect up to 4,000 staff working in 373 Crown (main) post offices. Post Office staff voted by nine to one (88%) in favour of strike action and have already taken strike action on five previous occasions: Easter Saturday, 19 and 29 April, 7 and 28 May.

The closure and franchising plans are meeting stiff opposition across the country with tens of thousands signing petitions, and public meetings unanimously rejecting the plans.

 -ends-

 For more information please contact:

 Sian Jones, Press Officer, tel: 020 8971 7267, mobile: 0779 3314249, e-mail:sbjones@cwu.org

BT pay deal accepted

11th June 2013

CWU members in BT have voted by 81% in favour of this year's pay deal. It will now be paid in June salaries, backdated to 1 April 2013. 

The deal

The one-year pay deal covers the period 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2014. A consolidated 2.8% increase on base pay will be backdated to 1 April 2013 for all Team Members who are NewGRID grades and Loyalty Advisor agents. This will flow through to all allowances automatically uplifted in line with the NewGRID agreement. 

An additional £200 lump sum payment has been secured which, although unconsolidated, will be treated as pensionable and will also be paid in June 2013 salaries. The total brings the cash-equivalent payment to above the rate of inflation. 

Recommended

The CWU's Telecoms and Financial Services Executive recommended the pay offer to members. They felt the offer was the best which could be achieved through negotiation after repeatedly pushing for - and securing - improvements to earlier offers from the company. The executive also took into account the backdrop of a difficult economic climate and low wage growth across the wider economy when deciding to recommend the deal. 

The offer was put to all affected members in a consultative ballot which closed on 7 June. More than half - 53% - of those who received a ballot paper took part in the ballot with 81% of members voting to accept the deal.

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If you would like to join the CWU simply give us a call on freephone 0800 731 7434 or emailjoinunion@cwu.org.

