Union Using Door to Door Supplement as Bargaining Tool

[LouBarlow]

Sometimes in life you just have to do what is right and if the ship goes down, the ship goes down.

I’d rather keep my job thanks. Nobody benefits if the company goes under.

[scotchy1962]

A few comments :

1. Scotchy one of the flaws of privatisation is that Royal Mail will go to the market and ask potential investors to invest millions into the company based on projects like coming off planes , reducing sick leave introducing a two tier workforce and reducing jobs. Sometimes investors invest thousands / millions into the company based on this and then when they present the union later with how these proposals impact the workforce it is difficult to change as it has been backed by investors paying huge sums of money.

2. In Germany and some of European countries they have work councils which have design and strategy boards involving unions at the earliest stage of a strategy giving the unions the opportunity to shape and change a strategy. This does not compromise the collective bargaining power of the union but it does give much earlier sight of a proposal and time to shape it.

3. It does not matter who owns the company this industry has less than 5 years to secure its future. It currently has an 8 billion turnover and is possibly going to break even at its full years results.
Wages account for 72% of its turn over. Royal Mail share of parcels has halved since privatisation. Letters are still in decline , downstream access accounts for 70% of letters meaning less revenue and 1st class letters are in decline.

4. Any union who is not going to recognise the above reality is not representing their members interests. We seen other great
industries virtually go to the wall coal , dockyards , print and steel.

5. USO reform will happen next year. The union can stand on the sidelines and watch it happen or it can shape it , change it for the better and can resolve quality , improved attendances including more Saturdays off and resolve a number of outstanding issues such as pay , harmonisation of new entrants, no compulsory redundancies and improved VR.

6. There will be job losses as a result of USO reform. Of Com has said Royal Mail are losing over 400 million from the current USO being in place. The CWU will demand a no compulsory redundancy agreement so the job losses will be through a combination of natural wastage ie through attrition and voluntary redundancy. The number of jobs losses remain uncertain until after the pilot and the CWU have not agreed any number.

7. We could replace those loss jobs with growth through delivery next day parcels up to 20:00. Royal Mail share of next parcels is less than 27% ,80% of next day orders are done between 20:00 and midnight , it cannot connect with core so delivering later in the day and early evening is the only way Royal Mail can increase their share. Before anyone says that people do not want to deliver at this time, there are 6000 individuals who are working up to 20:00 this peak/ Christmas so clearly there is some who would want to deliver at this time.

8. There are over 8000 full time equivalent agency staff working in Royal Mail the bulk of which are working because our members do not want to in a mail centre want to work on a Saturday or at night and in deliveries they do not want to work later or on a Sunday. This is madness in an industry which is facing job cuts. We have got to create innovative duties over 3/4 days which remove agency staff and replace them with well paid permanent jobs.

9. Lastly I have been in Royal Mail and the CWU for 40 years , during that time I have seen unpopular National agreements such as IWM , Way Forward ( the only agreement voted down by the membership on the 1st ballot. ) Pay and Mod ,BT2010 and the latest agreement. Believe me when I say this carrying on striking would in 2023 would have been the worse decision we could have made. Why do you think they delayed the back pay and £500 they were running out of cash !!

10. The takeover and USO reform present the CWU with the best the union with the best opportunity to have a total reset and resolve the outstanding issues. You can either support this or you can stand on the sidelines and support the status quo there is really no other position.

Again thanks for the insight Martin.
I still stand by what i say, the most dangerous thing in all this is collusion accusations, if it happens or not, and human nature or corruption, which as you must surely know is a problem at any level.
I do understand the need to involve yourself, on our behalf, in how this company moves forward and any changes to the way we work, but you must accept that this bunch have being throwing money at the walls for years hoping something will stick and actually work with virtually no success.
Any sane person knows the answer lies with the workforce and the danger is that we give that away for free, nothing is free nowadays.
The unions constant use of costing in their talks with us leads me to believe we could well be heading that direction and i am not happy. But then again i am one person and maybe the majority will go with it, who knows.
I welcome the fact you are prepared to have a discussion on the direction of travel and i hope you get where i am coming from and respect my opinion.
I wish you well in any talks you have and again heed my warning as we move forward.

