LTB 075/25 - Update on USO Pilot Sites

[GRS]

And what happens if in a team of 3 one or two go off sick? What happens if there isn’t enough A/L cover etc etc?

So on Monday you have 3 days mail…..John & Fred come in but Sarah goes sick! John does Tracked & 1C on duties 1&2 but Fred who was meant to do everything on 3&4 with Sarah now does just Tracked & 1C on those duties. Sarah doesn’t come in for the rest of the week so by the time her and Fred work together the walks could potentially have 10 days mail on them. You can’t move people off other duties otherwise with alternate days deliveries their walks will then suffer massive backlogs.

What happens if Sarah & John are both off sick the same week? Jesus it doesn’t even bear thinking about how quickly the backlog is gonna build up.

[SpacePhoenix]

3 mech trays every day for core duties
(Where has all this mail come from )

I find that very hard to believe. On a normal day if you exclude any bulk postings getting released by the DTS after hitting the time limit, across all the batches on my CSS I think there's only about 2 or maybe 3 walks which will get 3 trays of mech (both waves combined). Even when the USO changes kick in, you won't really get much of an increase as the 5 day limit still applies and any 2C for a DP that has a 1C item will still be released. No changes to the DSA either. Whatever is released by the machine is due for delivery.

The pilot method condenses several walks. So it isn’t one standard walk suddenly receiving 3 trays, it’s a condensed version.

How many walks are combined into each "new walk"?

Depends on the office because some have walks with a low number of drops on each walk as their starting point, but another office could have 800 drops or more per walk. So if you take four or five walks and make them three walks, you have instantly increased the mech for each.

I can assure you it is 3 mech trays
Your mc,s havnt got a clue how to run the system
Its chaos
I got info from area rep and local reps who attended meetings at said DO
I have the original transcript
I did say i would post info when i could
CWU at national level are hiding facts from members

MCs don't decide what gets released, that's determined by the DTS system. If the DTS releases it then we sequence it (walk sort it for wave 2). There hasn't and will not be any changes to the way the DTS system works, the 5 day limit still applies. It's down to the changes that your DO has made to the walks.

What DPs are on what walk is determined by the data that a DO has into into Route Planner. MCs don't write any sort plans, they get written centrally somewhere. If DPs are on the wrong walks, you need to take that up with whoever enters the data into Route Planner

As it stands locally there's only 2 or 3 walks getting 3 trays across both waves combined, when bulk postings are excluded. Wednesday nights (for Thursday delivery) are the busiest day of the week.

[hewittinspain]

AYR. USO pilot

Since pilot started over month ago cleared on 1 occasion
With the use of o-time and extra staff on a TUE
3 mech trays every day for core duties
(Where has all this mail come from )
D2D not being prepped delivered within time spec
Being rolled on to following week(s) and with those following weeks D2D added
Frames all have doubled slots no room to prep mail all jammed in
Bags on delivery too heavy with mail no room for packets to be delivered with mail
More pressure on drivers
1st class mail and tracked failing every day
2nd class failing every day
Sat 1st class mail increasing in volume unable to clear
Packets unable to clear
Mental health issues due to unachievale workloads
And pressures to try and complete
3 staff have walked out in tears
1 staff asking for hours to be reduced to PT cant cope with demands
Duty of care ????
RM h&s have visited as well as senior cwu officials
Nothing done
This will be rolled out everywhere over summer
Re of ofcom input they as well as us being disregarded
And this is light time of year

This has to be stopped. The whole point of having a trial is to find out if an idea works. This clearly doesn’t work.

They want this to happen. They won't need to pay VR when they will probably have enough that will leave.
Our office of 100 people will leave 9 staff spare when the USO reform comes in and a nearby office will leave them 6 short. Apparently 6 of our newer starters are going to be transferred over to the other office which means there won't be much call for VR. With natural wastage, people just walking out etc, this is what they want.

Anyone with more than two braincells knows that increasing the call rate with double and triple mail will NOT reduce fatigue UNLESS walks are reduced by a quarter which they are not. They are putting back 8 duties in our office of 100 duties which will probably shorten the average walk by around 15 minutes when the call rate is increased by about 20% with much heavier bags, putting less packets into your bag as there won't be any room to take them together with mail. You will soon lose that 15 minutes saved within the first hour.

[Perseus]

And what happens if in a team of 3 one or two go off sick? What happens if there isn’t enough A/L cover etc etc?

