Update

[walthmstowman]

So I guess you're lucky enough to get more money for doing the same job just because you happen to live in London

How is that lucky - to get extra pay for being in London for doing the same job?. Have you not seen the difference in the cost of living between London and the vast majority of the country.

You'd pay off your mortgage far quicker in other areas of the country for doing the same job than you would in London / the South East.

In the South East you will probably have to work an extra 10 years+ as a Postie to get your mortgage paid off.


When I look at prices of houses across vast areas of the UK I am amazed by how cheap they are. £100,000 cheaper compared to where I live for the same amount of bedrooms. I need to move to another town - I'd be mortgage free by transferring.

Exactly . I live in London and although we earn more money it goes nowhere in London . The prices here for everything is sky high . It's always been more expensive to live in London .That's why inner London weighting came about .

[wacko74]

Hopefully posties will now finally realise that the union are in no way acting in the best interests of it's members.

All the union is interested in is keeping it's membership as high as possible so it can keep troughing on all the unearned income from membership subs, the union either don't care or don't understand about the long term viability of the business that employs those sub paying members.

Officially the 6 day letters USO isn't even on the agenda yet, but you can guarantee once it does come up for debate the union will be screaming blue murder about retaining it and the ''service'' it provides, even though any idiot can see it's now hugely uneconomical and inefficient.

Again all the union are interested in is keeping as many jobs as possible to preserve the income from membership subs, even though vast numbers of posties would welcome the opportunity to take VR in the event of any downsizing of the workforce due to a reduction in the USO

I disagree they have kept terms and conditions really good,you just have to look at the gig economy parcel companies who have no union.

There needs to be a happy medium between gig economy slave labour T&C's and the highly inefficient socialist utopia that the CWU seem to think RM can operate by.

[richietns]

Hopefully posties will now finally realise that the union are in no way acting in the best interests of it's members.

All the union is interested in is keeping it's membership as high as possible so it can keep troughing on all the unearned income from membership subs, the union either don't care or don't understand about the long term viability of the business that employs those sub paying members.

Officially the 6 day letters USO isn't even on the agenda yet, but you can guarantee once it does come up for debate the union will be screaming blue murder about retaining it and the ''service'' it provides, even though any idiot can see it's now hugely uneconomical and inefficient.

Again all the union are interested in is keeping as many jobs as possible to preserve the income from membership subs, even though vast numbers of posties would welcome the opportunity to take VR in the event of any downsizing of the workforce due to a reduction in the USO

I disagree they have kept terms and conditions really good,you just have to look at the gig economy parcel companies who have no union.

There needs to be a happy medium between gig economy slave labour T&C's and the highly inefficient socialist utopia that the CWU seem to think RM can operate by.

Martin Walsh just said this morning we are going to have to concede to some of the demands just not the crazy ones like no finishing times a happy medium seems to be what everyone wants but Simon.

[Pidleypoo]

Pidleypoo yes I know what we want and don’t want. We are certainly not going to agree no finishing times and Royal Mail’s annualised and flexi hours approach.

However in rejecting what they want we all have to recognise that traffic is not the same 52 weeks per year. Remember if you have the same amount of hours when traffic is lower as you do when it is higher your productivity drops and therefore lasping / absorption increases to plug that productivity drop.

Therefore if we don’t want annualised hours / no finishing times or banking then we have address the fundamental issue which is if you have 30 walks when traffic is high , do you need 30 walks in the summer when traffic is less ?

Remember Royal Mail are totally obsessed with PDA OA data they have annualised the summer PDA OA with the winter and that is why they have come up with their unacceptable plan.

However in making sure we defeat their annualised hours plan we have to also find a solution to the fact that traffic drops in the summer and therefore how do we plug the drop in productivity without unacceptable absorption levels.

I’m not against annualised hours done correctly at fixed times of the year and could actually be beneficial to us in the summer months.

Compulsory banking of hours is a massive no but in certain circumstances, if you want to “ bank” your hours for extra leave then if it’s an individuals choice.

My issues are that commit to deliver coupled with compulsory baking of hours is just open to such abuse.

