Post Office Service & Support – restructure complete & members protected
Postal, Post Office (PO) June 10 2021
Image credit: Richard M Lee / Shutterstock.com
Thursday 10th June 2021
No compulsory redundancies and almost all redeployed staff get their first preference, thanks to agreement achieved by CWU, which is designed to improve postmaster support going forward…
A reorganisation of support services, including the auditing team who have responsibility for our approximately 11,500 sub-post offices, was announced several months ago and the associated preference exercise got underway in March.
Lynn Simpson, CWU postal executive member, says: “A large part of the reason for this restructure was to change the way our postmasters are supported – it’s a change to a more proactive and upfront approach – and our union welcomes and supports this reform following the Horizon scandal as it is designed to benefit postmasters going forward.
“Our priority, however, was to ensure this positive reform could be introduced without compulsory redundancies and also to make sure any redeployed members were offered reasonable and appropriate new positions – meeting their own choices as far as possible.”
On behalf of the CWU, Lynn worked closely with the impacted members and had lengthy talks with the Post Office to achieve these priorities and, earlier this week, a joint statement was released confirming that all members wanting to remain within the Post Office will be able to – with 93 per cent of those being redeployed having got their first preferences.
Lynn Simpson
And she adds: “The very small number who have not got their first choice have got a very acceptable second preferences.”
CWU assistant secretary Andy Furey says: “Lynn’s done a great job achieving this agreement, which is the result of direct engagement with members, tenacity when negotiating with management and hard work on her behalf.
“It’s great that the union has met the aspirations of our members, who do such a superb job supporting our postmasters – and the new structure represents a significant step forward in improving the working life of our postmasters, which is, we hope, the first of a series of reforms that we need to see within this company.”
For further details, please see LTB 229/21