Union Using Door to Door Supplement as Bargaining Tool

[postslippete]

For years RM have been determined to show that the USO is not financially viable and these plans for universal reform are expected to save up to £300 million per year. According to Keith Williams, they expect deployment to take around 18-24 months which suggests how difficult and complex it might be to organise. The Union have always been concerned that universal reform would lead to thousands of job losses towards the garden path of being just another glorified courier company.

Are we really losing money by delivering letters everyday? Whilst no one can deny that the volume of letters have declined our actual letter revenue since last year has actually increased by 7.2%, mainly due to the price rises. I know it seems obvious to point out that parcels is where the money is, but if our market share has declined in parcels then surely it is our only unique selling point over our competitors? I'm aware that we don't have the monopoly anymore ever since downstream access but no one else has our network to successfully deliver letters on a daily basis. I'm concerned that the prospective new owner is only prepared to commit to the USO for only 5 years and we need to be very careful that we don't lose this business completely because it is something that makes us unique, profitable and above all keeps us all in jobs.

I can't help feeling that the CWU appears to be giving us a hard sell on universal service reform based on the profitability and costings of the company. IDS has always had a very strong balance sheet sitting on billions of pounds of retained earnings and from the last financial report in March 2024 our available liquidity increased to around £2.1 billion. They might have spent billions on automation and parcel hubs and squandered much of it to shareholders and senior management bonuses in previous years; but everything that I've read in many of the financial reports suggests that RM is financially healthy.

And I'm not oblivious to changes that need to be made to ensure that we are on a sound footing in the future and as a business we have had more changes than most. Surely our operating profits have significantly improved due to imposed revisions, later start times, seasonal variations which have reduced overtime, cuts in sick pay and IHR never reaching the threshold for full rate sick pay and most obviously a reduction in FTEs (full time equivalents) and 19,000 new entrants on significantly less pay and flexible contracts. Even our pensions have been changed.

It seems obvious to me that the CWU are on a damage limitation exercise. They talk about "harmonising" the new entrants instead of levelling them up probably because RM has zero intentions of doing that. People costs account for over half of our revenue so reducing their contracts from 40 hours to 37 won't affect RM's bottom line unless RM recruit more staff. If we are only delivering most letters every other day RM won't have to do that. But what it won't also do is solve the conundrum of unachievable workloads nor prevent the company from prioritising the parcels over letters.

I believe that we should fight to keep the universal service as it is regardless of RM and OfCom's intervention. I think that delivering letters every other day is a recipe for destroying the company towards being a glorified courier company and we should instead split the workloads between posties delivering letters and smaller parcels every day on larger duties, and for those that don't want to do that, to deliver most of the medium and larger parcels in larger vans. They could introduce a hybrid duty for a postie to do both but it might be difficult to organise on the shop floor.

[scotchy1962]

For years RM have been determined to show that the USO is not financially viable and these plans for universal reform are expected to save up to £300 million per year. According to Keith Williams, they expect deployment to take around 18-24 months which suggests how difficult and complex it might be to organise. The Union have always been concerned that universal reform would lead to thousands of job losses towards the garden path of being just another glorified courier company.

Are we really losing money by delivering letters everyday? Whilst no one can deny that the volume of letters have declined our actual letter revenue since last year has actually increased by 7.2%, mainly due to the price rises. I know it seems obvious to point out that parcels is where the money is, but if our market share has declined in parcels then surely it is our only unique selling point over our competitors? I'm aware that we don't have the monopoly anymore ever since downstream access but no one else has our network to successfully deliver letters on a daily basis. I'm concerned that the prospective new owner is only prepared to commit to the USO for only 5 years and we need to be very careful that we don't lose this business completely because it is something that makes us unique, profitable and above all keeps us all in jobs.

I can't help feeling that the CWU appears to be giving us a hard sell on universal service reform based on the profitability and costings of the company. IDS has always had a very strong balance sheet sitting on billions of pounds of retained earnings and from the last financial report in March 2024 our available liquidity increased to around £2.1 billion. They might have spent billions on automation and parcel hubs and squandered much of it to shareholders and senior management bonuses in previous years; but everything that I've read in many of the financial reports suggests that RM is financially healthy.

And I'm not oblivious to changes that need to be made to ensure that we are on a sound footing in the future and as a business we have had more changes than most. Surely our operating profits have significantly improved due to imposed revisions, later start times, seasonal variations which have reduced overtime, cuts in sick pay and IHR never reaching the threshold for full rate sick pay and most obviously a reduction in FTEs (full time equivalents) and 19,000 new entrants on significantly less pay and flexible contracts. Even our pensions have been changed.