I have a chronic illness , I have to plan my day to manage it correctly and if these changes come in , I cant manage it.

[roman]

The union need to get as many of those proposals that Royal Mail want dropped. Personally I don’t think they will.They’ll be a fudge on sick pay slightly more in our favour and the finish til you drop proposal will not happen.The annualised hours will cover the busy times and if you go over you can book it or cut off still.

[Woody Guthrie]

Hopefully posties will now finally realise that the union are in no way acting in the best interests of it's members.

All the union is interested in is keeping it's membership as high as possible

Both things I would imagine are pretty much inseparable.

I don't delude myself that the union is trying to protect my terms and conditions out of some kind of mission for the greater good of the working classes.

They do it primarily out of a sense of self survival, no members means no union.

I'm happy with that, survival is a much better focus than idealism.

[denhamhoop]

Pidleypoo yes I know what we want and don’t want. We are certainly not going to agree no finishing times and Royal Mail’s annualised and flexi hours approach.

However in rejecting what they want we all have to recognise that traffic is not the same 52 weeks per year. Remember if you have the same amount of hours when traffic is lower as you do when it is higher your productivity drops and therefore lasping / absorption increases to plug that productivity drop.

Therefore if we don’t want annualised hours / no finishing times or banking then we have address the fundamental issue which is if you have 30 walks when traffic is high , do you need 30 walks in the summer when traffic is less ?

Remember Royal Mail are totally obsessed with PDA OA data they have annualised the summer PDA OA with the winter and that is why they have come up with their unacceptable plan.

However in making sure we defeat their annualised hours plan we have to also find a solution to the fact that traffic drops in the summer and therefore how do we plug the drop in productivity without unacceptable absorption levels.

Yes there is less work sometimes of the year than others but surely this is more than made up for by the fact across Royal Mail there are job vacancies and shortfalls everywhere as basically no FT staff have been employed in over 10 years so when people leave their jobs are replaced by PT staff yet are expected to do the same amount of work as those previously employed in that role. Personally thought it was Royal Mail's management's job to improve productivity and efficiency not actually the CWU's as in theory you are meant to work on our behalf not Royal Mails or the Publics

[denhamhoop]

However in rejecting what they want we all have to recognise that traffic is not the same 52 weeks per year. Remember if you have the same amount of hours when traffic is lower as you do when it is higher your productivity drops and therefore lasping / absorption increases to plug that productivity drop.

That's understandable and in many offices even though it's unpopular it can still be workable

What really doesn't make sense to anybody is the idea of annualised hours whereby the company changes a postie's hours in winter so that they are forced to work 42 hours for just 37 hours pay. That, on top of later starts and finishes is a big red flag for many of us. And now that they can monitor us via our PDAs and siso. Its really not something I'm prepared to agree to.

Sunday working I might be prepared to accept on the same terms as what was offered to management. At least another 5.5% pay increase and a £1k bonus

Throw in the issue of Annual Leave especially as Royal Mail looks to have you book your Leave 18 months in advance how the hell are you supposed to do that if you don't know exactly how many hours you will need for a weeks leave . The other thing that grinds my gears is all talks are basically about what is going to happen and change on walks well some of us work in Processing where people are already working 5 out of 6 Sundays and would snap your hand off for 1 in 4 but as usual we are secondary in the CWU's thoughts as for SISO well welcome to the modern workplace where 37 hours means 37 hours actually means 37 hours

[timbo1234]

Hopefully posties will now finally realise that the union are in no way acting in the best interests of it's members.

All the union is interested in is keeping it's membership as high as possible so it can keep troughing on all the unearned income from membership subs, the union either don't care or don't understand about the long term viability of the business that employs those sub paying members.

Officially the 6 day letters USO isn't even on the agenda yet, but you can guarantee once it does come up for debate the union will be screaming blue murder about retaining it and the ''service'' it provides, even though any idiot can see it's now hugely uneconomical and inefficient.

