WEEKLY INFORMATION FROM THE COMMUNICATION WORKERS UNION
SUMMARY
Attachments or LTB's can be
emailed or downloaded from the National Site
Volume 10 Issue 16 Paragraphs 260-270 22 April 2005
SUMMARY
GENERAL
260 Headquarters Printing
and Reprographic Services
261 Branch Magazine and
Website Competition
262 Equality &
Diversity Mandatory Training for Branch Officials
263 CWU Fund for Blind and
Partially Sighted Children
EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES
No items this week
HEALTH AND SAFETY
264 TUC Safety
Representative Award 2005 (TUC Congress Awards)
TELECOMS
265 Network Operations -
Project Rubicon
266 Network Operations -
Attendance Patterns
267 Pay & Reward -
Telewest and CWU Review
268 Traffic Management Act
2004 (England)
269 One IT Creation - Update
POSTAL
270 Quadrant Agreed
Resolution of Outstanding Issues on Christmas & New Year Claw
Back Arrangements
LETTERS TO BRANCHES
176
14/04/05 Royal Mail and Logistics Pay - Dave Ward
177
15/04/05 Romec Cleaners' Bonus - Bob Gibson
178
18/04/05 Nominations for Postal Standing Orders Committee 2005 -
Steve Baguley
179
19/04/05 TUC Safety Rep Award - Dave Joyce
180
19/04/05 BT Global Services Asian Service Centre - Bill McClory
181
20/04/05 Property Moves and Changes in BT: Consultative Arrangements
- Simon Sapper
182
20/04/05 IPS Guidelines - Bob Gibson
183
20/04/05 CWU Annual Conference - Fringe Meetings - Jeannie Drake
184
20/04/05 Agreed Resolution about Standing Issues on Christmas and
New Year Claw Back Arrangements - Terry Pullinger
185
20/04/05 Annual Conference 2005 - Dave Ward
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GENERAL
260
Headquarters Printing and Reprographic Services
Branches and Representatives will wish to know that CWU Headquarters
have recently acquired new reprographics equipment. The purpose of
broadcasting this information is to inform you that we are now able
to offer a print service to branches that we believe will be within a
price range that you will find competitive. Amongst the services we
can provide are colour or black & white posters, leaflets,
booklets etc. It is not possible to produce a price list as prices
will vary dependent on each individual job based on quantity,
timescale, delivery requirements etc. If you would like more
information about this service or wish to receive a quote for a
particular piece of work then please ring or email Jacquie Winter,
Acting Head of Post & Reprographics. 020 8971 7218 jwinter@cwu.org
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261
Branch Magazine and Website Competition
Web wonders and branch hacks take note! The annual awards rewarding
the very best CWU branch magazines and websites are up for grabs once
again - and as normal the competition will reach its climax at Annual
Conference in Blackpool.
Nominations are now open, so it's time to think about getting
recognition for the branch editors and internet boffins who beaver
away to bring you the information you need at branch level.
Editors: All you have to do is decide which edition of the magazine
was your best of the last twelve months and send three copies to:
Marcia Murray, CWU Communications Department, 150 The Broadway,
Wimbledon, London, SW19 1RX.
Webmasters and mistresses: email your details, including the branch
URL (website address) to: mmurray@cwu.org
Deadline for entries is Friday, May 20 so don't delay, particularly
considering substantial prizes are at stake thanks to Hamilton Bank
which is once again sponsoring the competition.
This year the winners of both the branch magazine and branch website
competitions will walk away with a total of £300 in software
vouchers, enabling them to improve their publications still further.
Simon Alford
Communications Dept. HQ
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262
Equality & Diversity Mandatory Training for Branch Officials
In line with Conference policy, we now require branches to submit
applications for the following mandatory Equality & Diversity courses.
These courses are being held in the North East Region:
Tuesday 24th May - Leeds
Thursday 9th June - Leeds
Further dates and venues for other regions will be published in due course.
Nominations should be made on an application form for Union courses
and returned as soon as possible to Trish Lavelle, Head of Education
& Training, CWU Education & Training Centre, Alvescot Lodge,
Alvescot, Bampton, Oxon OX18 2PY. Telephone: 01993 843373; Fax: 01993
840960; email: mtodd@cwu.org
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263
CWU Fund for Blind and Partially Sighted Children
The Union's increased efforts to raise money for the support of Blind
and Partially Sighted Children resulted in a magnificent total of
£5,900 for 2004! This is almost double the amount for the
previous year!
