LTB 182/25 – Update on USO Negotiations

[POSTMAN]

Update on USO Negotiations 

The purpose of this communication is to give Branches, representatives, and members a full update on the ongoing negotiations with Royal Mail on the future of the USO and a detailed breakdown of the status of each pilot office so we are as open and transparent as possible. 

The CWU remain fully committed to agreeing USO reform. Our position is one that has been consistent throughout the negotiations - any agreement must restore confidence in the workplace, quality of service and deliver the platform to rebuild Royal Mail. 

In December 2024, Royal Mail and the CWU agreed to deploy 37 pilot sites using Royal Mail’s preferred USO option - the Optimised Delivery Model (ODM). The design of the Optimised Delivery Model was based on removing one person from every four duties which were in scope. 

35 pilots were deployed commencing from February 2025, with the last pilot going live in early June. We are currently in August, traditionally the lightest traffic period of the year, and the majority of pilot units are not clearing or working successfully with ODM. 

We have seen significant numbers of duties and hours being reinstated for some pilots and units. For example, Stockton on Tees DO have had over 50 duties reinstated but the office is still not clearing daily. Far too often it has taken too long to implement fixes, and the vast majority of PIRs are still ongoing. 

In the comments of this post is a report from the reps on the ground for each pilot site. Apart from some small units that are working better, far too many are failing during the lightest period of the year. This is despite the unit having surplus staff and staff from neighbouring units being used. 

We understand that it has been a challenging time and would like to thank all our members and representatives at the pilot sites for their hard work thus far. Please be assured that resolving and fixing the pilots remains our top priority.  

The evidence from the pilots is crystal clear - the CWU does not believe that the Optimised Delivery Model and its design of four into three duties is an acceptable or realistic proposal, and we have no confidence that it could be deployed successfully in the remaining 1,250 Delivery Units. 

We have therefore been engaging with Royal Mail over an alternative model, that is based on a heavy and light option which we expect the pilot units to introduce when we reach an agreement. 

The CWU option enables individuals to stay on their duty, helps to resolve non-driver issues, and mitigates fatigue issues associated with the Optimised Delivery Model. 

Within the negotiations, we have also been discussing the possibility of a shorter Saturday attendance option of 5 hours and 45 minutes, as well as an alternative option for every other Saturday off with slightly longer attendance. 

Additionally, we are in discussions about how the CWU model can assist in moving start and finish times earlier, as 50% of the manual prep workload is in the unit before wave one arrives. 

The principle of the heavy and light model is that 50% of your duty each day has all the mail, and 50% is just first class and parcels. This rotates daily, Monday through to Friday. You would also take part of a further duty set at heavy as part of your daily workload Monday to Friday. 

We have been discussing an 8 into 7 model for town duties with the seventh duty being reviewed against strict criteria linked to achieving quality and having fair and manageable workload. The impasse on this issue is the CWU want the seventh duty to be designed an actual duty within the 8 walks, whereas Royal Mail want it to be more ad hoc. 

The CWU cannot reach an agreement which has the potential to worsen the quality of service under a new USO model.  We do not believe that the £300 million saving was ever realistic, especially given the state some units have been in since Royal Mail decided to impose revisions in 2022 and 2023.  

Our members across Royal Mail have seen unprecedented growth in tracked products alongside unusually high levels of letters so far this year and which has continued through the normal lighter summer period. 

We realise many units are seeing frame changes and colour coding and may believe this is the start of the units being deployed. It is not.

Whilst this activity maybe unsettling for some members we want to be absolutely clear - there will be no introduction or deployment of any changes to the USO in your units until there is a full national agreement in place and subsequently your local rep and office have signed off and voted on how this will impact your office. Given the sheer scale of this change and the political sensitivities around the USO, Royal Mail cannot implement this without agreement. We need you to take confidence from that. 

Ahead of any agreement being reached, the agreed reset of and employee and industrial relations will be crucial to ensuring that it creates a platform for genuine engagement and respect in the workplace. We will also require the commitments within the EP / CWU agreement to be agreed and honoured within the timescales set out. 

We will keep Divisions and Branches updated on negotiations over the coming days. The role of our Divisions and Branches now is to cascade this information into every office in the UK and we ask that meetings commence with immediate effect to build support for the unions position which we have outlined in this communication. 