Again all the union are interested in is keeping as many jobs as possible to preserve the income from membership subs, even though vast numbers of posties would welcome the opportunity to take VR in the event of any downsizing of the workforce due to a reduction in the USO

Quite right. Unions are an absolute abomination. They have plagued the upper classes for years. Its time they were given a damn good thrashing wot!! Anyway got to go I've got some peasant boys to put up my chimney. Tug your forelock on your way out there's a good fellow.

[timbo1234]

Hopefully posties will now finally realise that the union are in no way acting in the best interests of it's members.

All the union is interested in is keeping it's membership as high as possible so it can keep troughing on all the unearned income from membership subs, the union either don't care or don't understand about the long term viability of the business that employs those sub paying members.

Officially the 6 day letters USO isn't even on the agenda yet, but you can guarantee once it does come up for debate the union will be screaming blue murder about retaining it and the ''service'' it provides, even though any idiot can see it's now hugely uneconomical and inefficient.

Again all the union are interested in is keeping as many jobs as possible to preserve the income from membership subs, even though vast numbers of posties would welcome the opportunity to take VR in the event of any downsizing of the workforce due to a reduction in the USO

Quite right. Unions are an absolute abomination. They have plagued the upper classes for years. Its time they were given a damn good thrashing wot!! Anyway got to go I've got some peasant boys to put up my chimney. Tug your forelock on your way out there's a good fellow.

[Woody Guthrie]

Will we have a quiz?
What would have been better this year without a union?
Don't go for the obvious thing about not losing strike money or subs, that's a personal choice and nobody forced you.

If we had no union how would your year have been better?

Would Simon have taken us on a company holiday to Barbados?

Genuine question....

[Murdoch]

Will we have a quiz?
What would have been better this year without a union?
Don't go for the obvious thing about not losing strike money or subs, that's a personal choice and nobody forced you.

If we had no union how would your year have been better?

Would Simon have taken us on a company holiday to Barbados?

Genuine question....

The changes would have happened by now, and I'd have resigned

Edit: on a serious note, any Union is better than no Union. The data on that is pretty clear. Generally speaking, wages are suppressed in non-unionised workforces, and they do not get much of a share in the increases of productivity, it all goes to profits and shareholders.

[Surreypostie]

Will we have a quiz?
What would have been better this year without a union?
Don't go for the obvious thing about not losing strike money or subs, that's a personal choice and nobody forced you.

If we had no union how would your year have been better?

Would Simon have taken us on a company holiday to Barbados?

Genuine question....

I'd actually decline the holiday if Simon was going. Can't imagine him being lots of fun.

[mjd24]

However in rejecting what they want we all have to recognise that traffic is not the same 52 weeks per year. Remember if you have the same amount of hours when traffic is lower as you do when it is higher your productivity drops and therefore lasping / absorption increases to plug that productivity drop.

That's understandable and in many offices even though it's unpopular it can still be workable

What really doesn't make sense to anybody is the idea of annualised hours whereby the company changes a postie's hours in winter so that they are forced to work 42 hours for just 37 hours pay. That, on top of later starts and finishes is a big red flag for many of us. And now that they can monitor us via our PDAs and siso. Its really not something I'm prepared to agree to.

Sunday working I might be prepared to accept on the same terms as what was offered to management. At least another 5.5% pay increase and a £1k bonus

Throw in the issue of Annual Leave especially as Royal Mail looks to have you book your Leave 18 months in advance how the hell are you supposed to do that if you don't know exactly how many hours you will need for a weeks leave . The other thing that grinds my gears is all talks are basically about what is going to happen and change on walks well some of us work in Processing where people are already working 5 out of 6 Sundays and would snap your hand off for 1 in 4 but as usual we are secondary in the CWU's thoughts as for SISO well welcome to the modern workplace where 37 hours means 37 hours actually means 37 hours

Come and do 37 on delivery boy.

[Woody Guthrie]

The other thing that grinds my gears is all talks are basically about what is going to happen and change on walks well some of us work in Processing

That's because the major attacks are as usual on delivery.
You're not going to be told to walk the streets in the pissing rain and snow until all the work is done no matter how long that takes or what time of night it is.
You'll get to scan out at your finish time.