In the past we have been able to contribute to initiatives such as
the provision of classroom facilities at the Sunshine School,
Northwood, a sensory garden and, more recently, the refurbishment of
a swimming pool. All these initiatives could not have been completed
without the efforts of our members and branches and the RNIB have
asked me to pass on our thanks in that regard.
Hopefully, 2005 will see an even greater result and we have made a
good start with donations. In March, for example, exceeding
£300.00. If you are thinking of organising a fundraising event
this year then let us know about it! Our Royal Mail colleagues in the
Bournemouth area organised a six-a-side football competition which
resulted in a magnificent donation of £272.00!
If you need any information about RNIB initiatives in your area then
contact Andrea Simpson our Corporate Partnerships Manager at 105,
Judd Street, London WC1H 9NE, Telephone number: 0207 391 2094.
Donations are to be made payable to the CWU Fund for Blind and
Partially Sighted Children or information about your fundraising
initiatives should be sent to me, Phil Bowerman, CWU Headquarters,
150 The Broadway, Wimbledon, London SW19 1RX.
Many thanks, once again for your help and keep up the good work!
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HEALTH AND SAFETY
264
TUC Safety Representative Award 2005 (TUC Congress Awards)
The TUC wants to demonstrate and acknowledge the range of work
currently undertaken by safety representatives on behalf of their
members and the community. For the third year, the TUC will be making
an award to a trade unionist who represents the best aspects of being
a Safety Representative. This is not intended to be a competitive
award and the TUC is keen to develop this award over coming years.
The award will be made at the 2005 Congress, which takes place in
Brighton from 12-15 September. In line with the practice for all TUC
awards there will be one overall winner of the award.
Last year the CWU Health, Safety & Environment Committee decided
to support the award and gave consideration to how CWU nominations
should be made. The Committee decided that there should be one
nomination from each of the 10 Regional Health & Safety Forums.
Branches, Safety Representation and Regional Health & Safety
Forums were also invited last year to comment, and put forward any
alternative suggestions for making nominations for the 2005 Award.
With no alternative suggestions being received at HQ, we are
therefore inviting nominations on the same basis as last year to be
submitted to the Heath, Safety & Environment Department by the 31
May in order that the forms can be checked, completed and signed by
the General Secretary for submission to the TUC by the closing date
of 10 June.
The TUC has requested that the forms are completed in typescript or
black ink for photocopying purposes and signed by the nominee. Forms
must be submitted with a completed equality monitoring page or will
not be accepted. (The page is for monitoring purposes only and will
be detached from the form before judging takes place).
Will Branches ensure that safety reps wishing to be considered for
the award complete the electronically attached form and submit it to
the Regional Health and Safety Secretary from which the Forums will
decide and submit one nominee to CWU Headquarters Health, Safety &
Environment Department.
The TUC's decision about any aspect of this award is final.
Any enquiries should be addressed to Dave Joyce, National Health,
Safety & Environment Officer, quoting reference EX10.
Attachment
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TELECOMS
265
Network Operations - Project Rubicon
A mid-term review meeting on the findings of the project has been
held with operational management.
Overall, progress is being made in the proof of concept with regard
to changes in the processing of orders received through to the
execution in the field. However the volume of orders have been low.
Despite this, the time to complete from receipt of customer request
has substantially cut the time to deliver and complete in the field.
The next steps are to extend the proof of concept to a wider range of
products as detailed in the attachment.
It has also been suggested that ultimately there will be an
organisation restructuring with the creation of Provision of Service
teams, the composition of which is again detailed in the attachment.
The functions identified will be executed by a smaller multi-function
team. How and when this will happen is uncertain because the
potential of the Access Service Division and at the moment PSTs are
no more that an aspirational objective.
Arrangements are in hand for a further review meeting during the
course of the summer, following which there will be further reports.
Brian Healy
Assistant Secretary
Attachment
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266
Network Operations - Attendance Patterns
Nationally we have come across managerial information on the options
exercise as of 8 April 2005. This is attached for the information of Branches.
Discussions have taken place on the Attendance Patterns and the
originally presented documentation has not been the basis for these
discussions. The Executive team has been mindful of statements made
at the last Network Briefing Forum of the need for local discussions
and agreement. Therefore, the discussions have addressed the need for
greater local involvement and agreement, in addition discussions on a
framework of limited new attendance patterns which individuals could
voluntarily request. The overall intent of such discussions would be
on the basis of voluntarism for the new attendances and for any
further and future changes to the current available attendance
patterns to be by local agreement.