O2. Dispelling the myths

TO ALL MEMBERS IN TELEFONICA UK O2
Dear Colleague

Voice Transformation - Dispelling the Myths 

I am writing to you to correct some of the misleading information you have been given by O2 and Capita with regard to the proposed Tupe and to give you an indication of what the Union is currently doing. 
This whole matter has been extremely difficult to deal with on account of O2 refusing to openly declare the full nature of any arrangement with Capita. This lack of openness dates back to April when the Sun Newspaper first leaked the story about O2 outsourcing. At that time O2 Directors were clearly finalising their deal with Capita and the Company could have responded without breaking any City rules by telling staff that it was looking at outsourcing options. Instead it chose to lull employees into a false sense of security his dismissing the report as speculation. 
Subsequently and following the Tupe announcement Director, Sales & Service Feilim Mackel said during a Radio 5 Live interview that Telefonica O2 would love to have given their employees and their families more notice but couldn’t because of City 
Regulations. This however is untrue. The standard business notification and custom and practice of TUPE is 90 days. The decision to give you just 41 days had nothing to do with the City or the law, but is solely down to o2 senior managers. 
The Director of Sales & Service further claimed that Capita could give job security for two years whereas O2 could not. The CWU equally regard this as a misrepresentation of the facts. O2 currently has thousands of jobs with third party suppliers and faced with call volume reductions these jobs could all be in-sourced to protect O2 employees long before any threat of compulsory redundancy. This option would not rule out the potential offer of VR for people who genuinely might want to go. In the same interview O2 went on to claim that Capita had expertise in transformation from Voice to other types of customer interaction. This we believe to be false. Who are these companies and where is the hard evidence for this? In fact the experts in this field are not Capita but are indeed Telefonica O2.
On 29th May the Daily Telegraph reported on a leaked document from Capita stating that as part of the deal Bury and Glasgow would close in 2015, by which time the work-force would be reduced from 3,700 to 1,370 whilst centres in South Africa (for 
voice work) and India for (webchat) would be expanded. O2 responded to this article by claiming it was only one scenario and, in Big Yaks, by stating it was an early draft. We regard both statements to be inaccurate. Indeed, this is not our understanding and when challenged the company have failed to produce the latest scenario. Whatever the truth of the matter, it is clear that O2 Directors were well aware of the potential ramifications of their announcement.
Dealing with some of the more fundamental matters relating to pay and future conditions of service O2 has sadly been equally misleading. O2 have failed to address the serious issue of compulsory redundancies after two years and site closures. Also many employees appear to now believe that their pay is being guaranteed by Capita for two years. Notwithstanding that is not good enough, it is simply not true. If you read the letter sent to reassure you after the Big Yaks carefully you will find there is no mention of pay protection for any period but only of terms and conditions. At the Big Yaks employees were also repeatedly reassured that it would be unlawful for Capita to change pay and terms and conditions under TUPE. This again is not true. A Company can seek a change after the transfer. 
Employees were also not informed that TUPE legislation is currently the subject of a government consultation exercise, the outcome of which is likely to be a significant watering down of terms and conditions to the detriment of employees. It has also 
not been made plain that if employees agree to any move within Capita they will almost certainly go on to a Capita contract and lose their Tupe’d terms and conditions. Equally and again not made clear to employees is that TUPE only protects contractual terms and may well not apply to many of the current non-contractual bonus arrangements. 
Meanwhile, O2 managers in particular have been presenting the move to Capita as a great opportunity, yet if any member simply Googles the words ‘Capita’ and ‘redundancies’ the Capita record will speak for itself. 
Tesco mobile people in the meantime have been reassured that their jobs will remain in-house. Again we are not certain of this. The matter however can be easily resolved by O2 simply confirming in writing that no talks have taken place with Capita about Tesco Mobile: that they do not intend to have any talks with Capita or another outsourcer on this matter and that from September forward, when the current contract expires, the jobs will remain in-house. 
Members will appreciate that trying to negotiate in this vacuum of ambiguity is extremely difficult, especially given the timetable imposed by the Company. Indeed, notwithstanding the above, we still have no details of some of the most basic 
issues, such as pension provisions, disciplinary processes etc. We will therefore be formally asking O2 to place the whole of Project Vincent timetable on hold for a short time so that we can make proper representations and resolve the issues between us. Given that the Company has claimed at Big Yaks that no contract has been signed with Capita and that they are keen to avoid a dispute this should not present an insurmountable problem.In the meantime, the Union cannot allow its members to be simply sold off to a third party outsourcer in a complete vacuum. Accordingly and subject to O2 agreeing to place matters on hold, we have no alternative but to proceed with an industrial action ballot. We will also be seeking to have this matter raised at the highest political levels. What is clear is that we will not allow members to be transferred without calling to account the senior managers who have made this decision and who are trying to rush it through against a background of subterfuge and disingenuous promises. It certainly has not helped that people have been prevented from freely airing their discontent about the decision to Tupe. 
Trying to silence people and stop them from publicly registering their disapproval over a decision that will profoundly impact on their lives and those of their families has no place in 21st Century society. The Union will take up the case of any person 
who believes they have or will suffer discrimination on account of legitimately airing their views. We appreciate that many members are confused and deeply concerned at what is taking place. We want to assure you however that we are doing everything we can to bring about a change in O2’s approach and to ensure that you are given the best possible protection. We need your support in this. Please sign the petition at: 

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/ronan-dunne-telefonica-uk-ceo-stop-the-outsourcing and vote YES in the 

forthcoming Industrial Action ballot.
Yours sincerely,

Sally Bridge
Assistant Secretary

O2 strike ballot

3^rd June 2013

 For immediate release

Strike ballot over o2 outsourcing

 CWU is holding a strike ballot for members working in Telefonica o2 call centres in Bury, Glasgow, Leeds and Preston Brook over plans to outsource jobs to Capita. Rumours of site closures and off-shoring work to South Africa and India have exacerbated attempts to achieve guarantees on job security and the future of these centres. The result is due on June 18.

