losing our 9 day fortnites

[chrisj]

I am sorry to add this - why would the employer want you to work much longer hours than everyone else?

Such a policy might have a knock-on effect of fatigue, stress and sickness absence and ultimately very expensive to cover absences because people have long breaks between shifts and not enough flexibility as it appears you have a lot of FT staff anyway.

[aposter]

When they say otherwise it will mean job losses, it may be worth doing a straw pole of your colleagues as to wether that number would like VR. In our office they barely got through a quarter of the staff before they had filled all the potential VR positions.

[daveyeff]

I do not think Royal Mail are simply going to kick people out of the door: the only real way (without going to tribunals) to get rid of people is to offer then voluntary redundancies... And the people that will find such a deal attractive are likely going to be very long-term, older and most likely full time employees.

To be honest, RM will not even offer Voluntary Redundancies just because you folks do not want to work a particular shift pattern: they will simply use Executive Action - and the Union will support them (it will not even get that far judging by what your Branch is proposing).

This is not like being dropped to minimum wage - just a shift pattern change. Funny enough, we have some 20 hours folks here being made to come in 3 or 4 or 5 days a week doing different shifts; I bet they will swap with you any day...

So you do not like the 2010 Agreement - well what can I say?

of course they will swap any day, why wouldn't they?..its the only good thing to come out of this thousand mile high pile of shite. 13 weeks extra holidays a yr....we've had this in for 4 yrs and now they want rid of it cos it doesn't suit them. sold down the river.

[daveyeff]

I am sorry to add this - why would the employer want you to work much longer hours than everyone else?

Such a policy might have a knock-on effect of fatigue, stress and sickness absence and ultimately very expensive to cover absences because people have long breaks between shifts and not enough flexibility as it appears you have a lot of FT staff anyway.

it doesn't bother them when they've got lads working til six o clock at night on very regular basis....as for the longer hours they are planning to still keep them on wed thurs and Fridays because although they are shortening the slack days they are keeping the delivery spans at 4hrs.45mins. and we will still be working 8.hrs 50 on the heavy days. they are not bothered about fatigue and stress.

[IloveMYredTROLLEY!]

Secondly, your sequenced trays are counted by the machines. The accuracy of those figures is regularly checked.
The trays are counted using an Average Container Fill. (ACF) Counting individual trays is therefore pointless. Where does the time come from for you to be counting these trays practically daily?

If you concentrate, it is not that difficult to count the sequenced mail in a tray as you throw it in, shouldn't take any extra time at all.

I've had days when every sequenced tray was rammed full, to the extent that pulling out the first bundle was a real struggle. Rough and ready counts of ~350-450 items per tray, so what they were trying to do is give me ~4-5 trays of sequenced squeeze into ~3 trays (the old psychology trick, less trays, easier day)...

But isn't each tray of sequenced supposed to be ~250?

[hatetheboss]

What Are the outdoor hours for your 9 day fortnights and are they town or rural?

town..leave office at 9.35...10 mins conveyance/park up. get bags out of van....first letter.... 9.45..last letter 14.30...10mins return to office/pouch off.....last 20 mins break 3.00 finish....most days we go over our time.

Why don't you suggest due to you finishing late most days this compensates for the lack of indoor work and you start later e.g
Depart 9:35 finish 3:30 you would then start 30 mins later, reducing indoor time, your last letter would meet the 3:00 deadline and you get to keep your 9 day fortnights. . Obviously this depends on what indoor hours are needed

I will mention it but they will have an answer,,simply because they don't want us to have them anymore. they've turned us at every corner,,,having an answer to every thing we say. for example, it was suggested that we work longer on the wed thurs and fri, to make up for the 'supposed' slack Mondays tues and sats....their answer was no because that would mean going over 9 hours on the heavy days which would mean we are entitled to book an extra 10 mins break for going over 9 hours. and this would cost the company extra. a negative solution as they said.

Why don't you suggest you start later Mon Tues Sat and take work of those finishing late the business would then make a saving?

[clashcityrocker]

Secondly, your sequenced trays are counted by the machines. The accuracy of those figures is regularly checked.
The trays are counted using an Average Container Fill. (ACF) Counting individual trays is therefore pointless. Where does the time come from for you to be counting these trays practically daily?

If you concentrate, it is not that difficult to count the sequenced mail in a tray as you throw it in, shouldn't take any extra time at all.

I've had days when every sequenced tray was rammed full, to the extent that pulling out the first bundle was a real struggle. Rough and ready counts of ~350-450 items per tray, so what they were trying to do is give me ~4-5 trays of sequenced squeeze into ~3 trays (the old psychology trick, less trays, easier day)...

