Mails Down Mails Down blah blah

[Tman]

I do not disputed Mail volumes being down, though I could question exaggerated RM figures.

If you recognise that, why argue?
As ever, these threads always seem to conflate two separate issues, namely "mails down" and "we work just as hard as ever".
The title was "Mails down" and it most certainly and demonstrably is, and I'm also sure that 21st century RM as an employer ensures posties work harder than ever, but the second statement of fact has no relationship to the first.

[tommyrep]

I do not disputed Mail volumes being down, though I could question exaggerated RM figures.

If you recognise that, why argue?
As ever, these threads always seem to conflate two separate issues, namely "mails down" and "we work just as hard as ever".
The title was "Mails down" and it most certainly and demonstrably is, and I'm also sure that 21st century RM as an employer ensures posties work harder than ever, but the second statement of fact has no relationship to the first.

Ok Tman I will try again. I am not arguing, and I certainly do not trust RMs use of figures to strengthen their view we need to do much more on delivery. The reduction in letters does NOT mean you are working less or it is necessarily easier.
You are being a little bit facetious in assuming that less letters cannot mean more work when you ignore the other tasks applied, that is more packets that involve longer doorstep time to deliver compared to that of a letter.
They are not two separate issues, we deliver parcels as well as letters. Ones down the other is up in volume.
There' are less stamped letters, BUT the work load - I mean time consuming work load -on delivery has increased.
As letter volume has dropped, we now have packets that are tracked items. There is pressure to deliver these items to an acceptable first time delivery % by our hierarchy. Any failure, haha, yes it's our failure to get someone to accept the package, is deemed as a failure on our part, the fact the recipient is NOT at home is deemed our fault. So go and knock on neighbours doors try a get them to take delivery, go back to the original call and post a 739. Pat on the back, but NO time allowance for delivery to a neighbour. Double bar code packages scanned on door step. Drivers duty/ responsibility over looked at the expense of TIME, e.g., corner cutting at YOUR own risk and conduct coded at the drop of a hat for your trouble. Add to that starting early to achieve duty within time constraints while management knowingly know that breaches in H&S laws - breaks- is openly flaunted. Everyone on delivery is aware of this, people saying the work load is less are deluded or wearing blinkers. There are NO easy duties in my DO, yours may be different.

[steve1873]

As my granny said, " you always get wan" and it's Milly today. Or another RM plant.
Ok less letters for you to handle in processing.
The impact on delivery of many more packets/parcels is always over looked.
.

Indeed, you do always get wan.
So you dispute that mail's down (even though you said "Ok less letters for you to handle in processing") because there's "many more packets/parcels"?
Really?

I dont think anyone is disputing mail is down, however based upon the figures given, in a 7 year period it is down around 7%

So that is roughly 1% per year. Now, that may well translate in to a huge motherf****** amount of revenue, but in the real world it equates to absolutely nothing. Look at it this way - 7 years ago you would have gotten 100 letters in a tray. Today you will get 93. Now how much of an impact does that 7 fewer letters per tray make in terms of indoor workload to the average postman. As opposed to it taking them 4 mins to prep those 100 items, it now takes them 3 mins 51 seconds to prep those 93 items.

And that is indoor impact alone. The actual outdoor impact may not even exist. Call rates haven't necessarily decreased at the same rate/ if at all as to the overall drop in volumes.

[steve1873]

As my granny said, " you always get wan" and it's Milly today. Or another RM plant.
Ok less letters for you to handle in processing.
The impact on delivery of many more packets/parcels is always over looked.
Scanning on door step, delivery to neighbours, tracked items have all been gradually reduced.
Overtime ? It may be in Millie's case, that she is now feeling the impact as us on delivery that it is now focused on as a big money saver. Since privatisation OT is dropping. We on delivery have enforced lapsing, to fill up our time despite massive jobs lost from FT to PT. Maybe processing is a better option, any vacancies? seems easier than our lot in delivery.