[Dexydog]

What about when RM asked who would like an EVR (was it last year?).
A lot in my large office put in for it.
We heard nothing else, not even a reason why not.
Got everyone's hopes up and then closed the door and no explanation, complete silence.
Obviously (and it was clear at the time) they were just fishing.
But what a way a treat your staff.
I personally think it was just another thing to grind the old timers down.
The company hates it's workforce, that much is clear- and it resents paying them to deliver letters which they don't want to deliver.
So let's just get on with it.
It's a dying industry, like coal etc as has been mentioned.
Put it out of its misery and allow a lot of hard working, tired, fed up, very loyal workers something to leave with.

[postmanpatscat2]

What about when RM asked who would like an EVR (was it last year?).
A lot in my large office put in for it.
We heard nothing else, not even a reason why not.
Got everyone's hopes up and then closed the door and no explanation, complete silence.
Obviously (and it was clear at the time) they were just fishing.
But what a way a treat your staff.
I personally think it was just another thing to grind the old timers down.
The company hates it's workforce, that much is clear- and it resents paying them to deliver letters which they don't want to deliver.
So let's just get on with it.
It's a dying industry, like coal etc as has been mentioned.
Put it out of its misery and allow a lot of hard working, tired, fed up, very loyal workers something to leave with.

Exactly. Would have been best fighting until the end and had royal mail start fresh from the foundations rather than trying to tart up a pig.

[Dexydog]

It sounds very much like that's exactly what's coming.
Maybe not before time.

[postmanpatscat2]

It sounds very much like that's exactly what's coming.
Maybe not before time.

Would have been better if it was the government behind this, rather than another cooperate billionaire.

[ted_e_bear]

"8. There are over 8000 full time equivalent agency staff working in Royal Mail the bulk of which are working because our members do not want to in a mail centre want to work on a Saturday or at night and in deliveries they do not want to work later or on a Sunday. This is madness in an industry which is facing job cuts. We have got to create innovative duties over 3/4 days which remove agency staff and replace them with well paid permanent jobs."

Thanks for that insight Martin it was an interesting read, regarding the section I've highlighted above, why don't they advertise all these mail centre type jobs I occasionally look on success factors and never see anything, surely there's plenty in delivery offices that may consider changing from something they struggle with physically to a mail centre position that was less demanding than delivery, even taking into account that the attendance may not be to their preference.

(I'm not suggesting mail centre work is easy I've no idea but I'm assuming many of the tasks are less physically demanding than the average delivery duty these days)

I'm assuming the uso change will produce duties in delivery offices similar to the ones that currently have dpr routes, I mean the days that only parcels and 1st class are delivered, I'd imagine these duties will be planned with a later in the day starting time than now to connect with later acceptance so maybe if things are actually constructed properly with manageable workloads then this could be an opportunity for people who are beginning to struggle to stay in a job they can perform.

Sorry if off the original topic I realise this has nothing to do with d2ds.

[A2B]

It sounds very much like that's exactly what's coming.
Maybe not before time.

Would have been better if it was the government behind this, rather than another cooperate billionaire.

And you think a company that's on it's last leg is going to give you a large payout to leave

If things are that bad it will be slightly above minimum and if the people with seniority don't take it others further down the chain will

[Valentina@1]

Royal Mail in 2009 wanted to scrap D2D payments and simply put it into workload as traffic had declined and that the cap of 3 contract items per week was stopping any growth.

In addition the 2007 network changes meant that Royal Mail less people was receiving the early shift allowances so Royal Mail scrapped this.

The CWU through negotiations secured the combined monies on D2D and the early shift allowances and combined it with the Delivery Supplement to every one tagged and working in Delivery.