But isn't each tray of sequenced supposed to be ~250?

I don't really understand why you would want to count your sequenced mail.
It is counted by the machine. The count is regularly checked.
The stuff that goes into your IPS is subject to ACFs.
If you are counting your sequenced mail you are:
a) wasting your time
b) not very bright

[TrueBlueTerrier]

to be fair we also have counted mail and found figures to be down on average about 80 letters a box

well we havent

every 4 trays is a thousand. by our counts we have almost 1400....no wonder they can say the mail is down. the first in last out is a normal practice in most industries. whenever there has been redundancies in our industry its nearly always been through an agreed vr package.

Thats only 20 out, a very very close correlation - less than 1% on the official ACF, less if the count is higher.

[A2B]

I don't really understand why you would want to count your sequenced mail.
It is counted by the machine. The count is regularly checked.
The stuff that goes into your IPS is subject to ACFs.
If you are counting your sequenced mail you are:
a) wasting your time
b) not very bright

Well we can't be very bright and waste a lot of time because we (well our rep and DOM) were regularly counting our sequenced mail because the figures given and the actual amount arriving in the office were obviously way off.

[the mad woman]

Keep reading about the model week but what is this

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Keep reading about the model week but what is this

The week that Managers/Union decide to use as a base line to build a revision on.

In theory if your traffic is over the Model week then there is LESS opportunity for lapsing/overtime. If your traffic is less then the opposite effect, more lapsing opportunities, less overtime.

[daveyeff]

Secondly, your sequenced trays are counted by the machines. The accuracy of those figures is regularly checked.
The trays are counted using an Average Container Fill. (ACF) Counting individual trays is therefore pointless. Where does the time come from for you to be counting these trays practically daily?

If you concentrate, it is not that difficult to count the sequenced mail in a tray as you throw it in, shouldn't take any extra time at all.

I've had days when every sequenced tray was rammed full, to the extent that pulling out the first bundle was a real struggle. Rough and ready counts of ~350-450 items per tray, so what they were trying to do is give me ~4-5 trays of sequenced squeeze into ~3 trays (the old psychology trick, less trays, easier day)...

But isn't each tray of sequenced supposed to be ~250?

I don't really understand why you would want to count your sequenced mail.
It is counted by the machine. The count is regularly checked.
The stuff that goes into your IPS is subject to ACFs.
If you are counting your sequenced mail you are:
a) wasting your time
b) not very bright

in a nutshell it proves they are lying about their figures.

[daveyeff]

to be fair we also have counted mail and found figures to be down on average about 80 letters a box

well we havent

every 4 trays is a thousand. by our counts we have almost 1400....no wonder they can say the mail is down. the first in last out is a normal practice in most industries. whenever there has been redundancies in our industry its nearly always been through an agreed vr package.

Thats only 20 out, a very very close correlation - less than 1% on the official ACF, less if the count is higher.

350 to 400 in each tray when its supposed to be 250. if this is happening all over, and I suspect it is, it will be a lot more than 1%. its a very good way to fool people into thinking the mail is down. they can do anything with figures. they can take your shift patterns off you when they quote THEIR figures.

[trythat]

Keep reading about the model week but what is this

The week that Managers/Union decide to use as a base line to build a revision on.

In theory if your traffic is over the Model week then there is LESS opportunity for lapsing/overtime. If your traffic is less then the opposite effect, more lapsing opportunities, less overtime.

With the new tools coming out, the model week is now chosen by a program, using historicial data and future forecast data, we've been told we must use this tool, and I beleive it will be a rolling model week i.e. changes every 3 months, I expect this will be another tool RM (and CWU as they seem to agree to everything RM wants) will change at will to make it say what they want, welcome to even more proposed lapsing.

[clashcityrocker]

350 to 400 in each tray when its supposed to be 250. if this is happening all over, and I suspect it is, it will be a lot more than 1%. its a very good way to fool people into thinking the mail is down. they can do anything with figures. they can take your shift patterns off you when they quote THEIR figures.

You are the only person I know who thinks the sequenced mail is counted as 250 letters to a box.
Each letter is counted individually by a machine. You can ask your DOM for your sequenced count.
He can also tell you what percentage of the sequenced mail is going to your walk.

Though not 100% accurate, using the total traffic you can use that percentage figure to calculate your walk's mail.
Then you can count the mail in your frame.
This provides a check on the traffic count.
It therefore stops being their figures and becomes our figures.

So while you might suspect this massive under reporting of traffic is happening all over, it isn't.