Saturday Early Starts: State of play in your office?

[Midge]

In my office, we have just signed up to going from 6am to 5.30am start, and aim to go back all the way to 5am soon.

I've heard all sorts of rumours, tall stories, and misinformation from Royal Mail about why they can't go back to 5am, and what would happen if we did.

The list of lies includes:

1. Saturdays would have to be an 8 hour day.

Bullshit. The agreement says we go back to as we were. So as under the old attendance times, Saturdays would be shorter, as under the Single Daily Delivery Agreement (Pay & Major Change) Agreement.

2. All due mail would have to go, including Mailsort 3.

More bullshit. Shorter Saturdays are possible because we take less mail, including keeping M3 out of Saturday deliveries. If this is what happened in your office before, then that is what you go back to. Again, this is covered by the SDD Agreement.

3. Everyone would have to take their meal relief before going out on delivery.

Yep, still more bullshit. The SDD Agreement makes an exception for Saturdays, so that meal reliefs can actually be scheduled at the end of your shift on Saturdays.

4. We won't be getting out any earlier, because we will still have to wait for the missort van.

Rubbish. Under the SDD Agreement, we aren't obliged to wait for the last missort run on Saturdays. Plus, we can arrange the missort run to be earlier, anyway. What about using delivery drivers as sweepers for the late missorts?

5. Members would lose £400 flexibility payment, because we wouldn't be 'flexible' on Saturdays.

The biggest dollop of crap yet. The Saturdays issue is separate from the 'flexibility' Phase 2 local agreement. Implementing the Saturdays bit of the agreement does not undermine other parts of it. Signing up to a local 'flexibility' agreement is a different thing entirely.

These myths and lies are not the only obstacles RM has cooked up, either.

Others include trying to put conditions on going back to shorter, earlier Saturdays, such as:

1. The CWU has to sign up to guaranteeing that there will be no 'cut-offs' on Saturdays ever again.

Not on your life. This is rubbish. We can and should organise the workload to avoid late mails, and plan duties that work. But no-one should be signing away people's right not to have to work overtime.

2. If we go back to 5am and it doesn't work, because we have USO failures, then that will be it, finished and done with, and we'll have to go back to 6am or whenever.

If there are problems, then sort them out. Don't let managers use them as an excuse to go back to where they wanted you in the first place.

3. There will be no work to do, as the mail won't arrive till later under the new dispatch workplan at the Mail Centre.

Then the dispatch times need to be earlier. If more van runs are need, then so be it. If the Mail Centre needs to change some duties or how they work to get your mail to you earlier, then why shouldn't they?

What's the score at your office? Have you gone back to where you were? Are you going to?

I'd like to know. Success stories as welcome as disappointments.


Here's our local agreement, signed up to lat Friday:

Local Agreement on Saturday Attendances: Huddersfield D.O.

The National Agreement on Pay & Modernisation states that:

“Saturday start times and the overall length of attendance on a Saturday will remain as before unless agreed otherwise locally.â€