I am no Royal Mail plant I have worked as a Postman for nearly 30 years so I remember what it was like when it was busy and now it ain't.
I am always puzzled why delivery Postman complain about their jobs,they have always been crap jobs,out in all weathers,waking up in the middle of the night to start work at 5.30 am.
There were no Vans or trolley's when I did them,all on foot with a heavy pouch over my shoulder,the first chance I got I went into the Mail Centre.

Please don't even begin to imply that the job was harder in the past. It quite simply was not.

[rubberbond]

[quote="TrueBlueTerrier"]Is nobody reading other peoples posts. This thread is madness and looks like the deaf using sign language to talk to the blind.

Letter mail is down. That's a fact and a certantity, and reading between the lines most delivery posties accept that to be true.

Its not that the letter mail is down that's the bind for Delivery Posties, its the fact that traffic in other streams that have increased is ignored by management, that no extra time is given for DTN, that they have introduced more items that need scanning without taking the extra process into account.

The kicker is then when you tell management that you can't complete today the refrain "is well mails' down

Okay, so it's indisputable is it? So,all these new estates coming on stream ,in towns up and down the land, the massive increase in the population, none of these factors affect mail volumes,they all get everything they need online, they never get anything physical through the door,other than the odd packet and live in a paperless world.so why do you struggle to complete? I don't know if volumes are down overall or not, I don't have access to figures for every postcode area, the only figures I get are the official ones from Royal Mail, and as someone once said,never believe anything until it's officially denied,or confirmed in this case. I do not trust their figures and until I have independent verification, I never will. I used to see published traffic volumes on a daily basis and the figures bore no resemblance to anything I saw arriving in the office,up,or down. People go on their own prejudices, me included, I see on an individual delivery ,volumes are rising,others may not,the debate continues, I'm glad to say.

[steve1873]

Yet again the same old propaganda of "Mails Down" but down from what ??
Last Tuesday ,Last month, Last Year ????
They don't back it up with any information
Only thing that's down are F/T Postmen / Overtime/ S/A /and Pension

As I have said in a previous post,15 years ago we used to run our collection mail from 1.30pm to 8.30pm and now we run it from 6.30pm to 7.45pm.
Our road packet fittings have been reduced from 6 to 4 with far fewer selections on them.
If it is so busy how come I don't get over 30 hours a week in overtime like I used to.
I can't understand why people have difficulty in believing that mail volumes have dropped off a cliff,it's not propaganda if it is true.

Those 30 hours you used to get have probably gone to a part timer on a 20 hour a week contract. Thats straw man argument, there could be many reasons why you personally get less overtime. There's almost always loads of overtime in my DO anyway.

Since I started a few years ago on a 25hr contract they have introduced lapsing, more recently double lapsing has started creeping in, we do collections whilst out on our rounds, we have to sign in, then out on delivery, then back from delivery then sign out when leaving, 2D barcodes have been introduced, there are lots of them and they add even more time when they invariably don't scan or the PDA freezes. Other than the odd quiet tuesday in summer, I barely ever finish on time and it's not because I'm slow.

The reason I don't get the overtime that I used to get is nothing to do with Part-Timers.
In my office we have fewer Part-Time and Full-Time staff compared to 10 years ago.
We used to have an early shift of around 40 people plus another 10 on overtime.
Now we have no real early shift to speak of and they want take more hours out of whats left,I would imagine our early shift will be gone in 18 months.
The reason my Mail Centre has shed so many jobs is that the Mail IS DOWN from considerably from what it was.
This is a FACT and not a Strawman argument.
If you are on deliveries and you are busy you ought to be happy that there is plenty of work.

Given I don't work, nor have I even set foot in a MC, I would hazard a guess that the reason for fewer staff and lower levels of overtime availability is at least as much to do with increased automation as it is to do with declining letter volumes!

