Royal Mail stops Saturday post deliveries across UK due to coronavirus

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 28 Apr 2020, 16:50

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A CWU spokesman said: "We will be seeking urgent discussions with the government on this issue. The reduction of the Universal Service Obligation was a key factor in our live national strike ballot.

"The last thing we want to do is call strike action at this point but we will not sit back and see our members' jobs put at threat and the service to the public worsened."

The CWU called in March for households' deliveries to be cut to three days a week due to Covid-19.

A union spokesman insisted the service would have still run six days a week under that plan - but deliveries would have happened on alternate days, rather than being dropped on Saturday.

The CWU said it has since dropped that request after further arrangements were put in place.

It's thought managers were told the move had been confirmed on Tuesday afternoon.

In a video for staff, Nick Landon, Royal Mail's chief customer officer, said posties have been under "incredible pressure" for a month and "need some relief".

"We want to lessen the load for deliveries across that weekend, making us focus on the parcels to clear all of that traffic," he said.

The video said there will be some “temporary changes” to delivery duties from May 11. Staff will be given more information shortly.

A statement posted on Royal Mail's website said: "Our postmen and postwomen are working very hard across the UK in challenging conditions.

"As we said at the start of the coronavirus crisis, there will be some disruption to services.

"Relevant factors include high levels of coronavirus-related absences and necessary social distancing measures.

"We understand the importance of the postal service in keeping the UK connected at this time.

"We have also listened to our hard-working colleagues who have asked us to ease the additional burden on them if possible. As a result, we are making some temporary changes to postal services.

"Customers should continue to post both letters and parcels as usual on Saturday. We will continue our Saturday collections from businesses, post offices and post boxes as normal."

Royal Mail managing director for regulation Shane O’Riordain added: "We have been in dialogue with the Government and Ofcom since the beginning of this crisis.

"We will keep the temporary change in Saturday postal arrangements under review."

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https://www.royalmail.com/d8/saturday-services" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Services delivered on a Saturday
We will temporarily no longer deliver letters on a Saturday from 2 May. Letters will be delivered as normal from Monday to Friday. We will continue to deliver the following account and non-account services as normal from Monday to Saturday across the country:

Services now delivered on a Saturday
1st Class Parcels
1st Class Signed For Parcels, Large Letters and Letters
2nd Class Parcels
2nd Class Signed For Parcels, Large Letters and Letters
Royal Mail 24 Parcels and Large Letters
Royal Mail Tracked 24 & 48 Parcels and Tracked Letterboxable formats
Royal Mail Tracked Returns
Special Delivery Guaranteed by 9am* (all formats)
Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1pm* (all formats)
International import tracked services (all formats)

* We currently have some temporary changes to the timings of our guarantees on Special Delivery Guaranteed services in force (9am and 1pm).

pex · Post by **pex** » 28 Apr 2020, 18:35

Good news on the one hand, but if Monday is like this Monday was it is not worth it.
We had delivery loads similar to Xmas this week but without the large parcels being done by a separate driver.
On the other hand I would be happy the clear as many parcels as the mail centre could get to us for Saturday as
it would help spread the load out. we seem to go from famine to feast with parcels/packets.

meercat · Post by **meercat** » 28 Apr 2020, 19:48

Anyone expecting to see letters delivered on Saturdays ever again? This could easily become a 'permanent necessary change' after the Tories redraft the USO.

This could be one way towards the 35hr working week I guess.

Celtic warrior · Post by **Celtic warrior** » 28 Apr 2020, 20:26

meercat wrote:Anyone expecting to see letters delivered on Saturdays ever again? This could easily become a 'permanent necessary change' after the Tories redraft the USO.

This could be one way towards the 35hr working week I guess.

Not a way to a shorter working week but a definite way to a loss of up to 20,000 jobs.

pex · Post by **pex** » 29 Apr 2020, 14:47

I wonder how this will work in DOs who work 6 days for 5 weeks and then have a rest week on the 6th week?.

twoloops · Post by **twoloops** » 10 May 2020, 09:00

Mixed bag in our office yesterday some walks done & dusted by half ten, some struggled to deliver even half the walk, if RM are to continue with this packets only Saturday I believe they need to look at the PDA data & try & even up the workload?

Post by **SpacePhoenix** » 10 May 2020, 10:11

twoloops wrote:Mixed bag in our office yesterday some walks done & dusted by half ten, some struggled to deliver even half the walk, if RM are to continue with this packets only Saturday I believe they need to look at the PDA data & try & even up the workload?

More likely they'll be looking at the data and seeing how many hours they can take out on a Saturday

twoloops · Post by **twoloops** » 24 Jun 2020, 15:13

Mentioned today with the backlog of packets it returns on Saturday 4th July with a few tweaks, anyone heard anything?