Nothing is Agreed until Everything is Agreed

[hewittinspain]

Our dom says he will be surprised if the USO will get to us this year. They are saying earliest September now, Xmas pressure is 6-7 weeks past that and that would be kamikaze for changes to happen through that, the office backup would be incredible.
It will be interesting if there is an overwhelming NO vote on the USO change. Then what?!
We have an office of 100, five have left in the last two weeks, 4 on legacy contracts. We are massively understaffed, nearby offices are also massively understaffed. I know a lot in our office are actively looking to get out, is this the plan???
I would like a rep to tell me how these offices will get VR when people have had enough and jumping ship?

[TopperGas]

Our dom says he will be surprised if the USO will get to us this year. They are saying earliest September now, Xmas pressure is 6-7 weeks past that and that would be kamikaze for changes to happen through that, the office backup would be incredible.
It will be interesting if there is an overwhelming NO vote on the USO change. Then what?!
We have an office of 100, five have left in the last two weeks, 4 on legacy contracts. We are massively understaffed, nearby offices are also massively understaffed. I know a lot in our office are actively looking to get out, is this the plan???
I would like a rep to tell me how these offices will get VR when people have had enough and jumping ship?

Who's going to get a vote for USO? Why would any postie vote for doubling their work load?

[hewittinspain]

Our dom says he will be surprised if the USO will get to us this year. They are saying earliest September now, Xmas pressure is 6-7 weeks past that and that would be kamikaze for changes to happen through that, the office backup would be incredible.
It will be interesting if there is an overwhelming NO vote on the USO change. Then what?!
We have an office of 100, five have left in the last two weeks, 4 on legacy contracts. We are massively understaffed, nearby offices are also massively understaffed. I know a lot in our office are actively looking to get out, is this the plan???
I would like a rep to tell me how these offices will get VR when people have had enough and jumping ship?

Who's going to get a vote for USO? Why would any postie vote for doubling their work load?

They won't I wouldn't have thought but they will make sure they threaten us with 20k job losses if we don't sign up.

[SMS1969]

Exactly, they know nobody in their right mind would vote this nonsense in. There will definitely be a threat of mass job losses if it’s a no vote, might even be a lumper included to try and push it through.

[Gary55]

How many staff paticularly older staff will survive the hugely increased workload and the pressure brought to bear from management who will try relentless bullying no doubt with the carrot of a bonus

People who vote for this will eventually be broken on the wheel of relentless grind. Don't think the 3 over 4 duties and other bright ideas will be the end of it.
The chubsters in charge of the union are complicit with their weasel words of future votes loads from my office have left the union so obviously won't get the chance to vote this out even if the deck wasn't already loaded.
Remember everything ward would never accept before and during the strike he is now a Royal Mail apologist. Like the Tory mp who is now a EP consultant expect him to jockey for a similar job as a reward for shafting us all

Problem is if we reject it then it's not like a vote of no confidence in the CWU leadership and DW/MW will quit, we'll still be stuck with those two left to negotiate a better deal, I can't recall Fleet got that much a better deal when they rejected the original offer last year? Plus we have to wait even longer for the back up.

I was talking purely about the USO vote don't think they're going to get a better pay deal. If Royal Mail eventually force it through with executive action it would be interesting if Ward and co. Defend a legitimate vote of membership

[CharlesSpooner]

They won't I wouldn't have thought but they will make sure they threaten us with 20k job losses if we don't sign up.

That would be the emptiest threat in the history of industrial relations.

[Mickeybrowneyes]

The CWU may call this a separate deal but they have already admitted that USO reform has to happen due to RM's financial position. Like Acca said, before you get to vote on the USO reform there will be scare stories, job loss threats and plenty of PR centred around "this is the only way to save the business". Prepare yourselves for RM and the CWU to go into overdrive to sell off The Deal: the Sequel and the Deal strikes back, Part 3 in the coming months. USO reform will happen whether you vote or not, so I suspect that some people probably won't bother voting like in the last groundbreaking deal.

EP group might only have been owners of this company for 30 odd days but they have been positioning themselves to take over for years! Ever since the pandemic, Kretinsky has diligently increased his stake from 5% in this business. After we were rewarded with an unconditional pay rise of just 2% in 2022 when inflation rose as high as 11% - RM did actually offer us a pay rise of 5.5% (an additional 3.5% to the 2% already awarded) IF we agreed to the following: changes in sick pay, increased flexibility in duties and working patterns, measures aimed at productivity improvements and mandatory Sunday working. That offer also included other proposals around increased use of technology i.e. performance monitoring apps and a move towards parcel-focussed operations. Now this was before RM decided to recruit staff on inferior pay, terms and conditions and the CWU going on 18 days of strike action between August and December 2022.

So take a look at what was being offered then and what is being offered now. The business could offer to pay us an additional 3.5% back then and what they were after is very similar if not the same as what is being offered now. Personally, I think the business was never in a precarious financial position, and I honestly believe in my heart of hearts, that they could offer a lot more.

It benefits us and the union more if the trials that are happening now are a success and as a workforce we can get behind it and make it work by ironing out the problems.
The alternative could potentially be more job losses, which will save the company more money with a heavily watered down USO.
I'm sure the business would rather the trials work as uncertainty around it isn't good and they need to move forward with reform but we have more to lose than them.