[GRS]

Having read through this thread and all it's replies there is one glaring point missing and that is no-one has answered eastie's question. What time factor are RM using to measure this point that they keep pushing and have done for the last 6 or so years. On this thread everyone's chucking in their observation on the "mail is down" mantra with people talking of anything from last year to 30 years ago. But RM just don't seem to be able to put a specific timescale on what they measure this against. It's nonsense to be talking about 5,10,20,30 years ago as any decent well run company would have made adjustments over this time to manage the changing face of their business. When you hear other company's talking of their footfall/profits/losses they talk of a recent time period not just an airy fairy statement that they use to batter their staff with at every turn. I, like many other members of staff at RM or any other employer don't mind putting in the extra effort or changing work practices when it's needed especially if a company is struggling but where it goes wrong is when someone (in our case RM) deceive staff on so many points that you can't separate fact from fiction and you are end up with people totally distrusting anything they are being told . It's ridiculous that no matter what question or point you raise it is just answered with "the mails down" and yet no-one can really answer against what or when.

[taxi4leighton]

the most important point is that the number of full time jobs that we lost.
40,000 the last figure i saw

[Tman]

Ok Tman I will try again. I am not arguing, and I certainly do not trust RMs use of figures to strengthen their view we need to do much more on delivery. The reduction in letters does NOT mean you are working less or it is necessarily easier.

I know; as I said above, the two concepts are not necessarily related. What RM hopes or expects you to do more of isn't related to the fact that there's been a dramatic fall in mail volumes over the last ten years or so.
Sadly that is a provable cast iron fact.

You are being a little bit facetious in assuming that less letters cannot mean more work when you ignore the other tasks applied,

I never said that either. Maybe you should reread it.

[steve1873]

Ok Tman I will try again. I am not arguing, and I certainly do not trust RMs use of figures to strengthen their view we need to do much more on delivery. The reduction in letters does NOT mean you are working less or it is necessarily easier.

I know; as I said above, the two concepts are not necessarily related. What RM hopes or expects you to do more of isn't related to the fact that there's been a dramatic fall in mail volumes over the last ten years or so.
Sadly that is a provable cast iron fact.

You are being a little bit facetious in assuming that less letters cannot mean more work when you ignore the other tasks applied,

I never said that either. Maybe you should reread it.

Letter volumes!

[SpacePhoenix]

Sequenced mail isn't dropping off anywhere like it normally would in the summer, if anything it's probably increasing. Easiest way is to look at wave 1 on Mondays, which is getting busier

[worktotime]

Sequenced mail isn't dropping off anywhere like it normally would in the summer, if anything it's probably increasing. Easiest way is to look at wave 1 on Mondays, which is getting busier

your right there and pkts and parcels are crackers on our delivery and claiming o/t everyday and no lapsing in the office as theres no time to do it , so summats not right with r/ms low traffic figures for the summer , BULLSHIT comes to mind.

[milly]

Yet again the same old propaganda of "Mails Down" but down from what ??
Last Tuesday ,Last month, Last Year ????
They don't back it up with any information
Only thing that's down are F/T Postmen / Overtime/ S/A /and Pension

As I have said in a previous post,15 years ago we used to run our collection mail from 1.30pm to 8.30pm and now we run it from 6.30pm to 7.45pm.
Our road packet fittings have been reduced from 6 to 4 with far fewer selections on them.
If it is so busy how come I don't get over 30 hours a week in overtime like I used to.
I can't understand why people have difficulty in believing that mail volumes have dropped off a cliff,it's not propaganda if it is true.

Those 30 hours you used to get have probably gone to a part timer on a 20 hour a week contract. Thats straw man argument, there could be many reasons why you personally get less overtime. There's almost always loads of overtime in my DO anyway.

Since I started a few years ago on a 25hr contract they have introduced lapsing, more recently double lapsing has started creeping in, we do collections whilst out on our rounds, we have to sign in, then out on delivery, then back from delivery then sign out when leaving, 2D barcodes have been introduced, there are lots of them and they add even more time when they invariably don't scan or the PDA freezes. Other than the odd quiet tuesday in summer, I barely ever finish on time and it's not because I'm slow.

The reason I don't get the overtime that I used to get is nothing to do with Part-Timers.
In my office we have fewer Part-Time and Full-Time staff compared to 10 years ago.
We used to have an early shift of around 40 people plus another 10 on overtime.
Now we have no real early shift to speak of and they want take more hours out of whats left,I would imagine our early shift will be gone in 18 months.
The reason my Mail Centre has shed so many jobs is that the Mail IS DOWN from considerably from what it was.
This is a FACT and not a Strawman argument.
If you are on deliveries and you are busy you ought to be happy that there is plenty of work.

