Secretary’s annual report lawrie McMenamim
Introduction
Once again major changes have been the order of the day, with the companies where the majority of our members are employed.
The creation of BT Openreach, the biggest re-organisation of BT since privatisation has once again lead to questions over the long term future of the company.
Within Royal Mail the commercial changes brought about by liberalisation, and the political uncertainty, have caused major concern.
Within Manpower Business Services, who took over from Vertex in the Call Centre at Atrium Court, there have been a number of changes, and a continuous downsizing, leading to some uncertainty.
Within the branch organisation there have also been a number of changes with some people leaving and being replaced by new faces.
Since the merger of Glasgow and Motherwell branches, two years ago we have continued to meet on the second Thursday of the month. Attendances have not been good, and we would welcome any suggestions which could lead to an improvement in the numbers turning up.
Since the last magazine we have started a branch website which we have been using to broadcast information. In future it is our intention to use the website, with the branch magazine only being used for Annual Reports, such as this.
For the website I must thank Gary Creamer for the work he has put into eventually bringing us into the 21st Century.
OPENREACH/CUSTOMER SERVICE
At the time of writing BT is once again going through major upheaval, with the creation of Openreach. The eventual set-up will take us back into a Regional structure within Scotland, with three General Managers for West, East and North of Scotland plus a further one covering Controls (Workflow & Allocation) and another to deal with Efficiency & Investment.
The eventual effect such re-organisation will have on the CWU membership is debatable, and will only be measured by the long term result. It is true that from the outset Customer Field Service was an area where we had most complaints about management style, though there were improvements, Field Service was still the area where we received most complaints.
Management have stated that their intention is to develop an Openreach culture, different from Field Services, lets hope that matters continue to improve.
FRS/TMIS
The FRS scheme has always been a controversial issue, and one which some people will be glad to see the back of, but there is no guarantee that the proposed replacement TMIS will prove to be any better. At present we have reached an impasse, and FRS finished on the 5th February, with compensation payments being made to those who were formerly on FRS. I must emphasise that with the ending of FRS that also includes the ending of TOIL and any other related issues. Any overtime which you now work must be authorised by your manager, and can only be compensated by payment at the appropriate Newgrid rate of payment. There can be no other form of compensation either by time off in lieu TOIL, or points awarded.
If you work beyond your finishing time, you could be working for nothing, and furthermore you could be working without any protection in the event of an accident.
RESOURCING
One major concern over the past few years has been the continuous redundancies, and reductions in resource within Field Services.
To such an extent, that the last year we agreed the introduction of contractors into customer facing duties. The problems which existed at the beginning of last year including the major flooding in Carlisle, and storm damage in the West of Scotland we believed justified the use of Contractors. However, we did become concerned at the continued use of contract labour, throughout the year.
At least during the past year we have seen some reversal in the trend with a recruitment programme, and also a commitment to recruit a further 19 Modern Apprentices.
Despite the recruitment, the workstack repair levels were still excessively high, and Provision lead times were also unacceptable.
It is our view that contractors are only acceptable when all other strategies have been exhausted, and we will continue to press for their removal.
Openreach is a fledgling organisation produced out of market forces, and political pressure. The success or failure of Openreach will have long term effects on both BT as a company and the Telecoms industry in general.
The CWU will reorganise itself to accommodate the new management structure, and we shall report any developments.
ROYAL MAIL/ROMEC
The Royal Mail has been an area of uncertainty both on a commercial basis with the liberalisation, and on a Political level with veiled threats of some form of Privatisation.
Shortly after the General Election, statements made by senior managers within the Royal Mail, and some conflicting reports by Government ministers, created major uncertainties over the direction the Royal Mail was taking.
The CWU have been extremely active at all levels of Political life and have been successful in raising the profile of our campaign.
An Early Day Motion 548 was raised in Westminster stating our objections to any form of privatisation/share ownership or anything which would take the Royal Mail out of public hands.
The EDM was signed up to by over 200 Labour MP’s, with every Scottish Labour MP who was eligible to sign up, doing so.
We do believe that the message has been put across to the Government, that the ‘Royal Mail is not for Sale’
However we will continue to keep the pressure up.
Within our own organisation we had some upheaval with Jim Findlay taking over from Ronnie Fitzsimmons as Postal Section Secretary. Ronnie will continue to serve on the branch committee and deal with ROMEC members, along with his other union roles.
Branch Delegations & Representation
The branch still has strong representation at all levels within the Union. On the Scottish BT Committee I continued as Secretary and also Secretary of the Customer Services Co-ord. Phil Hughes continued as Treasurer and Secretary of the Networks Co-ord and John Donnelly as Secretary of the General Business Co-ord, giving us an input in all Industrial Committees and the appropriate management structure.
I was also re-elected as Secretary of the joint Telecoms and Financial Services Co-ordinating Committee, the representative committee for all of the Telecoms section of the Union in Scotland.
John Donnelly was elected as a delegate to the TUC and both he and Phil Hughes represented the CWU at the STUC. John Donnelly was re-elected as Chair of the Standing Orders Committee, the body responsible for organizing the agendas for CWU conferences.
I was re-elected as Chair of the Scottish Political Forum which both John Kelly and Owen Horisk attended intermittently as delegates. I was elected as a delegate to the Labour Party Annual Conference, and, Owen Horisk and I were elected as delegates to the Scottish Labour Party conference.
In the General Telecoms Section, Sophie Ghafoor resigned as Section Secretary as she was moving onto different duties.
Ann Whitton has taken up the role temporarily subject to a decision being made at a Section A.G.M.
Frank Murphy and Harry Dempster continued to in their role as representatives for our members in Telewest.
Ronnie Lindsay continued as section Secretary for the Motor Transport members, Ronnie was elected by Postal Ballot to replace Willie Harrison who carried the job for a long number of years.
As a branch we have a wide range of representation which provides us with influence at all levels of the Union and with management in a number of different companies.
RETIRED MEMBERS SECTION
For any retired members meetings are still held on the second Thursday of the month at 10.30 am.. The venue has changed to the St. Stephen’s church in Bath St, just along the road from the T&GWU halls,. and you are all welcome.
The section Secretary is still Bob McLean, and Bob Caldow is the Chair.
Charlie Love continued to serve on the National Retired Members Advisory Committee.
If you have just retired or are about to retire, we strongly advise you to take up retired membership, and hopefully become involved in the running of the section.
OBITUARY
Unfortunately in the year 2005 the following branch members passed away, and we wish to respectfully record their names:-
P. Gribben
T. A. Vernal
J. Oates
J.G. Daly
R.L.S Johnstone
A.Smith
J. Dobbin
G. Milligan
I.McCallum
J.McLaren
R.Y.Thomson
J. Fitzpatrick
J. Burgess
G. Goodall
B.Greensheilds
CONCLUSION
As I said at the start this has been a year of changes and uncertainty on a number of fronts.
Meanwhile the branch has continued though attendances at branch meetings could be better.
This is an area where we are always looking for new ideas to create interest. If there are any issues you wish to raise please contact the branch office or one of our officers or committee, who are listed at the back of this magazine.
The branch meets monthly and the committee meets at least once or twice a month in addition to branch meetings.
It is quite a commitment to give, and I would like to thank my fellow officers and committee for all of the assistance I have received over the past year and for all of the work they have put in..
The creation of the website has been a new asset for us and it is thanks to the efforts of Gary Creamer that this was set up, we hop memebers will access the site.
Furthermore I would like to thank the membership for allowing me to serve them for another year.
Hope to see you at a branch meeting.