It seems obvious to me that the CWU are on a damage limitation exercise. They talk about "harmonising" the new entrants instead of levelling them up probably because RM has zero intentions of doing that. People costs account for over half of our revenue so reducing their contracts from 40 hours to 37 won't affect RM's bottom line unless RM recruit more staff. If we are only delivering most letters every other day RM won't have to do that. But what it won't also do is solve the conundrum of unachievable workloads nor prevent the company from prioritising the parcels over letters.

I believe that we should fight to keep the universal service as it is regardless of RM and OfCom's intervention. I think that delivering letters every other day is a recipe for destroying the company towards being a glorified courier company and we should instead split the workloads between posties delivering letters and smaller parcels every day on larger duties, and for those that don't want to do that, to deliver most of the medium and larger parcels in larger vans. They could introduce a hybrid duty for a postie to do both but it might be difficult to organise on the shop floor.

Very good Pete, i am thinking around the same lines and my belief is the union are caught in a quandary of their own making. They want to oppose it but can't because of the last pay deal, going all in on the deal has weakened them to the point of no return and the support wouldn't be there.
I am of the opinion that they are aligning themselves too much with the company line and even the statement from Martin sounded a bit like something Simon Thompson would have spouted.
The future is obviously going to involve change, nobody is daft enough to believe otherwise. Its how we get the change implemented without getting slaughtered at the coalface. I wait with bated breath!

[TopperGas]

For years RM have been determined to show that the USO is not financially viable and these plans for universal reform are expected to save up to £300 million per year. According to Keith Williams, they expect deployment to take around 18-24 months which suggests how difficult and complex it might be to organise. The Union have always been concerned that universal reform would lead to thousands of job losses towards the garden path of being just another glorified courier company.

Are we really losing money by delivering letters everyday? Whilst no one can deny that the volume of letters have declined our actual letter revenue since last year has actually increased by 7.2%, mainly due to the price rises. I know it seems obvious to point out that parcels is where the money is, but if our market share has declined in parcels then surely it is our only unique selling point over our competitors? I'm aware that we don't have the monopoly anymore ever since downstream access but no one else has our network to successfully deliver letters on a daily basis. I'm concerned that the prospective new owner is only prepared to commit to the USO for only 5 years and we need to be very careful that we don't lose this business completely because it is something that makes us unique, profitable and above all keeps us all in jobs.

I can't help feeling that the CWU appears to be giving us a hard sell on universal service reform based on the profitability and costings of the company. IDS has always had a very strong balance sheet sitting on billions of pounds of retained earnings and from the last financial report in March 2024 our available liquidity increased to around £2.1 billion. They might have spent billions on automation and parcel hubs and squandered much of it to shareholders and senior management bonuses in previous years; but everything that I've read in many of the financial reports suggests that RM is financially healthy.

And I'm not oblivious to changes that need to be made to ensure that we are on a sound footing in the future and as a business we have had more changes than most. Surely our operating profits have significantly improved due to imposed revisions, later start times, seasonal variations which have reduced overtime, cuts in sick pay and IHR never reaching the threshold for full rate sick pay and most obviously a reduction in FTEs (full time equivalents) and 19,000 new entrants on significantly less pay and flexible contracts. Even our pensions have been changed.

It seems obvious to me that the CWU are on a damage limitation exercise. They talk about "harmonising" the new entrants instead of levelling them up probably because RM has zero intentions of doing that. People costs account for over half of our revenue so reducing their contracts from 40 hours to 37 won't affect RM's bottom line unless RM recruit more staff. If we are only delivering most letters every other day RM won't have to do that. But what it won't also do is solve the conundrum of unachievable workloads nor prevent the company from prioritising the parcels over letters.

I believe that we should fight to keep the universal service as it is regardless of RM and OfCom's intervention. I think that delivering letters every other day is a recipe for destroying the company towards being a glorified courier company and we should instead split the workloads between posties delivering letters and smaller parcels every day on larger duties, and for those that don't want to do that, to deliver most of the medium and larger parcels in larger vans. They could introduce a hybrid duty for a postie to do both but it might be difficult to organise on the shop floor.

We all know from RM's figure letters are down in numbers and from our own duties that's clearly the case, even on a busy mid week day we're probably only delivering letters to 50% of our customers and most of those are only receiving 1 or 2 letters, we could easily cut deliveries to one every other day with customers hardly noticing the changes.

[postslippete]

We all know from RM's figure letters are down in numbers and from our own duties that's clearly the case, even on a busy mid week day we're probably only delivering letters to 50% of our customers and most of those are only receiving 1 or 2 letters, we could easily cut deliveries to one every other day with customers hardly noticing the changes.

