LTB 048/25 – UPDATE ON THE USO PILOTS

[ted_e_bear]

How can offices achieve a 4 day week when on a Saturday we would only deliver parcels and 1st Class Letters. I counted my amount of 1st Call Letters the last few Saturdays and there was not many manly dsa letters.

That question doesn't make sense, why wouldn't it be possible, the Saturday attendance would be parcels and 1c items as you say and I'd assume the other 3 days would be either full delivery or parcels and 1c for 2 duties, according to the examples in the downloads you can access by going through the link at the top of the post the 3 week days are 9.42 attendance so long days, the Saturday is 7 hours.

[Londonsburning]

Mail Centres (MCs) and Mail Processing Units (MPUs), must ensure full workplan compliance, product
segregation, appropriate labelling and accurate retention of deferred products at all times. Local Distribution
must also ensure that product segregation is not compromised. These disciplines ensure the correct presentation
of all products to Delivery Offices (DOs) in order to support the Optimised Delivery Model for USO pilot DOs and
protect service to our customers.

The trays of 1C and 2C will still have to go onto the same yorks as otherwise they'd take up too much room on the lorries. Think a 600 can hold a maximum of 9 yorks.

Seems like as far as it currently stands we'll sequence the mech as normal, anything released 1C or 2C will get sequenced.

Not seen any mention of 2C being sorted separately in inward MCs.

15 & 21 for a 600!

Is the 21 figure for a 17.5 tonner?

Nope, we have 7.5 tonne vehicles that can carry 21 Yorks, with approximately 200kg less weight than a 15 York truck.
Gotta watch what your putting on it, easy to go over!

Our trucks must be a lot smaller. Fairly sure you can only fit 12 into one of our 600s. Our 17.5 tonners might be able to hold 21 yorks but I don't think they're long enough. Might be down to what the yards are like in the DOs covered by our MC. Some DOs they have to unload in the street as the lorries physically can't get into the yards

Do you even work at an MC? Every 600 fits 15 Yorks, 5 rows of 3.

[SpacePhoenix]

Do you even work at an MC? Every 600 fits 15 Yorks, 5 rows of 3.

Wrong! There's a smaller variant which will only hold 12. We've got a few as the normal sized ones are too big to fit into some DO yards. Even the smaller ones are still too big to get into a couple of DO yards.

[Londonsburning]

Do you even work at an MC? Every 600 fits 15 Yorks, 5 rows of 3.

Wrong! There's a smaller variant which will only hold 12. We've got a few as the normal sized ones are too big to fit into some DO yards. Even the smaller ones are still too big to get into a couple of DO yards.

So are these smaller 600s all redskins or non liveried? Also are they new to the fleet, because I can say within my area I have never seen a 7.5 tonner that holds less than 15 Yorks.

[GRS]

If I’m understanding it correctly rurals will maintain the status quo ie: everything goes every day. Is that correct?? If so surely that can’t be right, that means customers paying the same money for an item to be delivered get a premium service if the recipient lives rurally but a delayed service if that recipient lives in a town. That’s a 2 tier service but charging the same!!

They haven't thought it through properly have they, no surprise there, apparently same for hct duties it's almost as though they don't know what to do

Makes so no sense if that is going to be the case. Rural duties which are the costliest to maintain are still going to get the same standard of service as they always have yet areas with high density of population are going to get a downgraded service for the same price.

[Londonsburning]

If I’m understanding it correctly rurals will maintain the status quo ie: everything goes every day. Is that correct?? If so surely that can’t be right, that means customers paying the same money for an item to be delivered get a premium service if the recipient lives rurally but a delayed service if that recipient lives in a town. That’s a 2 tier service but charging the same!!

They haven't thought it through properly have they, no surprise there, apparently same for hct duties it's almost as though they don't know what to do

Makes so no sense if that is going to be the case. Rural duties which are the costliest to maintain are still going to get the same standard of service as they always have yet areas with high density of population are going to get a downgraded service for the same price.

