General Secretary Dave Ward on the universal service obligation.

[POSTMAN]

Post

[jahbalon]

Post

The USO as it stands is dead in the water. There has to be imminent change otherwise the company will die.

Letters are dead, they are not coming back, and I agree with Royal Mail that parcels are the current future.

[PostalWorker13]

Post

The USO as it stands is dead in the water. There has to be imminent change otherwise the company will die.

Letters are dead, they are not coming back, and I agree with Royal Mail that parcels are the current future.

The USO might well need amending and there is plenty of people that would agree with you on that. However, to suggest ‘letters are dead’ is absolute nonsense.

If letters are dead, how come Royal Mail have just recorded their worst every quality of service performance on record when it comes to 1st and 2nd class QoS targets?

There has been a 60% drop off in mail volumes since their peak in 2004, however we simply aren’t delivering on time any more.

Staff are leaving in their droves because of unmanageable workloads and impossible duties. How can that be happening if ‘letters are dead’?

I think you need to do a few weeks on delivery before suggesting such nonsense.

[theotherone]

Unless I'm being totally daft here how does going to a 5 day USO help the problem?
It doesn't reduce the amount of letters but gives us less time to deliver them?
If there is such a decline in letters why is the USO so bad?
Cut the letters save at least 225m which I imagine will go straight back reinstating a dividend firstly.

[pieoftheday]

Unless I'm being totally daft here how does going to a 5 day USO help the problem?
It doesn't reduce the amount of letters but gives us less time to deliver them?
If there is such a decline in letters why is the USO so bad?
Cut the letters save at least 225m which I imagine will go straight back reinstating a dividend firstly.

It can only be about saving money in the short term? Do RM just want rid of letters altogether in the long term? As others have pointed out we still deliver billions of letters so there's still money to be made? It makes no sense to me throwing away a business that nobody else competes with? Wouldn't it be refreshing if senior management were honest and just said what RM are wanting to be as a business, surely they know?

[taurus88]

The problem with the decline in letters is that it doesn’t mean a decline in workload. We’ve all seen fewer letters come in, but the drop in call-rate has simply led to bigger walks. We’re probably now delivering to more houses but with fewer letters, while additionally the growth in packets has added to that. Going down to 5 days will just make the job harder, as your call-rate will increase on your walk that was added and added to as letters declined. Delivering 400 letters across 800 houses isn’t easier than delivering 400 letters across 400 houses.

[pieoftheday]

The problem with the decline in letters is that it doesn’t mean a decline in workload. We’ve all seen fewer letters come in, but the drop in call-rate has simply led to bigger walks. We’re probably now delivering to more houses but with fewer letters, while additionally the growth in packets has added to that. Going down to 5 days will just make the job harder, as your call-rate will increase on your walk that was added and added to as letters declined. Delivering 400 letters across 800 houses isn’t easier than delivering 400 letters across 400 houses.

Perhaps RM will put duties back in if we go 5 days then the cover posties that won't be needed can have a duty and everyone will have a much easier time of it

[tramssirhc]

CWU policy is a 6 day USO and renationalisation of the postal industry. If anyone wants to change that they best get along to conference and change the policy of the Union.

[tramssirhc]

groundhog day. same rubbish over and over again.

[Trumanity]

The problem with the decline in letters is that it doesn’t mean a decline in workload. We’ve all seen fewer letters come in, but the drop in call-rate has simply led to bigger walks. We’re probably now delivering to more houses but with fewer letters, while additionally the growth in packets has added to that. Going down to 5 days will just make the job harder, as your call-rate will increase on your walk that was added and added to as letters declined. Delivering 400 letters across 800 houses isn’t easier than delivering 400 letters across 400 houses.

Add in free collections and automatic re-delivery in a student area and you have the perfect storm!

[heraldmoth]

The problem with the decline in letters is that it doesn’t mean a decline in workload. We’ve all seen fewer letters come in, but the drop in call-rate has simply led to bigger walks. We’re probably now delivering to more houses but with fewer letters, while additionally the growth in packets has added to that. Going down to 5 days will just make the job harder, as your call-rate will increase on your walk that was added and added to as letters declined. Delivering 400 letters across 800 houses isn’t easier than delivering 400 letters across 400 houses.

It won’t make the job harder and there’s no commit to deliver. It will simply make sure there’s a minimum of 5 f days work being done because at the minute let’s face it there’s not 6 days of mail anywhere if you take away sick leave and staffing shortages, and for all the people hoping for a 4 day week I’d be surprised if Saturday parcel shifts are less than 10hrs

[Spartacus]

Give RM a 5 day obligation to deliver letters and they'll ask for 4, then they'll ask for 3, until letters are delivered once or twice a week.

[olilew]

If it's not profitable to walk up peoples garden paths to put pieces of paper through their doors why the hell are we still doing households? By RMs reckoning it would be much more cost efficient not to do them, just post the letters less days a week. This suggests to me there is still money to be made delivering to letterboxes.

[enskied]

The problem with the decline in letters is that it doesn’t mean a decline in workload. We’ve all seen fewer letters come in, but the drop in call-rate has simply led to bigger walks. We’re probably now delivering to more houses but with fewer letters, while additionally the growth in packets has added to that. Going down to 5 days will just make the job harder, as your call-rate will increase on your walk that was added and added to as letters declined. Delivering 400 letters across 800 houses isn’t easier than delivering 400 letters across 400 houses.

It won’t make the job harder and there’s no commit to deliver. It will simply make sure there’s a minimum of 5 f days work being done because at the minute let’s face it there’s not 6 days of mail anywhere if you take away sick leave and staffing shortages, and for all the people hoping for a 4 day week I’d be surprised if Saturday parcel shifts are less than 10hrs

There isn't a staffing shortage. There is a refusal to recruit staff .

[PostalWorker13]

Unless I'm being totally daft here how does going to a 5 day USO help the problem?
It doesn't reduce the amount of letters but gives us less time to deliver them?
If there is such a decline in letters why is the USO so bad?
Cut the letters save at least 225m which I imagine will go straight back reinstating a dividend firstly.

It won’t help. If for example we stopped delivering mail on Saturdays, it would just mean that we were coming in to double mail on a Monday morning. This would mean you’d fail to complete on the Monday and be playing catch up all week on what are already impossible duties to complete for a lot of people.

I fail every day with one days mail, never mind two.