The Capitals Punishment By Royal Mail

[POSTMAN]

Background

Royal Mail‟s decision to sell Rathbone Place, sell Nine Elms and to close East London Mail Centre should have surprised nobody.
Their review into London Mail Centres has been a sham from the start. This had nothing to do with improving customer service, increasing productivity or protecting Royal Mail workers from compulsory redundancies.
This review has always been about raising as much cash as possible, selling Rathbone Place which is not even a Mail Centre should therefore have never been included in the review in the first place.
Rathbone Place lies just off Oxford Street and is therefore one of Royal Mail‟s most saleable buildings.
The only way that Royal Mail could sell Rathbone Place is if it kept the Mount Pleasant site open in order to accommodate W1, WC and the Distribution function when Rathbone closes.
Royal Mail‟s decision to keep the Mount open is a decision which the Union supports but it just demonstrates the hypocrisy of Royal Mail when it comes to their so called Mail Centre review.
On the one hand Royal Mail say that they want to introduce World Class Mail which is based on new purpose made buildings with either an L shaped or horseshoe layout.
Yet Royal Mail have chosen to keep the Mount Pleasant site open. This means it will be the only Mail Centre in London, the most influential financial district in Europe and the UK‟s capital city.
Mount Pleasant is one of the oldest Mail Centres in the UK and its floor space is hampered by large pillars and is the most costly operation in terms of maintenance costs.
When you weigh up Royal Mail‟s decision you can only conclude that the decision to retain the Mount is purely and simply an act of stripping assets for short term gain.
In addition, Royal Mail`s plan to sell Nine Elms is once again another exercise in asset stripping. South London currently has one of the biggest outward mails operations together with the biggest inward mail`s volume in the UK. The decision to sell the site will ultimately mean that quality of service will nose dive.
Royal Mail`s decision to close East London Mail centre makes no financial sense as the lease does not expire until 2022, so either way, Royal Mail will have to pay the ongoing costs of the site in Twelvetrees Lane. East London has some of the biggest growth in business and growth in delivery points of any area in Europe. In addition, one of the legacies of the 2012 Olympics will be some 26000 new delivery points. East London Mail Centre was opened in 2000 when the old Whitechapel site could no longer cope with the expanding growth in East London. Yet Royal Mail`s decision would mean moving all that work along the A12 or A127, these routes between London and Romford are some of the most congested in the country. The CWU fail to see how the closure of the East London Mail Centre will contribute in any way to Royal Mail`s coffers. Nor do these cuts provide any improvement in quality of service.

Royal Mail’s plans ignore Quality of Service

Royal Mail‟s decision to close Nine Elms and East London at a time when Mail Centres outside London are not clearing is undoubtedly going to have a damaging effect on Quality of Service.

On the Outward since 2009 Greenford has failed on 52 occasions, Croydon on 45, Jubilee on 67 and Romford on 86 occasions.
This is in addition to the fact that London Mail Centres have failed as well, in East London on 93 occasions, Mount on 104 occasions and South London on 119 occasions.
Equally, on the Inward, Croydon has failed on 12 days, Jubilee on 46 days, Romford on 36 days and Greenford on 18 days.
The London Mail Centres have failed on the inward in East London on 130 days, South London on 109 times and the Mount on 92 days.
Given these facts and couple it with managements obsession with closing down the operation in London, it will mean that the majority of the outward will have to travel further to the Outward Mail Centres outside London during the rush hour traffic – a move that will further hamper clearances.
In addition, London has some of the biggest Inward operations within the UK. Royal Mail‟s plan to move London‟s work outside of London to Mail Centres which are struggling to cope now with a lot less traffic is a huge gamble on their part, especially as the inward traffic in Romford would double and that sizeable increases would be seen in Greenford, Jubilee and Croydon operations.
The CWU believe closing two Mail Centres will have a devastating effect on quality of service; the unique profile of work which London caters for will be undermined. The concern being that some companies will ultimately decide to move their business to competitors – so much for Royal Mails false commitments to expanding the business to take on the competition.
Royal Mail nationally is already having problems with their previous closure programmes, as clearly their plans did not match reality.
In the North West of England, Manchester Mail Centre is failing as a result of too many closures. It should be noted that some of the London Management team involved in the London closure programme have previously been heavily involved in the North West review – in any other industry, based on their previous failures, these people would not be allowed anywhere near any major project of this type.
In addition, we are aware that the new South Midlands Mail Centre which resulted in the closures of Coventry, Northampton and Milton Keynes is not clearing either.
How then can we have any confidence whatsoever that the closure of two of the biggest operations in the UK can be cleared by extending driving times and thereby reducing the processing windows in the outer London Mail Centres?
It is a fact that when Royal Mail closed London Mail Centres in 1990 Quality of Service nosedived and it only improved when Royal Mail introduced the Single Daily Delivery and changed the work plan.
The CWU is convinced Quality of Service will suffer in a way that would be disastrous for the 100,000 small, medium and large businesses along with the whole of the rest of the population of London.
Last year Royal Mail in London paid over £1 million in compensation for a range of quality failures. The CWU are convinced these plans are implemented, Royal Mail will have to pay out even more in compensation.