[BELIAL]

They won't I wouldn't have thought but they will make sure they threaten us with 20k job losses if we don't sign up.

That would be the emptiest threat in the history of industrial relations.

Yep if you don’t sign up to 20k job cuts we will cut 20k jobs.

[Gary55]

I just hope the union head office don't have to make redundancy threats to their staff if we don't vote this s**t in

[postslippete]

It benefits us and the union more if the trials that are happening now are a success and as a workforce we can get behind it and make it work by ironing out the problems.
The alternative could potentially be more job losses, which will save the company more money with a heavily watered down USO.
I'm sure the business would rather the trials work as uncertainty around it isn't good and they need to move forward with reform but we have more to lose than them.

The biggest problem with these trials, based on everything I've seen and read, is how they have been artificially propped up with extra resources with more staff, adjusted duties and even agency workers to make them look workable. But it is all smoke and mirrors to get Ofcom's approval. Once RM get the green light its highly likely those extra resources will disappear leaving behind impossible workloads, service failures and the same old chaos.

So the logic of "we have to make it work or the alternative is worse" doesn't check out. We will have a choice of picking a sh*t sandwich, whether it's 2 Saturdays off in 5, a Wallington, 4 day week or whatever's on offer; but the sandwich is still sh*t. Because let's not kid ourselves that this is the change to end all change. Once this model is locked in, managers will do what they have always done and chip away at it, cut corners, bend a few rules, squeeze resources and run it on the barebones and we will end up with unsustainable workloads, fewer jobs and a service that continues to decline.

If it was genuine reform that fixed all the root issues and drew a line under constant upheaval, many of us would welcome it. But it is simply a domino flip in another cycle of cost-cutting disguised as modernisation....

[Mickeybrowneyes]

It benefits us and the union more if the trials that are happening now are a success and as a workforce we can get behind it and make it work by ironing out the problems.
The alternative could potentially be more job losses, which will save the company more money with a heavily watered down USO.
I'm sure the business would rather the trials work as uncertainty around it isn't good and they need to move forward with reform but we have more to lose than them.

The biggest problem with these trials, based on everything I've seen and read, is how they have been artificially propped up with extra resources with more staff, adjusted duties and even agency workers to make them look workable. But it is all smoke and mirrors to get Ofcom's approval. Once RM get the green light its highly likely those extra resources will disappear leaving behind impossible workloads, service failures and the same old chaos.

So the logic of "we have to make it work or the alternative is worse" doesn't check out. We will have a choice of picking a sh*t sandwich, whether it's 2 Saturdays off in 5, a Wallington, 4 day week or whatever's on offer; but the sandwich is still sh*t. Because let's not kid ourselves that this is the change to end all change. Once this model is locked in, managers will do what they have always done and chip away at it, cut corners, bend a few rules, squeeze resources and run it on the barebones and we will end up with unsustainable workloads, fewer jobs and a service that continues to decline.

If it was genuine reform that fixed all the root issues and drew a line under constant upheaval, many of us would welcome it. But it is simply a domino flip in another cycle of cost-cutting disguised as modernisation....

I'm not sure how each individual office is going to be fair but like you I have read that many are struggling.
If my office is anything to go by than the increase in parcels is making it more difficult to get round in the current USO format so I can see how the trail offices must be struggling.
We aren't getting credited for all the extra protocols we have to follow indoor and on delivery.
Scanning all the items, pillar boxes on deliveries, collections from customers, pins, photos of tracked items.
Allot of these walks were not designed to have the time to do all this and as soon as you increase the call rates and the parcels increase you have no chance.
In reality they may have to make allot of these walks smaller to have any chance of getting round without doorstepping and cutting corners.
The method can work but needs to be achievable.
It won't make the initial savings they predicted but all these extra parcels we are doing should make up the difference. Amazon prime this week.
Can see our office falling apart and we ain't a trail office

[A2B]

By making the changes you suggest RM will not be making savings they want, the trials are showing what a poor idea these changes are but neither RM or the CWU want to be honest with the workforce

[TopperGas]

It's no real surprise but it sounds like total chaos reigns in the Kent DO's which started their trials n late May

viewtopic.php?t=116665

[Mickeybrowneyes]

By making the changes you suggest RM will not be making savings they want, the trials are showing what a poor idea these changes are but neither RM or the CWU want to be honest with the workforce

They will make savings just not as many as they first anticipated.
Depends on the office I suppose as well, some may not need to add duties back and some/most will.
Still need less staff in then you do in the current USO format on a daily basis in delivery offices.
They have won allot of contracts, be interesting to see how they are doing financially this summer.
We have been very busy. Must be making money.
The idea isn't poor, they just need proper revisions and we need be credited for the extra work we are doing daily so achievable walks come out in revisions.
Doing treble mail now is similar to what we were doing every day a decade or so ago.
Heavier stuff too like magazines too we just didn't have to do all these extra protocols now involved in delivering packets/parcels and collections.
Very time consuming.

[SpacePhoenix]

At least one DO locally has added walks back in. When some batches were updated on the CSS, one batch on my machine had a couple of extra walks. One walk could often get two boxes on wave 1 on a busy day, that walk has gone so I'm guessing it got split into two walks, don't know if it was originally two separate walks a long time ago.