Every time we had a revision they always made the loops or duties bigger to compensate for the decline in mail volumes. Then they introduced lapsing. Now they have a real possibility to only deliver post every other day which will mean thousands of job losses. Problems could arise when there's a bulk posting of letters and that's when delivering every other day could become every few days. That is when customers will notice the changes because it will become even more unaffordable and unreliable to send anything via post.

As a business we only ever make a profit when we deliver the parcels with the letters. If we don't deliver any letters (and it is not unfeasible that this could happen in future) then we are essentially trying to compete with gig economy parcel couriers like Amazon without any other credible revenue streams and while no one seems able to stop it, I believe that we are going in the wrong direction as a company.

[TopperGas]

Which other way can we go when letters are dying off, we can't force customers to keep sending letters indefinitely.

[Mr Rush]

Problems could arise when there's a bulk posting of letters and that's when delivering every other day could become every few days.

We're already there since the last revision. Walks generated on sub-30% call rates fall to pieces as soon as a bulk posting comes in. If alternate day delivery pushed call rates back up to 80% or so, like they were years ago, they would have much less impact. I don't like it, but there is some logic there.

[kazardaimenu]

Shorter duties going out every other day wouldn’t be too bad. A much higher call rate in a concentrated area. Problems arrive when the bulk postings hit presently on spread out duties that were thought up based on traffic levels just after the strikes.

[SpacePhoenix]

Problems could arise when there's a bulk posting of letters and that's when delivering every other day could become every few days.

We're already there since the last revision. Walks generated on sub-30% call rates fall to pieces as soon as a bulk posting comes in. If alternate day delivery pushed call rates back up to 80% or so, like they were years ago, they would have much less impact. I don't like it, but there is some logic there.

Is the "bulk posting" just a day when the DTS system releases a load of mail?

[Barnacle]

Problems could arise when there's a bulk posting of letters and that's when delivering every other day could become every few days.

We're already there since the last revision. Walks generated on sub-30% call rates fall to pieces as soon as a bulk posting comes in. If alternate day delivery pushed call rates back up to 80% or so, like they were years ago, they would have much less impact. I don't like it, but there is some logic there.

Is the "bulk posting" just a day when the DTS system releases a load of mail?

It’s my understanding that bulk posting is when Vodaphone for example, sends an addressed mail shot to every address in a delivery office.

[clashcityrocker]

..... we can't force customers to keep sending letters indefinitely.

Maybe we should.
Maybe when Dave talks about expanding the role of delivery he means we walk into people's houses with a pen and paper and don't leave until they have written to someone.
It would mean less walking on delivery and more mail in the system.
Win win.

[Dogbone1510]

The queit quitter may need.to.make a come back if so 1 row a day! Seem crap that is long-term people get shafted but I guess there's not many of us left anymore

[Barnacle]

This managing a decline of letters, in other words, leaving them to die, is really crap and also entirely wrongheaded.

RM is making life difficult for itself with the Tracked 24 & Tracked 48 labels which are on anything from a flat letter to a parcel. Delivering Tracked letters by van on parcel routes is a loss maker.

So why don’t they introduce a Tracked postage label for letters and other flats, which does not have the time constraint? It could be priced between 1c & Tracked 48.

Or have one for letters and one for those cardboard flats? So different levels of Tracked which would take the heat off trying to deliver so much within a time constraint of RM’s own creation.

This would return flat items to the postie to deliver, rather than a DPR driver.

Something needs to change.

[Mr Rush]

So different levels of Tracked which would take the heat off trying to deliver so much within a time constraint of RM’s own creation.

When the excrement was hitting the spinning thing last year, I said we desperately needed Tracked 72 or 96. Second Class was introduced in the 60s for the same reason. They can cover every inch of the country with PSMs but there aren't enough hours in the day or people to get it all done in time.

[Basildon Bond]

So why don’t they introduce a Tracked postage label for letters and other flats, which does not have the time constraint? It could be priced between 1c & Tracked 48.

I'm wondering what exactly they are doing with the barcode on the new stamps... Is that just a way of spotting valid stamps or could the barcode be used for tracking? Possibly.

[sindba]

Shorter duties going out every other day wouldn’t be too bad. A much higher call rate in a concentrated area. Problems arrive when the bulk postings hit presently on spread out duties that were thought up based on traffic levels just after the strikes.

Walks wouldn't be shorter.

So not all the mail would get delivered on delivery days .

And it would end up with constant backlogs, failures, daily firefighting and a further decline in service quality.

We all know this, it's how RM operate.