The CWU union has issued what it calls a corrective to ‘misleading and untrue’ statements it says Royal Mail has been making ahead of tomorrow’s strike by 115,000 postal workers – and calling on ‘all journalists reporting on the dispute’ to do their job and report properly on the fight for decent pay and conditions. Royal Mail’s propaganda has so far been largely either ignored or parroted by the so-called ‘mainstream’ media.
The release, which asks why Royal Mail is paying out huge dividends along with bonuses to senior management if the company’s claims are true and flatly calls the management’s claims about what the company is offering workers ‘a lie’, reads:
In recent weeks, Royal Mail Group have put out several misleading and untrue statements about the current dispute with the Communication Workers Union (CWU).
We have taken the time to correct these issues in this document and ask all journalists to use this statement when questioning the employer and covering the strikes.
Royal Mail Group finances
We are now told the company are losing £1m a day. This is against a backdrop of making record profits of £758m just a few months ago. If this situation is to be believed, then surely the first port of call must be to question the future of the company’s leadership who have overseen such a dramatic downturn in fortunes. This is their strategy.
In addition to this, if Royal Mail Group knew we were heading into a loss-making situation, how can they justify paying over £400m to shareholders and in excess of £2m in executive bonuses?
We would also ask why, the Royal Mail refused to meet the CWU in February when our pay claim was submitted, and at which point the rate of inflation was much lower. This is another example of mismanagement.
Royal Mail have offered 5.5% to CWU members
This is a lie. In fact, Royal Mail Group have not offered anything. They have imposed a 2% rise on workers without the agreement of the union.
Separately, they have offered 1.5% but that is strictly conditional on postal workers agreeing changes which would rip up their terms and conditions.
Finally, they have suggested a £500 lump sum could be paid in 2023 but have no clear view on the criteria for that.
We urge you to make it absolutely clear this pay offer is the imposition of 2% and nothing else.
Competition
Royal Mail Group claim this is about being able to compete with the competition. This is untrue. What it is about is a race to the bottom on terms and conditions, including pay.
It is also worth highlighting the hypocrisy of them taking this position whilst at the very same time handing Parcelforce work over to EVRI well in advance of strike action. They are literally handing work over to the competition rather than focussing on resolving our dispute.
Meetings with Royal Mail Group
Royal Mail Group are falsely claiming the CWU are unwilling to meet them. We have met them on dozens of occasions. It is clear the negotiators in the room do not have the authority to reach an agreement.
It is on this basis that the CWU have called for a summit meeting with the Chair and CEO of Royal Mail Group and the General Secretary and Deputy General Secretary (Postal) of the CWU. Royal Mail have refused this meeting.
Royal Mail claim this is because the Chair is not involved in the day to day running of the company. This is in direct contradiction to the fact the Chair is one of the signatories of our most recent national agreement, spoke at the Royal Mail AGM and has been undertaking multiple media interviews.
Indeed, the role specification of the Chair states they are:
‘Responsible for the leadership and management of the Board and for promoting high ethical and governance standards’
‘Ensures that the Board determines the nature and extent of the significant risks that the Group is willing to accept in implementing its strategy.’
The CWU are more than willing to meet Royal Mail Group to resolve this dispute, but the right people must be in the room. Any responsible employer would pick up on that request.
Skwawkbox is more than happy to put the facts on the record and offers solidarity to postal and all other workers fighting for their pay, terms and conditions and against exploitation.
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SW – Thanks for publishing the workers perspective (the truth) on this to counter the propaganda put out by the employers.
Emily Maitlis’ excellent lecture (yesterday) on the supine MSM is well worth watching. It starts off a little slow but once she gets into her stride she doesn’t hold back.
https://news.sky.com/video/watch-emily-maitlis-deliver-the-mactaggart-memorial-lecture-at-the-edinburgh-tv-festival-12680765
Is that the same Emily Maitlis, who supine restrained The UK Labour Party, with her knee in the back of their heads and their faces buried in the dirt, for 4y3m?
Interesting Propaganda tactic wouldn’t you say? Is that Luntz, Goebbels, Campbell or probably Mandelson, or the Dark Lord BLiar, NOOOO! could it be BlueKeef!?
In a world so surreal and out of order, I will put bottom dollar down that something extraordinarily nasty is brewing off the back of this!
The SHEEPLE will lap this shit up, like George Galloway a saucer of milk, and not give it a single moments thought, that is the problems with the MSM! It fools many!
As liberalism has been cooing about Emily Maitlis’s MacTaggart Lecture all day, some remarks are in order. Titled ‘Boiling Frog: Why We Have to Stop Normalising The Absurd’, she takes aim at how the BBC and journalism more generally handles impartiality and balance, and how “the populists” have taken advantage of the Fourth Estate’s naivete to carve out space in the public’s consciousness.
What a load of self-serving drivel.
Emily Maitlis and “BBCism”
https://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2022/08/emily-maitlis-and-bbcism.html
I watched it last night. There’s loads of good stuff there, but key aspects and issues are totally ignored. For example, it is reassuring (but distressingly late) that a key celebrity journalist acknowledges that DG Robbie Gibb is a political “agent” of the Conservative party, but where did she address the seperate political control (by neoliberals) of the ‘news agenda’, ‘sexed-up’ false intelligence reports on WMD, the Starmer-led persecution of Julian Assange (which is the same thing), the systemic deprecation, misrepresentation and smearing of Jeremy Corbyn, or the failure of Journalists to question the existence of SARS-COV-2 over-and-above SARS-Cov-1 and the illness covid as it is reported, the fact that more people have died from the ‘vaccines’ than from the virus?
