Romec comes home!
Postal January 13 2016“A brilliant way to start the New Year,” was how CWU assistant secretary Ray Ellis described the news that Royal Mail is bringing its facilities and maintenance operations fully back in-house.
After more than two years of uncertainty, a year-long review, and extended negotiations, including complex three-party discussions, confirmation has now been received that Romec will be solely owned by Royal Mail.
“This is fantastic news,” said Ray, who has led the union’s negotiating team throughout this process.
Romec has operated under a joint venture since 2002, when Royal Mail sold 49 per cent of it to Haydens. Haydens subsequently sold its stake to construction giant Balfour Beatty. In December 2013, Balfour sold on to another private company, Cofely.
In the Autumn of 2014 Royal Mail undertook a review of the future of its facilities service provision.
“Royal Mail’s preferred option was transfer of the whole operation to Cofely” said Ray, who added that the union “pushed as hard as we could for a further, independently chaired review, with full union involvement, to examine Royal Mail’s preferred option and the union’s alternative of bringing Romec in house as a wholly owned Royal Mail Group subsidiary”.
The decision by BT to in-house its own facilities service provider had “given us a positive, practical example of a large, nationwide business benefitting from moving in this direction”, he added.
“And our negotiating team also fully appreciated the advice and assistance that our own CWU telecom section colleagues gave us on this.”
After a campaign led by branches with Romec members, last year’s CWU conference unanimously endorsed the aim of seeking to bring Romec back in-house and pledged to take action in defence of terms and conditions if it were sold off.
“We were very grateful for the staunch support of the whole union, and this, added to the sheer business logic of bringing it all back added up to an extremely convincing case, which to their credit, Royal Mail genuinely took on board,” Ray continued.
As well as the benefit of coming fully back within Royal Mail Group, the talks with the business have also achieved – subject to a members’ ballot – a three-year pay deal, which will lift basic pay by 4.57 per cent, and all terms and conditions for existing staff are fully protected, with some limited changes for new recruits.
“Needless to say, we’ll be strongly urging everyone to vote Yes’ in the ballot, and we’re optimistic of a strong endorsement” Ray concluded.
Deputy general secretary (postal) Terry Pullinger said: “This is great news and an excellent agreement. Its progressive nature, which bucks the conventional wisdom of outsourcing, is a credit to our union and especially the skills of our negotiating team led brilliantly by Ray Ellis. Achieving this agreement was key for both our members in Romec, who will be delighted, and our aspirations for the future diversification and growth of Royal Mail Group. We believe that the skills of our Romec members are crucial to Royal Mail Group’s future innovation. If those skills had been lost to an external provider, then our members’ future terms, conditions and job security would have been at risk and the business would have been hostages to fortune for those lost skills.
“This is a fine example of the union making a difference.”
CWU general secretary Dave Ward added: “The return of Romec to Royal Mail Group is a fantastic result for the CWU and our members. The level of outsourcing and the increasing number of insecure employment models being introduced in the wider world of work demonstrate what has been achieved in this set of negotiations. We should celebrate this significant success and then immediately look to the future of protecting and enhancing the terms of our Romec members.”