What will happen to the staff in the closing Mail Centres?

In Gerry O‟Rourke‟s letter he states that Royal Mail have an excellent track record at avoiding compulsory redundancies. However, we know that the closure of the Crewe Mail Centre has meant that the people‟s issues have still not been resolved and the work has moved to Warrington. This also happened during the closure of the Stoke Mail Centre. How can Royal Mail claim it has a great track record when many people still have either not got a job and don‟t know what is going to happen to them. Yet the work which they used to perform has now gone to the new Mail Centre. This is not acceptable.
Royal Mail signed into a National Agreement that stated; „Royal Mail and CWU confirm the overriding objective is to deliver the transformation without recourse to compulsory redundancies’.

Royal Mails plans for London, which includes the closure of two Mail Centres and the removal of the Inward Foreign from Mount Pleasant, will, in CWU‟s view, lead to compulsory redundancies.

Why does the CWU say this?

All Mail Centres in London have had VR exercises this year and all have struggled to get the levels of volunteers needed to meet the requirements of the agreed levels of voluntary redundancies.
Of course, if a Mail Centre closes, then some of the people who are employed in that Mail Centre will no doubt decide to leave on voluntary redundancy terms rather than move to a different Mail Centre.
However, when you look at Royal Mails figures they do not add up!
Currently there are;

1309 staff employed at Mount Pleasant.
116 staff employed at South London.
671 staff employed at East London.
3146 staff in total

Royal Mail states that they intend to reduce staff in London Mail Centres by 403 prior to the Mail Centre closures.
In addition, Royal Mail wants to remove the Inward Foreign Work from the Mount which will lose approximately 400 duties.
The new Mount Pleasant Mail Centre will have 1442 duties. Royal Mail has not told the CWU how they intend to staff the office and what the ratio between full time and part time staff will be. It is our conclusion, based on the fact that the new Mount Pleasant Mail Centre will be receiving all the late work from SE10, W1, City Deliveries E1 and E14, that the late shift will be mainly staffed with part time workers.
Royal mail will then offer 453 Voluntary Redundancies. In addition there will further redundancies offered as a result of the Inward Foreign work moving from the Mount Pleasant site to HWDC in Langley.
This will lead to a surplus of 848 members having to be compulsorily transferred to one of the outer London offices, Croydon, Greenford, Jubilee or Romford.
In addition, some may be transferred to Langley in Slough as a result of the Inward Foreign work moving to HWDC.
In addition, Royal Mail intends to cease ALL the Fixed Term Contracts within Delivery Units including those who have worked in the industry for more than two years. This is despite the fact that the national MTSF agreement states that anyone with longer than two years service with a Fixed Term Contract will have a permanent contract.
Based on all of this, we have no confidence whatsoever in Royal Mails intention of abiding by the National Agreement and ensuring that the overreaching object of the agreement and their plan for London is to avoid compulsory redundancies.
We fail to see how Royal Mail can decide to close two Mail Centres and remove the Inward Foreign work from the Mount Pleasant site and say that their priority is to avoid compulsory redundancies.

WAND

Royal Mail has decided to remove the International work from Mount Pleasant by Executive Action from November.
They will phase the work out over an 8 month period. Royal Mails decision to do this will mean that hundreds of jobs will be lost as well as a huge amount of overtime.
Royal Mail has broken the National Agreement on the removal of this work and the CWU will oppose it by all means necessary. Executive action is hardly a sign of a new relationship.