Telefonica o2 announced last week that it will outsource around 3,500 jobs to outsource giant Capita. Sites with customer service call centres based in Bury, Glasgow, Leeds and Preston Brook are all affected. Despite some assurances over job security given to staff and CWU, documents leaked to the Telegraph newspaper allegedly show Capita plans to close Bury and Glasgow’s centres and to offshore significant levels of work with hundreds of UK job losses.

 Andy Kerr, CWU deputy general secretary, said: “This ballot is about protecting decent UK jobs. We’ve been forced to hold a ballot because of the unusually short consultation period and lack of progress on assurances over job security, terms and conditions, and the future of sites.

“We wanted to have a negotiated way forward but our hands have been tied. We’re already two weeks into the 41 day consultation period and we’ve made no progress at all on key issues.

 “Trust is at rock-bottom, made worse by media speculation around site closures and offshoring work. Our members don’t know who to trust and we feel like we’ve been lied to by o2 and Capita. We’ve been left no option by the company but to hold this ballot and they know this.”

 Ballot timetable:

 Ballot papers despatched: 7^th June 2013 (First Class Post)

 Closing Date: 18^th June 2013

 Declaration of Result: 18^th June 2013

  

Demonstrations were held outside o2’s Preston Brook site near Warrington last week as o2 and Capita management were both on-site for ‘Big Yak’ meetings with staff. Donning masks of Telefonica UK boss Ronan Dunne and brandishing banners declaring ‘Done by Dunne’ and ‘NO2 closures’, members and union activists handed out leaflets as staff arrived at work.

 An online petition opposing outsourcing o2 jobs to Capita already has over 1,000 signatures.

 The consultation period began on May 21 with the intended transfer date given as July 1 2013.

 -ends-

  

For more information please contact:

 Sian Jones, Press Officer, tel: 020 8971 7267, mobile: 0779 3314249, e-mail:sbjones@cwu.org

Overwhelming support

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to the 64 branches who have nominated me and the many others, throughout England, Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales, who are supporting me for re-election as National Equality Officer. I am totally indebted to Andy, Danny, Ian and all at my own branch Leeds No. 1 Amal. for their total support and to all in the postal branches who have taken the time out from the campaign to stop Royal Mail privatisation to express their support formally and informally.  It's always been an honour and a privilege to represent my members in any capacity but I've never been prouder to be part of this great  union. I'll never let you down.

Nominating branches

Birmingham                                      

Birmingham District Amal           

Bournemouth & Dorset Amal                                    

Bradford & District                         

Capital                                 

Central Counties & Thames Valley                         

Clyde Valley Amal                          

Colchester & District     

Croydon & Sutton Amal               

CWU Officers Branch     

Derbyshire                                        

Doncaster & District Amal           

Durham County Amal   

Eastern No. 5                    

Eastern No. 6                    

East Midlands                   

Edinburgh, Dundee & Borders                                  

Glasgow & District Amal

Glasgow & Motherwell

Gwent Amal                                      

Harrow & District                            

Hull & East Riding                           

Kent Invicta                                       

Kingston Area                  

Leeds No. 1 amal

Leicester & Midshires   

Lincolnshire & South Yorks

Liverpool Clerical                           

London North Western C & C

London South West                       

Manchester Combined

Meridian                                            

Mid Wales, The Marches & North Staffs                               

Newcastle Amal                              

North Anglia                                     

North East                                          

Northern Home Counties Postal                                              

Northern Ireland Combined

Northern Ireland West 

North/North West London         

North West London       

North West No. 1                            

Nottingham District Amal           

Portsmouth & District   

Portsmouth, West Sussex & Isle of Wight           

Romford Amal                 

Scotland MT                                      

Scotland No. 1                  

Scotland No. 2  

Scotland No. 5                  

Shropshire & Mid Wales              

Somerset Devon & Cornwall

South East Central                          

South East Wales Amal

South Midlands Postal 

South Wales                                     

South Yorkshire

South Yorks & District   

Suffolk Amal                                     

Tyne & Wear Clerical    

West London Postal      

West Yorkshire                

Wolverhampton & District         

York & District Amal

My website should be fully functional shortly. please check it out at http://www.lindaroy.org