Sky Man Goes Undercover At Royal Mail

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[Big Daz]

11:04am UK, Friday November 06, 2009

Sky News Reporter
My first shift is at one of the biggest distribution depots in London. It's a dirty, noisy factory where more than a hundred staff are sorting, organising, filing and packing tens of thousands of items of mail to be delivered the next day.

Royal Mail

Recent strikes have put stretched services at Royal Mail under extra pressure

There's no induction, no training and no health and safety brief.

I'm told to empty mail bags and sort the items into 'large' and 'small'. A dozen bags later and the manager yells at me for doing it wrong.

He snatches a parcel out of my hand and asks me the difference between 'flat' and 'packet'. I tell him I don't know because I haven't had any training. He sarcastically replies he's going to send me to Oxford University to be trained.

Most of the letters here are several days late. A large number have post stamps from two weeks ago - the backlog from the last strike. I mention this to a manager and he tells me he found one letter that was six weeks late.

It will take exceptional efforts to rebuild trust.

Dave Ward of the CWU on a halt to pre-Christmas strikes

Two colleagues and I are given two trolleys and three mail bags to deliver. Bags are supposed to be weighed before they are taken out.

The weight limit is 16kg. My bag is 17.4kg. The trolley is so overloaded both the wheels buckle under the weight.

Once we get to our round it's clear the letters haven't been correctly sorted.

It takes us six hours to deliver letters to three roads. I slice the top off my finger in a spring-loaded letter-box, the trolley falls over with the weight and we mistakenly deliver letters to the wrong addresses.

There is no rest break and nowhere to use the lavatory. One of my colleagues has no option but to go behind a bush.

It's exhausting, frustrating work, all for the minimum wage of £5.80 per hour. I won't ever complain when my mail is delivered late again.

[DGP1]

The jobs never as easy as people think and what makes this worse is it was a London job so he should have finished it in 2 hours

[concerned]

i was on LBC radio the other week voicing my support for postal staff. They asked me what did i think about 30,000 extra staff and should they cross the picket line. I replied yes they should....because i hope that some of them turn out to be undercover journalists who are wanting to do proper journalism and show the public what really goes on. Thank god my wish was answered.... even if it was just a little bit!!

[pinstripe]

Just wait till this Sky Man's boss finds out. Don't think he'll be too happy. Imagine, telling it as it is. Tut tut tut.

[stokes11eg]

Thanks skyman for telling it like it is--especially the treatment of staff, we've had to put up with this for years!
and thanks for mentioning your sliced finger--this happens on a daily basis in one way or another, from cutting open mail bags, to deep and painful paper cuts. Now, try doing it for a few weeks, and you will see why we are fed up!!!

[opgpat]

It takes us six hours to deliver letters to three roads.

I slice the top off my finger in a spring-loaded letter-box, the trolley falls over with the weight and we mistakenly deliver letters to the wrong addresses.

There is no rest break and nowhere to use the lavatory. One of my colleagues has no option but to go behind a bush.

lol welcome to the job.
Now you see what we are on about, one guy usually does the ammount you had between you in 4hrs. 1 guy. And they want us to do more.

[baldrick]

11:04am UK, Friday November 06, 2009

Two colleagues and I are given two trolleys and three mail bags to deliver. Bags are supposed to be weighed before they are taken out.

The weight limit is 16kg. My bag is 17.4kg. The trolley is so overloaded both the wheels buckle under the weight.

Once we get to our round it's clear the letters haven't been correctly sorted.

It takes us six hours to deliver letters to three roads. I slice the top off my finger in a spring-loaded letter-box, the trolley falls over with the weight and we mistakenly deliver letters to the wrong addresses.

There is no rest break and nowhere to use the lavatory. One of my colleagues has no option but to go behind a bush.

It's exhausting, frustrating work, all for the minimum wage of £5.80 per hour. I won't ever complain when my mail is delivered late again.

Welcome to the world of the underworked and overpaid RM postie
- and it took three of you 6 hours to deliver three bags to three roads?

[Stormproof]

oooooo there is a comments section, very tempting

[Barry Trotter]

I've left comments sevral times on sky news stories and they never seem to get put on by the mods. They arent bad comments,well ok, maybe calling hilary clinton a 'c*nting boot' wasnt very nice but on other stories,royal mail stories I've been sensible but still havent had my comments put up.

[cyclemech1]

[/quote]Welcome to the world of the underworked and overpaid RM postie
- and it took three of you 6 hours to deliver three bags to three roads?[/quote]

Maybe it was the A1, A4 and A10!!

[mak403]

Welcome to the world of the underworked and overpaid RM postie
- and it took three of you 6 hours to deliver three bags to three roads?[/quote]

Maybe it was the A1, A4 and A10!! [/quote]
lmfao nice 1 mate

[mailsort6]

Well done to this reporter . Now these reporters and journalists are starting to understand why we went out on strike, we are trying to make the business more efficent and effective not destory it.

[ExSG]

If the new interim agreement starts to unravel it will be interesting how Sky would report that.

[tam mcg]

this is just a normal day in any office.this is not modernisation this is victorianisation :cfo :mfo :lfo