This payment would be paid as a permanent addition to basic pay and would increase with every pay rise.

D2D became part of normal workload from that point and that the cap on the number of contracts was lifted.

Roll on 14 years and the USO change next year and D2D will have to be reviewed as an address will only get non priority items delivered 5 times over 2 weeks and therefore D2D which are currently are due to be delivered over 5 or 6 day each week will suddenly either have to be done over 2 or 3 times per week which may not be possible.

In terms of 2.0 being scrapped , I believe there will be a 3.0 under the USO as you will have to have a 1st class IPS and a separate non priority IPS frame.

Remember on all mail days you will have more work and higher call rate but an address only recieves this every other day Monday to Friday. So each OPG who performs all mail delivery will have more than one walk to do so on a Monday they will do Walk A on Tuesday walk b on Weds Walk A , Thurs Walk B and Friday Walk A again.

On the days when a walk has only 1st class and parcels including a Saturday the call rate for letters will be on average 20%. So you can still use a frame but clearly it will not be as full a frame as all mail days.

What an absolute clown show

Can’t make this s**t up,we gonna be totally burnt out

[Valentina@1]

Jesus….”3.0”…..it’s almost like MW know exactly what’s happening to USO.

Sad times indeed

[sjscfc84]

"8. There are over 8000 full time equivalent agency staff working in Royal Mail the bulk of which are working because our members do not want to in a mail centre want to work on a Saturday or at night and in deliveries they do not want to work later or on a Sunday. This is madness in an industry which is facing job cuts. We have got to create innovative duties over 3/4 days which remove agency staff and replace them with well paid permanent jobs."

Thanks for that insight Martin it was an interesting read, regarding the section I've highlighted above, why don't they advertise all these mail centre type jobs I occasionally look on success factors and never see anything, surely there's plenty in delivery offices that may consider changing from something they struggle with physically to a mail centre position that was less demanding than delivery, even taking into account that the attendance may not be to their preference.

(I'm not suggesting mail centre work is easy I've no idea but I'm assuming many of the tasks are less physically demanding than the average delivery duty these days)

It’s my week off from tomorrow, my manager didn’t have ot for me as he’s too over staffed so I was penciled in for 24 hours ot in the sorting office. Got told yesterday it’s been cancelled because they need to prioritise the agency staff. Yeah thanks for that, don’t ask me to do ot again Royal Mail

[postmanpatscat2]

It sounds very much like that's exactly what's coming.
Maybe not before time.

Would have been better if it was the government behind this, rather than another cooperate billionaire.

And you think a company that's on it's last leg is going to give you a large payout to leave

If things are that bad it will be slightly above minimum and if the people with seniority don't take it others further down the chain will

Where did I mention a large pay out????

What I meant is any payout is better than nothing when disillusioned staff have left or are going to leave. Say even 7/8k, a lot of long serving posties who have jacked in this last year for nothing would have bitten a hand off for that!

[A2B]

Everyone is different but in our office when RM asked who would be interested in VR on the reduced terms the senior people who constantly say they want out all said no because they still think VR on the old terms is available.

As I've said before saying you want to leave and leaving when a way out is offered are 2 very different things. I await the comments of "I will go tomorrow if they offer me it"

[BigSacks]

Martin, I’d be interested in how open you feel RM are to the idea of “innovative duty patterns”

For decades they have treated anything like this with suspicion.

They could easily implement duties now that include Sundays, late parcel deliveries and collections which people would fall over themselves to sign up for if they were 35hrs over 3 days for example.

It seems though that anything that makes their rotas and computer systems slightly tricky to manage is batted away without discussion.

[clashcityrocker]

No a union exists to protect it's members and to collectively bargain agreements on our behalf. That is the point, not how a company conducts its business.

The members have different needs depending on their age, function etc.
What processing want and what delivery want might be conflicting.
How can a union protect everyone's interests all of the time?

As clearly they can't, then a little bit of cost analysis might not go amiss.
Surely.