Putting the record straight

[Martin Walsh]

Royal Mail activated the Dispute Resolution process in January this year to introduce ODM. Why ? Because they are operating outside the licence they have been given by Ofcom to deliver the USO since July 2025.

In July 2025 Ofcom change the USO regulations. Ofcom did this due to Royal Mail financial position and that they could not afford to sustain the old USO.

The CWU agreed a 3 year Pay deal worth £980 million over three years and then we fell out with EP and Royal Mail over how USO reform would be introduced. We could not based on the pilots agree ODM. EP and Royal Mail did not initially want to change from ODM which created the highest potential saving for them.

Royal Mail claim that every month since July that USO reform has been delayed had cost them £20 million pounds.

They made it clear if they could not reach an agreement by the beginning of the financial year then they would have to take the decision to impose it into delivery units.

Our members are not voting on USO reform they are voting on whether it is done with agreement or not.

The DTS can be adapted for each mail centre to hold non priority mail in mail centres until it is due delivery as been done for the pilots.

This means that 1st class ( coincidental mail ) and parcels can be sent separately for all walks ( first class mail accounts for 8% of traffic )

Non priority including DSA would be sent to only 50% of walks within a unit Monday to Friday.

There are no changes to the IPS other than you sort first class and non priority on different IPS frames.

The difference in this model is that the CDV pairing covering two walks do not perform all mail for the two duties as you do now or as you did under ODM.

Instead you will deliver 50% of the CDV pairing first class and parcels and 50% all mail.

This means your starting point is that you are going to less addresses than the current USO and significantly less than ODM.

The singleton driving duty under ODM did two routes first class and parcels for the two walks.

Under this method they will take 50% of one duty first class and parcels and 50% all mail again less than the current USO.

The fourth duty which will also operate on an heavy and light basis can either be shared amongst the three due to the spare capacity or the following 20 thousand full time duties can support the 4 into 3 duties.

An extra 3500 duties coming back into the operation.

10500 duties firms / rurals , HCTs will be switched to heavy and light which means these duties will now be delivering to less addresses then they are currently and can help with the 4 into 3.

6000 part time to full time uplifts to help get duties out on time.

There is a pre deployment plan where no unit can go into USO deployment with full resourcing in plan.

No surplus of employees can be removed from any unit until that unit is achieving all its quality targets and clearing workload.

Read the 26 page deployment and the safeguards in the main agreement and it will have Government oversight.

However if you are voting no ! You are not voting no to change as USO reform is going to happen.

If it is no vote then we will oppose imposition by all means possible but even then there has to be an agreement to adhere to Ofcom changes in regulation.

This is why most Branch’s are supporting the agreement.

[Neverwasadoor]

On the call rate that’s being is being mentioned in the agreement, does that include D2D which have to be done in 2 days on one side and 3 on the other? Thanks

[Jb1969]

1-Then why put it out for a vote, it changes nothing!
2-Most Mail Centres do not have the capacity to store large quantities of mail, where is it going?
3-If pay is now dependent on implementation of the new delivery model then the pay rise is at best months away, possibly a year.

[toonshola]

This is a utopian vision which all us in delivery know will never come to fruition. It will fall at the first hurdle, our mail centre can’t even seg the parcels and quite frequently send all the mech not sequenced so the idea that they will send all the mail segregated in neat batches of first class mail and second class for only 50% of deliveries is honestly hilarious. But hey let’s pretend by some miracle that happens, I’m afraid yourself and Dave have been off delivery’s for so long that you really have no idea how much workload we do every day now. The delivery’s are quite frankly a ridiculous ask of a human being 5 days a week.
The time saved by leaving second class on one side of a van share quickly gets eaten up by doing double mail on the other side, it won’t mean we have time to do another 3rd of a delivery. It won’t work.
Our office routinely fails mail so I’m speaking from experience that once half a delivery has double mail then it becomes impossible to complete on time. You can spin it all you like but when you boil down to it you’re asking 3 people to cover the work of 4.
We can all see what’s coming, it will probably be a yes vote and when it’s a car crash the CWU and RM will say “well you voted for it” and the blame and bullying will resume on us in delivery’s once again to make it work.

I’ve tried to word my feelings as politely as I can because I know people who have a go at the union get labelled as “keyboard warriors” but the top of the CWU have no
Idea the amount of resentment that has built up towards them and RM management over the last few years. These changes will have staff at absolute breaking point as we are all overwhelmed and on edge already.

[Rommagic]

It wont matter so much if letter volume goes down as 3 posties and four walks.

[Rm121]

We will delivering to a much larger area and delivery times will be increased. I've tried delivering to doors with 1st class and packets and is quite demanding. Xmas will be challenging to say the least.

[WalkerX]

This is a utopian vision which all us in delivery know will never come to fruition. It will fall at the first hurdle, our mail centre can’t even seg the parcels and quite frequently send all the mech not sequenced so the idea that they will send all the mail segregated in neat batches of first class mail and second class for only 50% of deliveries is honestly hilarious. But hey let’s pretend by some miracle that happens, I’m afraid yourself and Dave have been off delivery’s for so long that you really have no idea how much workload we do every day now. The delivery’s are quite frankly a ridiculous ask of a human being 5 days a week.
The time saved by leaving second class on one side of a van share quickly gets eaten up by doing double mail on the other side, it won’t mean we have time to do another 3rd of a delivery. It won’t work.
Our office routinely fails mail so I’m speaking from experience that once half a delivery has double mail then it becomes impossible to complete on time. You can spin it all you like but when you boil down to it you’re asking 3 people to cover the work of 4.
We can all see what’s coming, it will probably be a yes vote and when it’s a car crash the CWU and RM will say “well you voted for it” and the blame and bullying will resume on us in delivery’s once again to make it work.