It's the race to the bottom. RM is run by a few money men who have realised that by raising the cost of delivering a letter (who no-one else does, other than Evri on occasion) and slashing the service of said letter delivery makes more profit.
Then pushing the delivery of 'parcels/packets' whilst keeping the cost on par with the rest of our 'sector' which is apparently still 10% more pay at £12.24ph lol.
Commit to deliver, Amazon culture etc is coming and has been for a while now.

[qwerty2]

"Non-drivers attending on Saturday will be scheduled work"
What does that mean?

[Wheres_Zorba]

How can offices achieve a 4 day week when on a Saturday we would only deliver parcels and 1st Class Letters. I counted my amount of 1st Call Letters the last few Saturdays and there was not many manly dsa letters.

What concerns me is what size the delivery walks will need to be to fill up a 9 hour 40 minute day.

Surely they can't expect us to walk 7.5 - 8 hours!!

[claretandblue]

"Non-drivers attending on Saturday will be scheduled work"
What does that mean?

Probably sorting, prepping d2ds and Mondays mail.

[Londonsburning]

"Non-drivers attending on Saturday will be scheduled work"
What does that mean?

Considering 'scheduled' attendance means about an extra tenner a shift 52 weeks a year... Probably not that. Scheduled to be attending the workplace 365/24/7 for f**k all extra pay is more likely the new RM meaning on the new CWU certified workplace contract

[ted_e_bear]

How can offices achieve a 4 day week when on a Saturday we would only deliver parcels and 1st Class Letters. I counted my amount of 1st Call Letters the last few Saturdays and there was not many manly dsa letters.

What concerns me is what size the delivery walks will need to be to fill up a 9 hour 40 minute day.

Surely they can't expect us to walk 7.5 - 8 hours!!

I wondered about that, the attendance pattern is quite attractive but that duty length if it was a walking duty is too much, maybe some kind of hybrid perhaps ?

[SpacePhoenix]

Do you even work at an MC? Every 600 fits 15 Yorks, 5 rows of 3.

Wrong! There's a smaller variant which will only hold 12. We've got a few as the normal sized ones are too big to fit into some DO yards. Even the smaller ones are still too big to get into a couple of DO yards.

So are these smaller 600s all redskins or non liveried? Also are they new to the fleet, because I can say within my area I have never seen a 7.5 tonner that holds less than 15 Yorks.

They're proper RM ones. In your area all the DOs might have better laid out yards, here many of the DO yards are very small.

[JKSmudge]

"On all mail days (core), town and city routes will have two over-one deliveries Monday through Friday.
Town and city will have two over 1st class routes (combined Monday to Saturday)."

WTF does this even mean ?

Heard very little in our DO what might happen, rumours are 3 people covering 4 walks or even 4 covering 6

[Perseus]

There is an update today on CWU page around the pilots and what shift patterns are available.
In it, it says that non driving staff will still have to work Saturdays, but they will work less of them than everyone else, which was totally expected. They will have a specially created job called 'van assistant' which sounds like it will last about 2 weeks, and maybe some indoor work.
It would be more straightforward if the CWU just admitted that they've created an issue with this 5 day letters service and put non driving staff on a permanent Mon-Fri as there is zero point in having mail pile up during the week then bringing non driving staff in on a Saturday with nothing for them to do - a recipe for redundancy.

[Martin Walsh]

It is strange that some posts don’t refer to the fact that the Regulator who has watched Royal Mail decline due to unfair competition and E substitution and done nothing.

They are now stating that the USO is financially unsustainable and if it is not this option then it will require a legislation change which will reduce the days the USO is delivered to 3 or 4.

The status quo which is currently not working is not going to remain.

So it would be madness for the CWU to sit on the sidelines shouting slogans about a rank and file movement when change is going to happen.

In terms of non drivers there is going to be plenty of work for non drivers on a Saturday including as van assistants because parcels are at their highest on Friday and Saturday.

It is also important to correct that no one will have double the workload to deliver. The principle is :

1st class mail gets delivered to every address 6 days a week. Non priority items will be included when delivering 1st class to an address.

All parcels will delivered to every address 6 days per week.

Tracked and specials will be delivered 6 days per week.

Only DSA,second class and D2D will be delivered every other day. The majority of it sequenced. The average call rate is 48% it is expected to increase to 78%.

The last time call rates were that high was back in 2006.