Chaos hits Royal Mail deliveries

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news ... ?ID=365566

THERE are fears Cambridge's Christmas post could arrive late after a cost-cutting exercise caused chaos in Royal Mail's main delivery office.

Postmen at the Henley Road sorting office say they have been swamped by mail since bosses cut a swathe of deliveries from the city's postal round in a drive to save money.

It has left the city's posties with new, longer rounds, leaving them struggling to cope with a backlog of undelivered mail - despite drafting in extra help on postal rounds from managers and other regional offices.

A spokesman for the Cambridge branch of the Communication Workers' Union said: "With Christmas approaching, we have real concerns over whether the service will hold up.

"With a rise in sick days taken and the extra workload from the new changes, it's a double whammy. Our fear is service will be affected in the run-up to our busiest period."

While Royal Mail bosses claim the "teething problems" from the new rounds will be solved this week, other sources from the Cambridge main office say the problem is getting worse.

One postman, who did not want to be named, said: "The whole office is choked up with mail. Managers are saying the situation will sort itself out, but it's just getting worse.

"We're now entering a period of pressure as we deliver catalogues for Christmas, which is sometimes as busy as Christmas itself. If we don't sort it out now, we could be in trouble when the rush arrives.

"The changes mean we're spending longer sorting the post and even longer delivering it as we're doing new, unfamiliar rounds. It's not fair on the public as we're leaving behind mail that should be delivered that day."

The problems at the Henley Road office, which delivers around 100,000 items a day, have left a backlog of up to 77,000 letters and parcels, according to sources at the city depot.

It follows the introduction of new rounds designed to make the service more efficient and protect jobs.

However, a Royal Mail spokesman disputed the claim, saying the backlog stood at fewer than 50,000 items, adding they were confident the situation would not affect the Christmas post.

The spokesman said: "Some customers may have experienced some small disruption while our postmen and women get used to the new rounds. We would like to apologise and reassure customers that we are continuing to monitor deliveries. Backlogs equate to less than half a day's average volumes and will be cleared by today."

[fatherchristmas]

good luck were 10weeks in and it aint no better, management are now trying to conduct code people if they dont complete Watford cwu are dealing with it emergency meeting sunday. :cfo

[Martin Walsh]

another office who went into a peagsus revison without a national agreement. What have they gained ? Headquaters quite rightly gets a lot of blame on this site but Branch`s carry policies at conference and its no good unamiously supporting no peagsus revisons will be agreed unless there is a national agreement if branch`s dont hold the line back in their localities.

Fact is that branch`s and reps believed that they could get the call rates they wanted and the walking speeds they wanted and thought they would gain rather then lose hours. However what do Royal Mail do they reduce the planning values for walking down paths , or posting through letter boxes, and for flats (streets in the sky ) and lose hours and create problems for themselves.

The fact before someone says it that offices have been bullied into it , thats simply not true. For every office which may have been force into a peagsus revison there are loads where either the branch or area rep believe they were clever then the machine and a lot of those have been stung.

Their actions now mean there is little chance of a national agreement on Peagsus as why would Royal Mail need one if offices are agreeing to revisons without one.

[rockytony67]

All the talk at the moment is that they are going to try to bring it into London offices early next year. I've started stocking up on the the tins off soup

[DGP1]

We've not agreed to Pegasus but are having it forced on us, everything has been done by management at the moment and all we've done is put in disagreements about everything they want but I think the main problem in my office is the DOM who has managed to unite almost everyone against him and any RM plan (whether it's feasible or not ).

Top quality managment as I told the senior managers today (how do you do sarcasm )

[Martin Walsh]

Rocktony your right they do want to introduce peagsus in London next year. However all London Branch`s have carried the following motion at the Divisional committee meeting

That no agreement be given to mapping verificiaton or peagsus revison unless their is a National Or a London Dvisional Agreement, Any attempt by management to introudce a peagsus revision in any London delivery office without agreement will reuslit in a London wide industrial action ballot.

Management know we mean it to so should be intresting few weeks !

