LTB 293/11 Lump Sum Payments - Delivery

[Geezer]

Letter to Branches


No. 293 /11 Ref: 230.03 Date: 24th March 2011

TO: ALL BRANCHES WITH POSTAL MEMBERS
CWU DIVISIONAL REPRESENTATIVES
CWU AREA DELIVERY REPRESENTATIVES

Dear Colleague,

Lump Sum Payments - Delivery

Delivery Lump Sum Trigger Points –Clarification

Following a number of enquiries recently regarding what type of revision triggers the lump sum payments in Delivery Offices we have issued this LTB to hopefully make the position absolutely clear. The words agreed as part of the BT 2010 and Beyond National Agreement are attached for ease of reference.

Most problems appear to be around what triggers the £600 + £200 payments. This should be clear – it is a walk sequencing revision. This is primarily where the office is in receipt of or due to receive sequenced mail and where necessary indoor hours have been realigned to match workload which could mean a change in start and finish times, normally due to a change in arrival patterns as a consequence of mail being sequenced.
In some areas Royal Mail has decided to link the walk sequencing revision with a Delivery Methods revision and called it an integrated or bundled revision and have stated that the lump sum payments are incumbent on this type of revision being deployed. This is completely at odds with the national agreement as there is no requirement whatsoever in the national agreement for the two types of revision to be linked. This does not mean that we are opposed to this approach but it has no bearing on the payments of the £600 + £200 lump sum payments. All that is required to trigger those payments is a walk sequencing revision as described above. Branches and Representatives should also remember that it is the walk sequencing revision that introduces the SWW.

The same principle as above applies to those units who are not included in the walk sequencing deployment programme and are therefore not due to receive sequenced mail. In this instance it is a Delivery Methods revision that triggers the £600 + £200 payments and the SWW.

Lump sums and the SWW triggers for SPDOs are covered off with their own specific words.

The £200 lump sum payment is made for the first revision that is not a walk sequencing revision for units due to receive sequenced mail and is not a Delivery Methods revision for those not due to receive sequenced mail. This revision can take place before or after those revisions but it will be the first revision of this type.

Branches and Representatives should also note that a Delivery Methods revision ceases the use of private cars on delivery on the day of deployment.



Trigger Points for Phased Walk Sequencing Revisions in Delivery

Royal Mail accepted a solution proposed by the Union, whereby if a walk sequencing revision is introduced in phases, following the agreement of the complete revision, a full office re-sign and where leavers across the office have signed up to go, the first payment of £600 will be made to everyone staying in the unit when the first stage of the revision is deployed. In these phased revisions the process of bedding in and joint review against the objectives will take place throughout the phasing rather than after the event and in these units the payment of the final £200 will be made immediately following the implementation of the final phase. There has been no discussion with the Union at national level regarding the phasing of non sequencing revisions and how the trigger points would apply. However we would expect the £200 to be paid on deployment of this first phase. It should also be noted that phasing should be agreed locally, it is not a mandatory requirement and can be disagreed in line with the IR Framework.

Lump Sum Payments

Finally we are aware that there has been a delay in the payment of lump sums in some areas which thus far we have managed to deal with on a unit by unit basis. In some cases the delay has been quite considerable, up to 4 months after deployment, which is completely unacceptable. Branches and Representatives should be aware that Royal Mail accept that the longest delay should be no more than 3 weeks from deployment which is due to administration reasons. Following a discussion at the recent NDG Royal Mail were informed that we would issue guidance on this point in the following terms. Local revision agreements should be signed off and include a statement confirming the type of revision, the amount of money to be paid, and the date the payment will be made. The concurrence form for the payments to be made should then be signed by the Manager and CWU Representative and a copy retained of this and the final signed agreement. If the payments have not been made within 3 weeks this should be flagged up to the Divisional Representatives without delay so that they can make representation at Regional level. Any problems thereafter should be raised with the Outdoor Dept. Royal Mail did not object to this.

Any enquiries to Bob Gibson’s Office, quoting reference 230.03
Email address: hnutley@cwu.org

Yours sincerely

Bob Gibson
CWU Assistant Secretary


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applicable to all Delivery Units including SPDO’s

Shorter Working Week

To be implemented in all Delivery Units in line with the Walk Sequencing revision.

Lump Sums

The payment of £1,000 (pro rata) consisting of 3 lump sums will be paid as follows.

£200 will be paid to everyone in the Delivery unit on deployment of their first non Walk Sequencing revision.

£600 will be paid to everyone in the Delivery unit on deployment of the walk sequencing revision.

£200 will be paid to everyone in the Delivery unit when the walk sequencing revision has been implemented, and objectives achieved in line with the local agreement and no later than the end of the 6 week bedding in period.

SPDO’s

All SPDOs will receive the £600 and £200 payments in line with their parent delivery unit.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clarification on Lump Sum Payments and implementation of Shorter Working Week for those delivery units,
including any SPDO’s, that are not scheduled to receive walk sequenced mail

Where an SPDO is tagged to a delivery unit (has a parent delivery unit) that is scheduled to receive sequenced mail then the lump sum payments, and the shorter working week, will be made in line with the parent unit.

Where an SPDO is not tagged to a delivery unit and is served directly from the Mail Centre then its lump sum payments, and the shorter working week, will be made in line with their nearest (as the crow flies) Royal Mail delivery unit that is served by the same Mail centre as the SPDO.