Yours sincerely
Brian Healy
Assistant Secretary
Attachment
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267
Pay & Reward - Telewest and CWU Review
Jointly, the CWU and Telewest have been reviewing elements of the
scheme which the Union had identified as being inconsistent or issues
which members had identified as preventing them from securing a bonus payment.
The response to the issues identified has been positively addressed
by Telewest management. This newsletter contains some of the highlights.
Processes and communications
There are a number of issues which can be grouped into consistency of
documentation, transparency and access to that documentation. For
example, visibility of own fault rates and to be able to query and
respond to omissions. All managers have been communicated that they
should pass this information to BBEs. If the TM refuses to provide
this, it can then be escalated to the FM/ROM. This agreed procedure
will be further communicated to BBEs. Downtime, how and what is
recorded has also been communicated down to TMs; this was due to
inconsistencies of what is appropriate to be recorded. Other work
such as training or preventive maintenance is decided by the AOM. It
is the TMs responsibility to record all downtime and a communication
to reinforce this has gone to TMs; installs and service technicians
will also be informed.
Routing
Routing between jobs has not been examined in detail since Pay &
Reward was originally introduced. There does not exist any automated
means of recording travel between all jobs, although it was suggested
that in 2 years hence, the company may have a tracker system in
place. The Union has picked up an action point on routing and all
install and service technicians are strongly urged to assist by the
provision of detailed information. The company has offered to look at
two particular scenarios:
a) examples of technicians work in same location
b) examples of where the day's first job has changed from that given
at the end of the previous day. In both cases the reference number
and day is required and members are asked to pass that onto your
local representatives for onward transmission.
Accreditation Levels
The Union had previously pointed out that even if an accomplished BBE
achieves 4 out of 6 months at Outstanding, one month at Developing
means that they will be unable to go to panel review for a further 11
months. The members did not consider this fair as it impacts on
motivation and morale. Telewest have quickly responded and allowed
one month rated at Developing in the install business. Proposals for
this to be rolled out to service are being considered The Union will
be seeing what the effect of this will be in the review panels later
in the year.
Training
The Union stated at the last meeting on Pay & Reward that over
70% of BBEs had not been trained in the use of "Linesman"
and this impacted upon their effectiveness and productivity. There
was genuine concern over the commitment to training ranging over a
number of subject areas. Since that meeting, Health and Safety
refresher courses have been rolled out to all in install and there
are plans in place for service.
Bonus
The target of reaching bonus in excess of 50% to all eligible has
been achieved nationally at 51% and in some locations between 50% and
60%. However, this is not consistent with regards to regional
attainment. The Union is seeking examples from members where they
believe that the network architecture is influencing the fault rate
and where faults are not being filtered out.
Points Matrix
Management have been undertaking a points matrix review during
February and March direct from the SMC systems performance data.
Architecture differences were taken into consideration and average
time for jobs taken. Management reported that their findings showed
that some job types have a difference between actual time taken and
time allowed by points matrix, the most significant being SOLUS
activity. Also at the previous meeting the Union raised free
extensions being fitted if agreed at point of sale but it is not
taken into account in terms of points As a result of this a new
policy has been briefed to Sales. From now on no free extensions will
be offered at POS. Telewest will however continue to transfer
existing BT extensions over Free of Charge. New extensions will now
be charged at £25 per extension, if completed within the
existing visit or £50 if a further visit is required. All
additional works will now be documented on the work order and not in
the comments field, in order for the routing team to allocate enough
points to complete the job. The only exception to this is when it is
a "Move and Transfer" customer where Telewest will install
the same amount of extensions in the new house as they had in the old
one but all this work will now be captured at POS and documented on
the work order to allow additional points to be added.
Management's position is that points could be added back to jobs
which show the greatest time differential and to reduce points
awarded to jobs which are taking less time. They are taking a further
detailed review with a view to agreeing exact changes with the Union
to the points matrix to come into effect on 1 June 2005. On the basis
of the detail known so far, this would lead to a marked increase in
the overall bonus levels achieved by members.
Brian Healy
Assistant Secretary
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268
Traffic Management Act 2004 (England)
The Traffic Management Act received the Royal Assent in July 2004,
the Act itself is an enabling Act and the finer detail of what it
actually means in a practical way will be determined by Regulations
and Codes.
The purpose of the Act is to attempt to minimise disruption in the
highways as it is estimated that 10% of all congestion is caused by
public utilities. This Act only applies to England - Scotland has its
own Bill currently going through Parliament and Wales has taken up a
separate approach and has set up a separate working party to
determine its own approach to the issue. It is unclear what the
intention is for Northern Ireland as there is no declared intent to
place an order before Parliament.