[dvbuk55]

We had Pegasus instituted months ago and now we've had park and loop instituted and the unit and area rep have both been in agreement. In addition to that we are now using PDAs, so in this office at least it doesn't seem to matter if there is National Agreement or not it's coming in whether we like it or not.
I have said many times before it isn't a question of consultation, more a fait accompli by default. If Branches are aware of what HQ are about they are certainly not communicating that to the membership.

The park and loop has proved to be problematic and the latest is that the management are open to suggestions as to how it can be made to work as it is apparently in OUR best interests. As far as I can tell there has been nothing in the pay and modernisation agreement that has been anything like in our best interest.

[Big Daz]

Rocktony your right they do want to introduce peagsus in London next year. However all London Branch`s have carried the following motion at the Divisional committee meeting

That no agreement be given to mapping verificiaton or peagsus revison unless their is a National Or a London Dvisional Agreement, Any attempt by management to introudce a peagsus revision in any London delivery office without agreement will reuslit in a London wide industrial action ballot.

Management know we mean it to so should be intresting few weeks !

Divisional Aggrement eh?

There you go another area willing to do pegasus if RM will come to a aggrement with them over the settings used by pegasus. If individual areas can get reasonable aggrements then to me it puts pressure on RM to have a national aggrement

Im assuming Cambridge voted there revision in as their aggrement contains a vote of CWU mbrs as part of the agreed revision process.

Pegasus was voted in in my D.O as my area shares the same aggrement with CB postcode area (Aggrement pre dates conference policy which did not say withdraw from any aggrements already in existence as far as I know) Thursday is day 4 of pegasus in my office and myself and the DOM are already discussing changes to the initial plans. We have a 4 week review and 12 week review built into the revision.

[Martin Walsh]

I disagree the fact is senior managment are openly saying they dont need a national agreeement as offices around the country are agreeing to pegasus without the string associated with a national agreement.

In London we would perfer a national agreement but know that is now unlikely as the pressure is off Royal Mail. Whereas in London the pressure is on them as no pegasus revisions have been introduced and they know that without a divisonal agreement we will have a major flashpoint in London.

Sometimes it a judgement call when to do the deal or not and as London is now the only divisional committee in the union not to have agreed a pegasus revision we now believe it to be a time to make a stand and say that the only way mapping verification and thus geo route will be introduced in London is with a divisional agreement with safeguards about call rates , replinsment time , walking speeds and the outputs are negotiable. Whats the problem with that surely unity is strength.

[Big Daz]

Call rates can vary from delivery to delivery

My patch has a 88% call rate but some deliveries could be going over that figure whilst some go under.

Again we have 1.7 % call rate for knocking on doors but this figure could vary from delivery to delivery.

However our area phase 3 aggement states that were a pegasus revision has been implemented then scope for outdoor savings are limited.

Take RM claims about mail volumes dropping its quite feasible that individual ofices have a traffic increase even though the national figure is down.

Everywhere is different so how do we encompass that in a national aggrement?

One size fits all is no good but at the same time its important to have minium standards and safeguards.

[F0zziebear]

I gaurantee RoyalMail senior management will allow another strike to happen. The reason is that with the recession they will get the PR machine going and say you went out over pay. There will be little/no sympathy in the main stream press for this. The Brown government may back the unions but very uinlikely as they seem to think (Mandelson) that privatisation is the only way forward. This reminds me of the situation a few years ago. After the 2003 strike Crozier said that he will try and take as much cost out of non-ops as possibble. Well that cash-cow has now been emptied. Property sold off thousands of non-ops management gone. It's now time for another culling of operational staff.

Frontline operational managers and even senior operational managers have a choice. Either accept this is the way forward and keep lashing costs, or resign. Some have and others stay. Those who stay usually cannot afford to leave (age, quality etc.) and they will do whatever they need to do to get these things in. Why they are doing this durnig autumn pressure I will never know. This has always caused a disaster in the past, and they don't seem to have learn't. Crozier, if you are listening you have been there long enough now to know this, so no excuses this time.