Breaking news: 64% of postal workers voted to accept a settlement offer from Royal Mail bosses, which failed to meet many of the demands of strikers.
The vote was on a 64% turnout.
Many workers have reacted angrily to the news, with one employee on Royal Mail Chat stating:
This is a s**t deal!.. We better all head to Tescos and HOPE that we get jobs there! Cause this job is f****d! If I get my hands on those crooked union reps or royal mail management bastards, they're all dead I tell you!
Some Royal Mail workers have stressed that the dispute is not over, and that staff should continue to "work the 318" - do their job and hours according to the rule book and so put pressure on management. One commented:
We've lost this vote, but we can bring things around to our way just by doing the job properly. Don't work a single second without pay and don't carry a bag which is one gramme overweight. I won't be covering anyone else's delivery, and neither will anyone else with more than two brain cells.
More news to come, in the mean time more initial reactions to the result from postal workers can be viewed on Royal Mail Chat:
http://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8133
The results in detail as presented by the CWU are as follows:
Dear Colleague
Pay and Modernisation Agreement/Network 08 Agreement
Ballot ResultsPlease find attached the ballot results from the Independent Scrutineer for the above mentioned agreements. The results are as follows;-
Pay and Modernisation Agreement
Do you accept the Agreement?
YES 51,260 64%
NO 28,894 36%
Spoilt papers 156
Total ballot papers dispatched 126,035
Total ballot papers received 80,310 64%Network 07 and Network Drivers Pay 08
Do you accept the Agreement?
Those voting YES 752 66%
Those voting NO 387 34%
Spoilt ballot papers 2
Total ballot papers dispatched 2,100
Total ballot papers received 1,141 54%The full results as signed off by the Independent Scrutineer are attached
Both agreements have now been endorsed by the membership. We would like to place on record our thanks to all representatives and members who have supported the Union throughout the dispute.
It is now important we all concentrate on delivering the agreements and dealing with the other major challenges facing the Union’s membership.
We will be contacting Royal Mail asking them to ensure the pay increases, lump sum and back pay are incorporated into pay before Christmas.
Could all Branches please ensure the ballot results are circulated to every workplace and brought to the attention of the membership as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely
Dave Ward Billy Hayes
Deputy General Secretary (P) General Secretary
Mr J East National Organising Secretary
Comments
This deal is a total stitch
This deal is a total stitch up. During the strike we had them by the balls, then all of a sudden this little agreement was reached. The left talking leadership of the union, have an eye on safe little Labour seats as a pay back from the Goverment for ending the dispute which so pissed off Brown and his new administration. We could have won so much more, given the amount of support we had throughout the country.
The agreement basically means that all that Crozier and Leighton wanted, i.e. flexibility, reduction of labour costs and an end of the present pension arrangements, they got. Sure, the union has retained it's consultative role throughout the application of these new arrangements, but as much has been reduced to the local level, it will mean that those units without sufficently well organised union presence will get shafted.Even at my delivery office, which is one of the better organised will have problems resisting the worst effects of this deal.
People are just not willing to work their 318 ( job description).They still work their breaks and use their cars. They do not see that what they do today , will effect them tomorrow. The best thing about the dispute for me, was seeing the miltancy of offices outside the large urban areas. The paupacy of the union bureacracy's response to a well supported dispute was the best confirmation of the classical syndicalist critique of such parasites. The great passivity of the majority of the posties on strike, also illuminated the role of a class conscious militant minority in every dispute.