It is the purpose of this bulletin to brief Branches on the impact it
will have for members in BT and Telewest. Branches may wish to
brief/lobby constituency MPs on how some aspects of the Regulations
being drafted and under discussion will be detrimental to the
companies in question and the impact on delivering customer service.
Of significant impact are the proposed changes to the
"Notices" procedure. The suggested changes are that:
o Cabling/Jointing now require longer notice where incursion is onto
carriageway in traffic sensitive streets.
o Parked vehicles in restricted areas; notice required when carrying
out works >10 minutes. (This will also impact upon survey parties)
o Pole replacement and pole u/g testing now noticeable. (This will
also impact on Pole Testing where the ground has to be executed for
testing poles greater than 25 years).
One aspect of the Act allows for a "Permit Regime" to apply
to all noticeable works, although this will not necessarily be run by
all Authorities. This will be left to Local Authorities to decide
whether they wish to continue with a "notice" regime or a
"permit" regime. The Act does limit the cost of permits to
the proper and reasonable expense of running the permit scheme; Local
Authorities can apply permits to all noticeable works. Fees for
"busy" roads can be higher and the expected range to apply
is between £25 and £400 per permit. If the current level of
activity is applied to expected cost range, the anticipated costs to
BT alone can be expected to fall somewhere between £25m -
£45m. The new regulations will not affect the Prolonged
Occupation charges (Section 74), these will continue to apply.
There will be a change in Notice Periods before works can start and
they are as shown in Table 1.
|
Table 1 |
||
|
Type (existing) |
Current Periods |
New Proposals |
|
Prog. |
1 Month |
6 months |
|
Major |
1 Month |
3 months |
|
Standard |
1 month or 7 days |
3, 2 months or 20 days |
|
Minor |
1 Month or 1 Day |
20 days or 10 days |
|
NB All except Prog. No Incursion 3 days |
||
|
Urgent |
2 hours |
2 hours |
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269
One IT Creation - Update
The following is an update on the activity that has taken place on
the creation of One IT.
The process for mapping as previously reported in Branch Officials'
Bulletin No.2/2005, paragraph 28, led to BT People mapped as 6078.
Agency people mapped as 1938
There were 693 requests to move as a result of the initial mapping of
which 432 were agreed. As part of the previous commitment given to
the Union, 150 agency/contractors were exited and the company expects
to be able to do more. The intent is to have those costing more than
BT exiting and a further report is awaited. The above figures will be
inflated by those LoB transfers as reported in Branch Officials'
Bulletin No.14/2005, paragraph 232.
At the time of receiving this report, 878 had initially been assigned
to the "bench" with 703 relocated to programmes; the
sub-grade groups are not known but are being pursued.
Concerns have been raised by one Branch in particular over promotion
freezes. This was instigated on the back of a need to currently
support people into various programmes and posts. The intent is that
all vacancies will be advertised internally and externally where appropriate.
The normal existing selection criteria/process for the filling of
vacancies will be followed. Management have given an assurance that
individuals caught up in the process will not be disadvantaged.
Any Branches where this proved not to be the case should, after first
being pursued at the local level without success, escalate to Head Office.
Brian Healy
Assistant Secretary
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POSTAL
270
Quadrant Agreed Resolution of Outstanding Issues on Christmas &
New Year Claw Back Arrangements
Reproduced below for the information of Branches is the agreement
reached with the business relating to the above subject.
Any enquiries regarding this particular paragraph should be addressed
to Terry Pullinger, Assistant Secretary, quoting reference 306A.
Quadrant Catering Ltd and the Communication Workers Union Agreed
Resolution of Outstanding Issues on Christmas & New Year Claw
Back Arrangements
In order to resolve outstanding issues surrounding Christmas &
New Year claw back arrangements 2004 both parties committed to carry
out a joint review. The review was to begin during the pay talks for
2005 and those discussions have now been completed.
As part of those discussions it has been agreed that there will be no
requirement for any employee of Quadrant, which includes Coton House,
to attend for all or part of their normal shift on what is deemed as
non-service days in the Royal Mail Group. It is further agreed that
there will be no future requirement for individuals affected to have
any annual leave designated or any adjustment to their normal hours
of attendance to make good the hours not worked as a consequence of
non-service hours on the days referred to above. This agreement
confirms a new approach and supersedes any previous agreements
covering Christmas & New Year arrangements.
Any issues of interpretation or deployment of this agreement should
be dealt with in line with the appropriate industrial relations framework.
Terry Pullinger
Assistant Secretary, CWU
Steve Buesden
Director, Quadrant Catering Ltd