Statement from Martin Walsh Cwu Deputy General Secretary ahead of the CWU USO and EQUALISATION Ballot. Please Read.
- Angela Wright CWU Branch Communications Officer
- May 17
- 2 min read
Statement from Martin Walsh Cwu Deputy General Secretary.
When voting !
USO reform is not optional. Ofcom changed the regulations on 28th July. Royal Mail are granted a licence by Ofcom to deliver the USO , they are currently operating outside that licence. The company has commercially and lawful commitments and this cannot continue. Hence why they activated the Dispute Resolution Process in January.
Voting no will not result in the status quo. It is more probable to lead to executive action and the CWU will have to react to any imposition.
Voting no , will not mean that you suddenly don’t have 4 into 3 , it is more likely to mean that you get 4 into 3 without the extra 3500 walks, the 20 thousand rural and firms routes having their work recorded and without 6000 part time to full time uplifts.
Voting no will likely mean you won’t have a resign which is in the agreement , or the option to select the duties in your unit or keep your Wallingtons.
Voting no will mean that there is no protection from compulsory redundancies as there is no agreement and that new entrants would not be entitled to MTSF as the agreement has been rejected.
Voting no will mean that you work the ODM model with all the mail being delivered by the van sharing pair Monday to Friday and the singleton driver doing first class and parcels for two duties. As opposed to the heavy and light model of DM26.
DM26 has down dialed the saving from ODM. 20% of routes taken out of scope.3500 walks back in.The opportunity for 6000 new full time jobs. A no vote stops all of that but it does not stop USO reform.
There is no magic money tree. This company is facing a cross roads , letter decline and customers downgrading to economy alongside parcels growing but revenue from parcels falling due to every other operator employing self employed drivers which get paid a price per parcel but not a wage, no pension , no holiday , no sick pay.
Voting no may seem a good idea and may get a few likes , fist emojis and some good comments but it is the road to oblivion and there is no way this union can allow Royal Mail to impose change or walk away totally from equalisation.
The risk is also in 3 years when the legal guarantees are up for review that EP and Royal Mail decide that the 11% of mail which is actually USO traffic will be delivered by a much reduced level of employees and everything else parcels and tracked by self employed drivers.
The stakes are higher than they have ever been and I would seriously ask you to not be taken in by political parties who are not elected only have an agenda of progressing their parties beliefs , have never fought for the members or by individuals who hide behind anonymous names who may not even work for the company. Don’t let those influence your vote especially those are not prepared to fight any executive action which will follow by the company ,
Ballot is now open till the 29th of May. Please use your Vote .
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