Communication Workers Union - Midlands Division

Members Bulletin – October 2011

Dear Colleague,

Mail Centres Review – Midlands Region Formal Decision

The decision that Royal Mail has announced today will result, in due course, in Mail Centre operations ceasing at the Derby, Leicester (apart from retaining a packet operation) and Worcester Mail Centres. All three existing sites will be retained for alternative use.

Full details of the Region’s announcement are being briefed to employees by Royal Mail management.

Part of the Region’s formal proposal was to vacate and sell off the Leicester Mail Centre site. However as a result of the consultation process that we have been engaged in, we have been able to amend the Region’s proposal and persuade Royal Mail to retain this site, primarily for alternative use, but also retain a packet operation. This packet operation will assist to mitigate the impact on Mail Centre members at the site.

We have also persuaded the Region via the consultation exercise to drop the planned consolidation of the Ilkeston/Heanor Delivery Office into the Derby Mail Centre site.

·         Worcester’s mail to migrate to the Birmingham Mail Centre during 2012, commencing around April of 2012.

·         Leicester’s mail to migrate to the South Midlands Mail Centre during 2013, commencing around April of 2013.

·         Derby’s mail to migrate to the Nottingham Mail Centre during 2014, commencing around April of 2014.

The extended timeline for migrating mails is, on the one hand helpful, but on the other hand will cause problems. It is helpful in that we should have sufficient time to work through and resolve employee issues at each of the affected sites, and also time to properly plan and resolve all of the many issues that migrating Delivery Offices into the Worcester and Leicester site will throw up, including the employee issues involved in such consolidations.

However, it will also cause problems in a number of ways. Members in sites that have been tagged to lose their Mail Centre operations may well wish to move on to other opportunities or consider exiting the business on voluntary redundancy before their Mail Centre’s mail migration date and may be unable to do so.

Additionally, the proposed timeline for the Leicester and Derby mail migrations is after the current Voluntary Redundancy (VR) terms and Excess Travel Expenses (ETE) terms are due to expire. The current VR and ETE terms are due to change, and worsen, from the 31^st March 2013. Neither of these Mail Centres is due to lose their work before this date.

We have advised the Region that we do not believe it will be fair on employees in these two sites to receive the inferior VR and ETE terms given that the loss of their Mail Centres has been announced in 2011, and neither do we believe that we will be able to resolve all of the employee issues in these sites if the existing terms are not maintained. We will be lobbying both CWU Headquarters and Royal Mail for the existing VR and ETE terms to be either extended as part of a new national agreement or ring fenced to cover the Midlands Mail Centre Review.

We are absolutely determined to retain the existing VR and ETE terms for Midlands’s members affected by this review. We will consider using all available tools at our disposal to achieve this objective.

We will continue to meet regularly with the Region’s Mail Centre Project Team on all aspects of the implementation phase of the review.  Our continued co-operation is dependant at all times on the Region being able to demonstrate in words and deeds that all of the employee issues that will need to be dealt with can be resolved on a voluntary basis applying reasonable measures.

We will not accept, agree with or cooperate on any people plan that would require compulsory redundancy as a way of resolving employee issues.

The three Mail Centres announced to lose their Mail Centre operations have not been chosen because of poor quality, performance, efficiency or industrial relations. On the contrary, these three Centres have excellent performance on all of these measures. These Mail Centres are victims of a mails market that is retracting, unfair competition (the way Down Stream Access has been established), increased automation efficiency and geography.

Royal Mail and the CWU have a joint obligation to ensure that affected employees are treated sensitively, reasonably and fairly. The CWU will be committed in the coming months, and possibly years to ensure that this joint obligation is delivered in full.

We appreciate that today’s announcement will raise many questions, issues and concerns for members who will be affected and impacted upon by Royal Mail’s decision. We will continue to meet with both the Region and CWU Representatives from across the Region as we begin our work to deal with all of the issues that will arise.

We will also ensure that we keep members fully up to speed on all developments as they occur.