Given I don't work, nor have I even set foot in a MC, I would hazard a guess that the reason for fewer staff and lower levels of overtime availability is at least as much to do with increased automation as it is to do with declining letter volumes!

Nothing much to do with Automation everything to do with the fall in Mail volumes.
Our machines run nowhere near their full capacity anymore,including Christmas.

[milly]

Is nobody reading other peoples posts. This thread is madness and looks like the deaf using sign language to talk to the blind.

Letter mail is down. That's a fact and a certantity, and reading between the lines most delivery posties accept that to be true.

Its not that the letter mail is down that's the bind for Delivery Posties, its the fact that traffic in other streams that have increased is ignored by management, that no extra time is given for DTN, that they have introduced more items that need scanning without taking the extra process into account.

The kicker is then when you tell management that you can't complete today the refrain "is well mails' down".

So stop this "must be a Royal Mail Plant" crap, and the reverse, it helps no one and is counter productive.

Ok TBT
I apologise for using the term "RM plant". Some of our colleagues on this thread are being unfair on over stretched delivery posties, especially if they do not work on delivery. I know the forum is open to all sides of an argument, but as the RM propaganda courier proves, there are still a lot of colleagues out there to pose as great full employees of RM,, when I kknow from personal experience they are not the compassionate employer they wish to portray. Maybe not plants, but stooges possibly ??
I am truly staggered to read the views of a person who openly admits to jumping from delivery into processing because the work was too tough, and has an easier time with loads of overtime to boot, sounds like utopia. Then promoting an argument used by management to try and convince delivery staff that we have LESS work and by definition should be doing even more. I also recall the good old days, ( another criticism of some on thread who are of the view it was too easy ) but the pendulum has swung way too far now in the assumption that even more work can now be absorbed by duties that are currently unachievable - within duty time.

I am neither a Stooge nor a Plant.
I am referring to my experience of Royal Mail and my time on Deliveries,I hated working on Deliveries so I had two choices which was to leave or go and work in the Mail Centre and I chose the latter.
The one thing I would not have done is carried on working in a job I didn't like,you are only here once so why would you torture yourself.
I'm very sorry if it upsets you that my time working for Royal Mail has been enjoyable,not everyone who works for Royal Mail has a miserable time.
Maybe you should think about a career change.

[tommyrep]

Millie
I do not think I should need to consider a career move, why should I ?. I was happy at work but RM is prepared to take "us" down a spiraling path to the bottom. I am a honest hard worker and always have been, I refuse to be treated like a slave to RMs whim. What makes me unhappy in my job is the constant drivel spouted by RM that my job is now easier due to falling mail volumes, a point you endorsed. They fabricate and distort facts along with dubious figures to strengthen their argument that we all need to do more, for no reward. Keep shareholders happy. I am expected to be grateful for the T&cs which were hard fought for and earned by colleagues in the past - they were never gifted. RM are expecting us to work under the same rules as the poor sods on zero hour contracts like our competitors, remove our pension rights etc.
My point is that there are other aspects of the job, newly introduced that have changed the job a lot, especially since revisions in DOs a few years ago. The staff in general have gone along with many changes, but RM still want to bleed us dry.
You are right of course, they will try and piss everyone off to the point that they leave.
I deplore colleagues taking up the mantle of reason on behalf of a draconian RM management against fellow workers.
I despair for our future with so many people prepared to side with the RM bully's in applying the unfair work loads imposed on others.
There are too many people in RM who do not give a toss about others mucked about, especially P/timers and new starts.

I appreciate and accept you are entitled to your own opinion, but do not pretend their version of facts is truly accurate while I and others are just moaning old farts. There is a lot of inequality within RM delivery and processing I expect, but do not kid yourself that RM truly have YOUR best interest at heart. In delivery we live in the real world and the work IS getting harder to achieve in duty time. Falling mail volumes, a red herring to justify their own ends. Parcel, on line orders, are rising, fast.