Where a RM delivery unit is excluded from the walk sequencing deployment programme then the shorter working week and the payment of the £1000 (pro-rata for part time employees) will be implemented and paid as follows:

• £200 will be paid to everyone in the unit on deployment of their first (non- delivery methods) revision.
• £600 will be paid to everyone in the delivery unit on deployment of the delivery methods revision which will also include the implementation of the shorter working week.
• £200 will be paid to everyone in the delivery unit when the delivery methods revision has been implemented, and objectives achieved in line with the local agreement and no later than the end of the 6 week bedding in period.

[maisymoo04]

been in now 2 weeks and luv it

[Big Daz]

Finally we are aware that there has been a delay in the payment of lump sums in some areas which thus far we have managed to deal with on a unit by unit basis. In some cases the delay has been quite considerable, up to 4 months after deployment, which is completely unacceptable. Branches and Representatives should be aware that Royal Mail accept that the longest delay should be no more than 3 weeks from deployment which is due to administration reasons.

[celerycelery]

"Most problems appear to be around what triggers the £600 + £200 payments. This should be clear – it is a walk sequencing revision. This is primarily where the office is in receipt of or due to receive sequenced mail and where necessary indoor hours have been realigned to match workload which could mean a change in start and finish times, normally due to a change in arrival patterns as a consequence of mail being sequenced. "

So does that mean that just a change in starting times due to receiving walk sequenced mail now triggers a bonus or do you have to have a revision as well?

[fishtank]

This should be clear – it is a walk sequencing revision.

[celerycelery]

Yeah i see that but the bit after says

"This is primarily where the office is in receipt of or due to receive sequenced mail and where necessary indoor hours have been realigned to match workload which could mean a change in start and finish times, normally due to a change in arrival patterns as a consequence of mail being sequenced"

which is the confusing bit. Does a change in hours due to the walk sequenced mail consist of a revision?

[fishtank]

Yeah i see that but the bit after says

"This is primarily where the office is in receipt of or due to receive sequenced mail and where necessary indoor hours have been realigned to match workload which could mean a change in start and finish times, normally due to a change in arrival patterns as a consequence of mail being sequenced"

which is the confusing bit. Does a change in hours due to the walk sequenced mail consist of a revision?

No because in 99% of cases hours will come out of your office due to the "apparent" savings involved with prepping walk sequenced mail.
That's what it means by realigning indoor hours to match workload and that means a revision using the IWT.
A change in start/finish times depends on when you get the sequenced mail which will depend on where you are on the plan.

[celerycelery]

Thanks. It all seemed pretty straighforward when it was announced but it just gets more and more confusing these days. Doesnt help when management pick and choose bits from agreement and ignore all others.

[Big Daz]

RML are currently planning to breach the above for my D.O :vcfo :dcfo :ncfo

OPGS/CWU mbrs are falling victim to the RML it's the end of the financial year lets sh** ourselves mentality.

[fishtank]

RML are currently planning to breach the above for my D.O

In what way Daz?

[gerardy]

Could someone help clarify this for me,

our rep is not the brightest in the bunch and just goes along with everthing the magager says working together and all.

in our office we have been receiving WSM from October last year - told that this is not enough to trigger payment as not all of the mail coming into the office is walk sequenced.

then just recently they have started lapsing hours again and are basing these savings on what the IWT figures say (100 bsi), part-timers starting later doing delivery only, full timers doing double and even treble prepping, all doing extended deliveries even though we have not had a delivery methods revision and majority of runs are over 3.5 hour delivery spans town walks.Rurals all over time on a weekly basis and been told to take out parcels as we have no parcel duty.

following all what is said above am I right in thinking that this does indeed trigger the first bonus payment and that we are been conned

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Could someone help clarify this for me,

our rep is not the brightest in the bunch and just goes along with everthing the magager says working together and all.

in our office we have been receiving WSM from October last year - told that this is not enough to trigger payment as not all of the mail coming into the office is walk sequenced.

then just recently they have started lapsing hours again and are basing these savings on what the IWT figures say (100 bsi), part-timers starting later doing delivery only, full timers doing double and even treble prepping, all doing extended deliveries even though we have not had a delivery methods revision and majority of runs are over 3.5 hour delivery spans town walks.Rurals all over time on a weekly basis and been told to take out parcels as we have no parcel duty.

following all what is said above am I right in thinking that this does indeed trigger the first bonus payment and that we are been conned

No - Revisions only are the trigger for the £200/£600£200 payments. The biggest one kicks off when you have a Walk Sequencing Revision, not as some mistakenly believed when you start getting walk sequencing boxes from the MC.

In fact if you check the LTB above it explains it quite clearly and all of the payments section have the word Revision in them.

[Big Daz]

RML are currently planning to breach the above for my D.O

In what way Daz?

To match up with the LTB RML need to pay by Monday. My manager told me this morning that the date that has been given is the 8th April yet we are now at the end of week 3 since deployment. I get the impression RML want to wait untill the new financial year to pay out and justify it on the basis its only a extra 2 weeks wait.

ADR has spoken to the DSM who will now hopefully find out why the 3 week period is not going to be used for my D.O

[BT2010]

daz, we are the same. months overdue now and just been told MAY!

the may thing came up during the CS brief, to soften the blow i assume. needless to say the militant few of us were furious.

[Keano]

It is all lies