Postal workers are forced to speed-walk, says union

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 62885.html

New software that plans routes sets impossible delivery targets, say critics

By Jerome Taylor
Friday, 12 December 2008

The tardy postal delivery is a source of constant irritation for many a family in Britain, and postal workers are all too often the first to suffer a sharp rebuke from people about the efficiency of their service. But perhaps we should not be too quick to accuse our letter deliverers of laziness.

The postal union says its workers are being "bullied" into walking at unsustainable speeds to finish their rounds more quickly and cut costs for the Royal Mail. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) accused bosses at Royal Mail of pressuring employees to walk at unrealistic average speeds, which ultimately result in some post being delivered late or, worse, the following day.

The dispute centres around a fancy new piece of Canadian software which automatically calculates delivery walks and is being rolled out by Royal Mail bosses. It will work out how much workers should be expected to deliver during each round. Each postal walk is meant to last three and a half hours but if the calculations are wrong, they can take much longer. The "Pegasus Geo Route" software system holds detailed information on more than 27 million addresses in the UK and helps automate the sorting of 80 million items of mail every night, a figure which jumps to 120 million over Christmas. To calculate how much post can be delivered during each round, a postal worker has to enter an average speed for the round. Official guidelines designate the average speed should be 2.1 miles per hour but workers say they are often expected to key double that amount into the software system.

The Royal Mail denied forcing workers to walk faster than 2.1mph and said the company does not tolerate bullying of any kind. But the dispute has thrown a fascinating light on how the delivery of our post is increasingly left up to computer systems, and that pressure to cut costs could lead to a reduction in the quality of service.

Bob Gibson, national official for the CWU, said: "Royal Mail is using this system to meet financial savings without considering the physical realities of delivery rounds. This is putting pressure on delivery workers and leading to bullying and harassment."

Mr Gibson said bosses were pushing ahead with the system without consulting workers. "We're getting high volumes of complaints and seeing deterioration in industrial relations and service standards."

One area hit particularly hard is Watford, where Pegasus was brought in this year to redraw and reduce the number of delivery routes. After the new calculations, 17 workers had their short-term contracts terminated and customers complained that thousands of letters remained undelivered. The local Labour MP, Claire Ward, called the new delivery system a "mess" after managers and administration staff had to be drafted in to sort the undelivered letters.

Postal workers also say Pegasus fails to take into account the amount of extra time often needed for recorded and special deliveries which often require a signature from the addressee.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "Royal Mail would never ask or require postmen and women to do anything they are not capable of performing. It is nonsense to suggest that we require anyone to deliver the mail at an average walking speed of more than four miles an hour."

A postman's story: 'We're being bullied'

"Steve" (not his real name) has been a postman in south London for 12 years...

"Delivery is meant to take three-and-a-half hours but my average is at best four-and-a-half, usually five. Management say they only want us to walk at 2.1mph but that's a joke. At that pace, I'd never get things done. One bloke is getting on a bit. Last week, a manager went on the walk with him to make sure he wasn't being deliberately slow. It's this sort of thing that makes us feel like we're getting bullied."

[TrueBlueTerrier]

This is a picture from the above article -

I hope those packets are his own and he has not been sent out with them because both are too big and not very secure.

[k979aaa]

x

This is a picture from the above article -

I hope those packets are his own and he has not been sent out with them because both are too big and not very secure.

Journalistic licence IE (i am doing the story not my back in). And good on him if only we had the same choice!.

[fatherchristmas]

managed to get rid of dom at watford unlucky hemel hempsted, just pigasus to go!!

[TrueBlueTerrier]

managed to get rid of dom at watford unlucky hemel hempsted, just pigasus to go!!

I wonder if the local MP had a hand in that as they seemed pretty well involved according to press reports.