She didn’t. She treated the James MacTaggart memorial lecture as an opportunity to move on from the BBC to a different commercial environment (SKY) and acknowledge the atrocious ‘errors’ of the former and to minimise or explain-away her parts in them.
The Tree is dead, but so is the entire forest. Thank heavens for this site and every other ‘independent’ alternative.
the fact that more people have died from the ‘vaccines’ than from the virus
Do you have a source for this, quertboi?
No PW, I haven’t, however
* You can view NHS collated MHRA COVID-19 Vaccine/Yellow Card Adverse Reactions Data (including deaths) here (Doctors for Covid Ethics dot org uses more recent numbers for the UK (nearly 5,000) and advises its members not to cite the data they use
” The pathological distinction between deaths ‘of’ and ‘with’ covid-19 is disputed. I have no idea how many people have actually died of covid19 (nobody has), but I noticed that until end2020 covid deaths happened at the expense of influenza deaths in UK or cholera deaths in India, and no inexplicable “extra death” occurred in any part of the world.
* Also, given that MHRA data is recognised as between 1 – 10% of all adverse reactions, (and that not every reported death is directly caused by a vaccine), then both input numbers to the hypothesis are imprecise. A definite verifiable number is not possible.
Clearly, if the underlying premise that the coronavirus emergency was actually a global scam is correct, then the actual data will be hidden, disguised and certainly mis-classified. I suspect none of this will ever be admitted or conceded until most of the currently living are long-dead, so no, there is no citable data, but much indication of fraud and worse.
Her lecture is a News International joke………….Emily Maitlis fails to mention Julian Assange as she seeks to simplify why journalists self censor in the Joni Mitchell ‘Both Sides Now’ debate, quoting carefully chosen media academics to support her limited pov, but never John Pilger nor Noam Chomsky. How would she explain the Forde Report?
It doesn’t matter who owns & controls MSM & the numerous other controlling determinants on journalists to ensure their co-operation (see Peter Oborne). Today, no Socialist will ever be given a platform on any MSM, let alone a job as a journalist, this privilege is reserved for bigots like Dan Wooton who publicly states on GB News that any form of Socialism must be stopped (even Keir Starmer). Ever more TV News & Comment stations are appearing as if by magic, to replace the propaganda of RT.
Emily Maitlis is the smiling face of C21 mainstream journalism that blames Donald Trump for their inability to act as the 4th Estate safeguard of a liberal democracy. Who does she now work for? ‘Drain the Swamp!’
Meanwhile….
An industrial dispute….in Coventry?
https://www.thecanary.co/amplify/2022/08/25/coventry-striking-bin-drivers-strike-win-a-pay-rise/
Thanks for your support, keef.
didn’t the Labour politicians in Coventry set up a third-party at Companies House (i.e. a company) to do the work that striking workers were leaving undone?
The party of Labour at the cutting-edge of crony capita;lism.
Every member of Labour who is either a social democrat or a democratic socialist should be furious about this. Many people I know (in West Yorkshire) cited it as THE reason foir cancelling payment of their membership fees to the party and becoming the dearly departed.
The key point is that RM were wrong to make such a massive share dividend on the back of a volatile market arising from COVID. See https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-search-results/r/royal-mail-plc-ordinary-gbp0.01/financial-statements-and-reports
If you tabulate the Operating Profit/Loss against the dividend (in brackets) from 2018-22 you’ll see that they ignored the notion of re-investing in the business (with trained staff being at the heart of such a principle) and instead made an inordinately large payment to shareholders:
2018 £66m (24p)
2019 £160m (25p)
2020 £55m (7.5p)
2021 £611m (10p)
2022 £577m (40p)
Whilst it is entirely possible that they are now losing £1m a day after having posted significant profits for the previous year, they would have been in a much stronger position had they not gifted so much to the shareholders (whose role is to extract value rather than staff who add value).
Tim White
Royal Mail is always problematic to me, is it a public service or not, not sure if I give a fuck
Post Offices and Credit Uniouns are part of the solution
EVRI! Good grief!
Royal Mail was only £1.123 Billion out, close enough for the MSM.
Why aren’t Labour calling them out?
Very quiet given the cost-of-living crisis. This may explain…
MPs can claim their utility bills, including gas, electricity, other fuel and water bills, on expenses at a single property, either in London or their constituency.
Labour MP Liam Byrne claimed the most on energy in his second home, charging taxpayers some £7,808 over three years.
Under the expenses system, MPs are allowed to claim for utility bills at their second homes if their constituencies are outside London.
In February, MPs also got a £2,212 pay rise, bringing their standard salary up to £84,144 a year.
As Michael Rosen would say : Noice!!
Why indeed!
Its not exactly quantum mechanics to get the simple message across that the multiplier effect of putting money into peoples pockets is better for the economy than giving it to billionaires to horde in the Cayman Islands.
https://twitter.com/jemmaforte/status/1563075258470449153?s=20&t=WEM_QWrsb0mo4DMJ5Qlmgg
One does have to wonder about the motivation and allegiance towards its (alleged) stated values of The Loyal Opposition when others are putting this economics 101 message out whilst Starmer’s Establishment Sycophants are simply stood there with their thumbs up their bums and brains in neutral.
Gaw bless em. They would want to have more. Were that ever to reach a vote Max would abstain. I’ve been at looking some recent exs and from what I can tell nothing has changed, more creative definitely. I’m waiting for a reply to my question, what are the totals for all the years after the scandal?No, I’ll put the kettle on again.
https://labourlist.org/2022/08/how-the-labour-movement-reacted-to-the-energy-price-cap-announcement/