Finally, we will be issuing further communications early next week following the members ballot result on areas we believe Royal Mail are acting outside of the spirit and intention of the EP Group / CWU agreement and how we plan to handle this. 

Any enquiries in relation to the content of this LTB should be addressed to the DGS(P) Department.

Martin Walsh 
Deputy General Secretary Postal

Dave Ward
General Secretary

Here is the report on all pilot units. Thank you to our reps for putting this together...
https://www.cwu.org/wp-content/uploads/ ... update.pdf

[yellowbelly]

Whilst this activity maybe unsettling for some members we want to be absolutely clear - there will be no introduction or deployment of any changes to the USO in your units until there is a full national agreement in place and subsequently your local rep and office have signed off and voted on how this will impact your office. Given the sheer scale of this change and the political sensitivities around the USO, Royal Mail cannot implement this without agreement. We need you to take confidence from that.

Ha, ha, ha. If we or CWU don't agree then what?

Anyone know what the last column in the attachment is?

[Rommagic]

What savings does this model make a year?.

[hans solo]

How the f**k they measuring 50% of anything when all duties are unequal
Workloads unequal
Start and finish times unequal
50% of an 800 call duty bit easier than a 400 call duty
f***ing shambles

[hans solo]

What savings does this model make a year?.

Absolutely none
Square pegs into round holes
They (RM and CWU ) havn,t got a clue

[kazardaimenu]

50 duties put in, extra staff and still failing?! We’ll soon see if they try to bring this in via the front door but it sounds like all offices will be in a state of constant failure if they do.

[ted_e_bear]

"The principle of the heavy and light model is that 50% of your duty each day has all the mail, and 50% is just first class and parcels. This rotates daily, Monday through to Friday. You would also take part of a further duty set at heavy as part of your daily workload Monday to Friday"

So you leave half your mail and take part of another duty ? What constitutes a part, just a bit, a third, half ? Who knows ? Sounds like bollox to me. What if your duties too big already ?

[Perseus]

It's delusional to think that everyone gets to stay on a fixed duty, does half a duty a day of all items and half 1C and packets, gets an earlier start/finish, shorter Saturdays, work every other Saturday, and the company saves hundreds of millions a year.

We're either being trolled or they are really that out of touch with how things are on the ground.

[hewittinspain]

So take it is similar to how a lot of offices are run now. You and your partner take one walk and first class/tracked on the other then swap, keeping the lapsing duty in.
On your day off you have one covering instead of two and then "try" and pick it up until your next day off. We are 20% staff down but for some strange reason that system is working and the total pressure is off by the managers, although it is summer mail after all.

[patpat856]

New way of lapsing

[jessicarabbit]

Any day that has 2 days worth of mail to deliver is by it's very nature 'heavy' so there will never be any light to counteract the heavy. It's garbage and RM won't agree to a model that saves tuppence hapenny.

[kazardaimenu]

Leave your duty in take the lapsing out. In out in out shake it all about. You work your time and watch the mail pile up. That’s what it’s all about.

[toonshola]

Note that this is not a joint communication with Royal
mails name attached. It’s a delusional poorly thought out wish list dreamed up by CWU officials who haven’t done a delivery in two decades. I would highly suspect Royal Mail think this is all nonsense and still want some version of the ODM rolled out.
I can’t see where this plan makes any significant savings which was the whole reason Ofcom finally changed the USO. Be interesting to see if Royal Mail release an official statement on their stance on all this.

[hewittinspain]

Note that this is not a joint communication with Royal
mails name attached. It’s a delusional poorly thought out wish list dreamed up by CWU officials who haven’t done a delivery in two decades. I would highly suspect Royal Mail think this is all nonsense and still want some version of the ODM rolled out.
I can’t see where this plan makes any significant savings which was the whole reason Ofcom finally changed the USO. Be interesting to see if Royal Mail release an official statement on their stance on all this.

I don't see how RM can make that much savings with it all. The 3 in 4 was probably the one that was gonna make savings but its already collapsed at the lightest part of the year.
They probably need to accept that without totally getting rid of mail they are gonna have a massive battle on their hands.
If RM implemented the 3 into 4 then got help them, offices will look like Xmas constantly.

[oypostie]

Note that this is not a joint communication with Royal
mails name attached.

We had the Royal Mail version from our manager. The pilots are going well. Bit of fine tuning and then a roll out after Christmas.

Now which version do i believe