The Royal Mail and CWU have struck a deal with a negotiators agreement which both sides believe is acceptable to postal workers and will enable Royal Mail to move forward for the future. A joint statement was issued this morning signed by Jon Millidge, Royal Mail Group HR Director and Terry Pullinger, CWU Deputy General Secretary (Postal).
The CWU executive will meet next week on the 30th and 31st of January to debate the agreement at which time it’s expected to be put to a ballot of members in the near future.
Joint Statement between Royal Mail and CWU on Current Dispute Negotiations
Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) are pleased to announce that the negotiators have finalised the details of a proposed agreement covering the matters under discussion which include pensions, pay, the shorter working week, culture and operational changes.
The proposed agreement will now be considered by the CWU’s Postal Executive Committee next week. A further announcement with the details of the final agreement will be made in due course.
Ratification of the final agreement will be subject to a ballot of CWU members and approval by the Royal Mail plc Board.
CWU on negotiators agreement
In a video to CWU postal workers, Terry Pullinger said that the CWU negotiators believe that the agreement does strike the right balance between all the issues the CWU wanted to take forward and some of the issues raised by Royal Mail.
Terry also stated that once the agreement is published the CWU intend to visit every region and division in the country and speak to every CWU rep to make sure that they understand the CWU’s interpretation of the agreement before they make recommendations to their own members. This does suggest that there are some points in the agreement which the CWU had to cede ground on and that some postal workers might not like, but that the CWU believe they’ve won enough ground and their position is one which they’ll be recommending the workers accept.
Terry added that he absolutely believes that with the agreement they have set the future for the postal service and that it will meet the future challenges, changes and evolution that are faced – to face up to the competition, protect the service and ensure that postal workers will actually have a job in the future with the standard of living and pension that the CWU were campaigning for.
Negotiators Agreement spells end of strike threats
With a bit of work from the negotiators to convince postal workers and the Royal Mail board that this is the best deal that they’re going to get, this announcement spells the end of the threat of postal strikes for the foreseeable future. In any case a fresh CWU ballot would be needed soon if they did want to strike as the last ballot result was announced on the 3rd of October and is only valid for a six month period.
6 Responses
how many meetings and negotiations does it take
to hammer home to all parties that they need to adapt and modernise
or they dont have a job!
though Royal mail are beginning to see the light,
its amazing the attention you receive from Royal mail oba support when you mention my hermes
As a postal worker it seems good to me well done the cwu for standing up to royal mail’s bullying tactics and getting a good deal for us
The negotiations seem to have gone very well. Looking to a promising future in Royal Mail! (32 years so far.)
Where do we stand now after the agreement on recruiting part time staff against full time job?
If in the end there has been some give and take on both sides, then that has to be a good thing? The mail business is under going a massive change of direction and usage and nobody really likes big change ( lets be honest we don’t do we?!) However if it secures the future of Royal mail then it has to be a good thing. Working on my own alot, sometimes my friendly postie is the only face i see all day until i go home!
Fingers crossed it gets voted through.
Will this agreement be subject to different interpretation as usual ? The wording needs to be 100% clear, so that both the Royal Mail & C.W.U know exactly where they stand ! In my experience ,every agreement made up to now has always been interpreted differently by either side ! Spending more time now getting the wording absolutely clear, would save a whole lot of trouble a few months down the line ?