Rathbone Place

It is an irony that the key component of Royal Mails strategy in reviewing Mail Centres in London is in fact Rathbone Place – a Delivery Unit.
Royal Mail has clearly decided to flog off Rathbone Place to raise capital.
Whilst they have now decided, following strong representations from the union, that they will now not be putting W1 and WC deliveries into the basement in the Mount, the CWU still believe selling the site and moving to another postcode area will harm Quality of Service to both W1 and WC.

What will be the affect to Delivery Units and Distribution Hubs?

There will be a major affect on Delivery Units as a result of work being moved out of London and then moving to the MPU where the Walk Sequencing Machine is, and then onto the satellite Delivery offices. The vans which will have to transport the work will come from Greenford, Romford, Jubilee and Croydon at the height of the rush hour traffic.
This will mean that work will arrive later than now and will mean later starts for Delivery Offices, more Part Time staff which will subsequently mean reduction in Full Time Staff and will make negotiating improved attendances even more more difficult.
Again, Royal Mail‟s plans ignore the principles of the National Agreement

Network

Royal Mail`s plans were not communicated to network drivers at Nine Elms or the CIT staff. This is unforgivable. The effect on Network will be massive as it would seem that they want to move work out of London rather than to PRDC.

Other Grades

The closure of the three sites will have a big affect on all CWU grades including CIT staff, LAs, Quadrant, Romec and Motor Transport, Engineers and Delivery Staff. No involvement whatsoever has happened in regards to this plan which will threaten their jobs. This again is unacceptable.

Conclusion

The CWU believe that Royal Mail has broken the principles of the National Agreement and this Management plan is based on asset stripping and the removal of full time Mail Centre jobs in London.
In our opinion, this is a blatant act of Industrial vandalism. No other Postal organisation in the world would dream of downsizing their operation in their Capital City.
Royal Mails plans have nothing to do with modernisation, Quality of Service to the customer, productivity or the welfare of Royal Mail employees. This “review” is nothing more than an act of pure vindictiveness
The CWU is therefore totally opposed to Royal Mails plans to do away with London Postal Services, Quality to customers and Jobs.
The CWU will be launching a political and media campaign which will be aimed at highlighting the fact that Royal Mail‟s plans will severely damage Postal Services in London.
Furthermore, if Royal Mail goes ahead with the aspect of their plans that break the terms of the National Agreement, including avoiding compulsory redundancies then we will oppose their plans with all means at our disposal.
We will keep you updated of any developments.

A statement by the London Divisional Committee

29 09 2010 - Capital Destruction 5......pdf

[barbario]

Thats it than,we're in for trouble.Management will deffinately try to go ahead with these changes because its all about hitting targets so they can get their bonuses. When they leave Royl Mail and are on the golf course in years to come,do you think they will be worrying about the car crash of a company that they will have left behind.

[barbario]

One other thing. Royal Mail still intend to put W1 and WC into the Mount but on the second floor,not the basement.

[Lounge Lizard]

One other thing. Royal Mail still intend to put W1 and WC into the Mount but on the second floor,not the basement.

So what's happening with the basement when the Archives move out to Swindon ? I always found Mount Pleasant convenient for historical research with a couple of hours spare on my visits to central London, but Swindon of all places, I'll never get out there.

[barbario]

One rumour i heard is they are going to turn it into a car park. Apparently,the car park in Pheonix Place has been sold. One other possibility is that they are going to put the heaviest sorting machines down there. Personally,i believe the first to be true.

[baldrick]

It seems the CWU has agreed to the transfer of Inward Foreign mail from Mount Pleasant to HWDC by July 2011,
though they have got the start date delayed by 2 months from 1 November to 1 January, according to notices
put up by management.

[SpacePhoenix]

Just looking at where PRDC is on google maps, I wonder how long it'll be before RM tries to move PRDC outside of London (probably just outside the M25). Anyone know what % of mail that passes through PRDC has either originated from London or is destined for London?

[barbario]

I heard a rumour yesterday that w.c.and w.1. won't now be coming to the Mount for another two or three years. This is because they refused to go the
basement area. So the second floor has to be prepared for their arrival.

[postietaz]

THOUGHT THEY WANT TO SELL IT ALL OR DID I MISS SOMETHING

[TrueBlueTerrier]

THOUGHT THEY WANT TO SELL IT ALL OR DID I MISS SOMETHING

Yes you missed something - Your Caps Lock off button.