I’ve tried to word my feelings as politely as I can because I know people who have a go at the union get labelled as “keyboard warriors” but the top of the CWU have no
Idea the amount of resentment that has built up towards them and RM management over the last few years. These changes will have staff at absolute breaking point as we are all overwhelmed and on edge already.

on the money in every aspect.

[Pfrizzy10]

People are way too invested. You have a start time and finish time, that’s all you need. It doesn’t matter if there is 1 days mail or 50 days mail in your frame, you can still work the exact same hours.
The only pressure on posties these days is put on by themselves. Get a life, work to your time and go home. If the mail sits there to next year, who gives a bollocks?! Certainly not me. We all get paid, happy days.

[Valentina@1]

People are way too invested. You have a start time and finish time, that’s all you need. It doesn’t matter if there is 1 days mail or 50 days mail in your frame, you can still work the exact same hours.
The only pressure on posties these days is put on by themselves. Get a life, work to your time and go home. If the mail sits there to next year, who gives a bollocks?! Certainly not me. We all get paid, happy days.

Some of us actually take pride in our jobs,seeing mail build up is very stressful and mentally draining,not all of us can have the “oh well” attitude….i get it we have a start and finish time,but the environment is going to be horrible 🥲

[SpacePhoenix]

This is a utopian vision which all us in delivery know will never come to fruition. It will fall at the first hurdle, our mail centre can’t even seg the parcels and quite frequently send all the mech not sequenced so the idea that they will send all the mail segregated in neat batches of first class mail and second class for only 50% of deliveries is honestly hilarious. But hey let’s pretend by some miracle that happens, I’m afraid yourself and Dave have been off delivery’s for so long that you really have no idea how much workload we do every day now. The delivery’s are quite frankly a ridiculous ask of a human being 5 days a week.

Once a parcel has been scanned at the outward MC as a large or a small, it has to proceed through the system as that format, otherwise it messes the figures up. Been a while since I've been on the packets but I don't think that they're allowed to extract small from the large and vice versa. Parcels are normally 1 selection per physical DO only.

1C and 2C mech WILL NOT be run separately. They'll be run together and the DTS system will decide what will be released. The 1C and the 2C that the DTS has released will be sequenced TOGETHER.

I find it hard to believe that the mech is not being sequenced. There's three possibilities:

1) They've had a major machine breakdown
2) They're short on mech trained staff
3) They've run out of time/capacity. If it's not been deferred by the DTS, we're not allowed to hold it back.

Wave 2 is meant to be walk sort only.

1-Then why put it out for a vote, it changes nothing!
2-Most Mail Centres do not have the capacity to store large quantities of mail, where is it going?
3-If pay is now dependent on implementation of the new delivery model then the pay rise is at best months away, possibly a year.

The trays of 1C and 2C manual letters and flats will continue to be sent out each night to DOs on the mixed yorks as there are now. It'll all still need to go to the IPS frames as you'll need to extract the 2C for the walks due 2C on that day. The rest of the 2C will be stored in wherever the designated storage area is in your DO.

For the mech, whatever the DTS has released will be due for delivery. The DTS algorithm will be factoring in which walks are due 2C but it also has to factor in when the 2C items are due to hit the time limit for their delivery spec.

[Trumanity]

Failure. Imposition. Failure. USO collapse. Job Losses. Mail centre and DO closures. Race to the bottom. On your mark, get set...

[claretandblue]

Why not just do a revision so 2 people do 2 rounds of all mail and first class ? Having to travel to walk 3 and walk 4 is inefficient. Also it's harder to do first class and tracked as a singleton, pairs can do it quicker.

[Pfrizzy10]

People are way too invested. You have a start time and finish time, that’s all you need. It doesn’t matter if there is 1 days mail or 50 days mail in your frame, you can still work the exact same hours.
The only pressure on posties these days is put on by themselves. Get a life, work to your time and go home. If the mail sits there to next year, who gives a bollocks?! Certainly not me. We all get paid, happy days.

Some of us actually take pride in our jobs,seeing mail build up is very stressful and mentally draining,not all of us can have the “oh well” attitude….i get it we have a start and finish time,but the environment is going to be horrible 🥲

I personally enjoy it more now than days of being expected to clear frames. It’s impossible to clear every day anymore if you start and finish on your time. Trust me, if you were being forced to clear, you’d hate it more. All you’re expected to do now is deliver premium products and do what mail you can within your time. The way it should be. USO has to change or none of us will have jobs, which I would assume would be a lot worse for you.

[Perseus]

Martin, for what it's worth, I think people would be more on board with this thing if they had the confidence that these changes will be brought in properly.

The 4 duties that are being covered by 3 people (2 in 1 van, 1 solo van) will need to be a very specific size/length to deliver to allow for 4 bags of 'heavy' and 4 bags of 'light' per person (shared van doing 16 bags total, solo doing 8 bags - as per the diagram). Organising this at a local level is going to be a riot. Can't find anything, even roughly, about what an average day will look like, start time, dispatch time, delivery span, last letter time, finish time?
How are the 3500 extra duties being spread out nationwide?
People don't like the vagueness of current single duties only doing 50% all items each day and 'helping out' others.
Then when it comes to Saturday when it's parcels and 1C only. Owing to more Saturdays off, it's going to be the case that 1 of the 3 people doing the 4 duties has a rest day, and you are left with 2 covering 4 duties. Often it will be the case that it's 1 driver and 1 non driver. How are they going to cover parcels and 1C over 4 duties from 1 van? This isn't an anomaly, it will be very common in our office and many others.
Also, managers won't want a resign (either temp beforehand or after) and they will fight against it.

[funkflex55]

Some excellent responses already on this thread and there's not really much to add, having experienced RM management and organisation.

It's going to be an absolute s**t show.