Casuals back in the Delivery Office!

[Jess]

Agency casuals are back in our DO - Silly me thought that this way of working had finished years ago when the DO scandals were revealed by Chanel4 Dispatches.

The problems that were seen way back then are all back - No training, crazy amount of missorts and misdelveries, more stuff left than ever. Are the guys security checked? I think not.

Weve had all the usual poor service problems before this - Every manager doing a skimmed delivery ( So No packets, D2Ds ), 25hr 3 month contracts for new starts ( Damn difficult getting good guys to work with this deal! ). So agency guys out on delivery is probably the final bit before privatisation.

I think our CWU colleagues should jump from a great height on this one.

Jess

[chickenwittle]

agree agency staff starting to appear in our office again taking walks out and only getting half done,not their fault of course they havent got a clue where they are going.

[chunk]

No casuals seen in our area.
would you describe your office as "failing" to a large degree?
what i have seen before is RM throwing resources ie extra bodies at a failing office
to try and get it back on track this is normally a short term thing.

another possibility is that there are further cuts in the pipeline and that these casuals are just "holding"
the place of the hours that their planing on taking out after a revision?.
easier to get rid than full timers .

[Jess]

No casuals seen in our area.
would you describe your office as "failing" to a large degree?
what i have seen before is RM throwing resources ie extra bodies at a failing office
to try and get it back on track this is normally a short term thing.

another possibility is that there are further cuts in the pipeline and that these casuals are just "holding"
the place of the hours that their planing on taking out after a revision?.
easier to get rid than full timers .

We're both "failing" and "holding".

Failing because of ALL the things we read about on this forum. Resouces have been "thrown" at the office, but a few weeks later it all falls apart again - this cycle repeats itself - one week good, 3 months bad. Of course it all comes down to unbelievably lousy management - no manpower planning and permanent crisis management. It's a Area and DO management that really doesn't have a clue and is definetly not fit for purpose. The latest trend seems to be for ex mail centre surplus managers to be recycled through DOs, and even more chaos when the basics of DOs have to be explained to them. There is arrogance combined with ignorance - a horrible combination. I keep my head down and just keep taking the premium docket - not a responsible attitude but if a "successful delivery" means that half a dozen letters are delivered to half a dozen houses in half a dozen streets then I'll take the full docket! The next guy ( PT or Casual ) gets stuffed the following day. Crazy.

Holding because a revision has been put off many times. We're not P&L and would not be able to implement it anyway given the current state of the office. My conspiracy theory mates think that the full Georoute run has been done many times and there are no savings unless they overtweak the settings. So we won't be getting a revision any time soon.

I think the only way out is privatisation, whether we like it or not. In its current state everything points towards pre-privatisation - savage cost cutting in all areas, minimal investment in DOs and vehicles and "temporary" managers. At least with privatisation there would be shareholders to be accountable to -I know they will have to pay dividends.... but at least a BT or John Lewis setup would be better than now.

[DirtyHarry]

Public, private, as long as whoever it is runs Royal Mail, sees it's workers as being less than pack mules, and strives to get more for less, and continues with a strategy built on a foundation of gross under-staffing, this job, this service, will always remain third-rate. John Lewis, or no John Lewis.

[chunk]

Holding because a revision has been put off many times. We're not P&L and would not be able to implement it anyway given the current state of the office. My conspiracy theory mates think that the full Georoute run has been done many times and there are no savings unless they overtweak the settings. So we won't be getting a revision any time soon.

Your spot on about pegasus/georoute
RM have excessively tweaked the parameters until they are ridiculous.
remember it backfired when the media took up the story of how we are expected to walk at 4 mph.
In our office the last revision was a "table top revision" thats because pegasus would take some drops out of
our largest two duties.