So on Monday you have 3 days mail…..John & Fred come in but Sarah goes sick! John does Tracked & 1C on duties 1&2 but Fred who was meant to do everything on 3&4 with Sarah now does just Tracked & 1C on those duties. Sarah doesn’t come in for the rest of the week so by the time her and Fred work together the walks could potentially have 10 days mail on them. You can’t move people off other duties otherwise with alternate days deliveries their walks will then suffer massive backlogs.

What happens if Sarah & John are both off sick the same week? Jesus it doesn’t even bear thinking about how quickly the backlog is gonna build up.

Many of our groups of 3 will be comprised of driver, driver and non driver. As soon as one of the drivers doesn't arrive for work one day, the whole thing collapses.

[Mikeb99]

My office is not a trial office but we regularly rotate walks, delivering 2 days mail on each walk 3 days per week. I’m pretty sure this is going on in every office in the country. If the delivery postmen have the brains to shorten their loops to account for the extra weight and a desire to make it work - the thing that is clearly missing from many of the contributors on this forum - then clearance is pretty straightforward. All of the walks in our office have between 800 and 1100 delivery points and our tracked figures are above average.
Sorry if it’s not what you want to hear but if you can’t do the job, the first thing to do is look in the mirror!

[Barnacle]

My office is not a trial office but we regularly rotate walks, delivering 2 days mail on each walk 3 days per week. I’m pretty sure this is going on in every office in the country. If the delivery postmen have the brains to shorten their loops to account for the extra weight and a desire to make it work - the thing that is clearly missing from many of the contributors on this forum - then clearance is pretty straightforward. All of the walks in our office have between 800 and 1100 delivery points and our tracked figures are above average.
Sorry if it’s not what you want to hear but if you can’t do the job, the first thing to do is look in the mirror!

‘If the delivery postmen have the brains to shorten their loops to account for the extra weight….’

They’d be still delivering at midnight.

[SMS1969]

My office is not a trial office but we regularly rotate walks, delivering 2 days mail on each walk 3 days per week. I’m pretty sure this is going on in every office in the country. If the delivery postmen have the brains to shorten their loops to account for the extra weight and a desire to make it work - the thing that is clearly missing from many of the contributors on this forum - then clearance is pretty straightforward. All of the walks in our office have between 800 and 1100 delivery points and our tracked figures are above average.
Sorry if it’s not what you want to hear but if you can’t do the job, the first thing to do is look in the mirror!

This way will reduce the weight of the bags, but how do you reduce the time it takes to deliver all of it. You can’t.

[qwerty2]

My office is not a trial office but we regularly rotate walks, delivering 2 days mail on each walk 3 days per week. I’m pretty sure this is going on in every office in the country. If the delivery postmen have the brains to shorten their loops to account for the extra weight and a desire to make it work - the thing that is clearly missing from many of the contributors on this forum - then clearance is pretty straightforward. All of the walks in our office have between 800 and 1100 delivery points and our tracked figures are above average.
Sorry if it’s not what you want to hear but if you can’t do the job, the first thing to do is look in the mirror!

‘If the delivery postmen have the brains to shorten their loops to account for the extra weight….’

They’d be still delivering at midnight.

Sounds like a thick manager

[Mikeb99]

As I already said, we are already rotating walks regularly and making it work. Our proposed walks if the USO reform comes in will see 2 walks put back into the office meaning my workload will actually reduce from what it is now.
In addition the extra Saturday off every 6 weeks that we will be getting will mean each day we do work will be about 15 minutes longer than it is now allowing even more time to complete.
Maybe the regular contributors to this forum who do nothing but complain are a self selecting group of failures who choose to blame the hand that feeds them or the union that represents them rather than accept their own inability.
Incidentally I am not a manager, I’m a postman in my mid 50’s who remembers the good old days of 2nd deliveries and bikes but realises that those days are gone and that nobody owes us a living - we have to earn it and I personally quite enjoy my job.

[claretandblue]

As I already said, we are already rotating walks regularly and making it work. Our proposed walks if the USO reform comes in will see 2 walks put back into the office meaning my workload will actually reduce from what it is now.
In addition the extra Saturday off every 6 weeks that we will be getting will mean each day we do work will be about 15 minutes longer than it is now allowing even more time to complete.
Maybe the regular contributors to this forum who do nothing but complain are a self selecting group of failures who choose to blame the hand that feeds them or the union that represents them rather than accept their own inability.
Incidentally I am not a manager, I’m a postman in my mid 50’s who remembers the good old days of 2nd deliveries and bikes but realises that those days are gone and that nobody owes us a living - we have to earn it and I personally quite enjoy my job.

At the moment, you're only doing one walk, under USO, you'll be doing both.

[SkiSunday]

My office is not a trial office but we regularly rotate walks, delivering 2 days mail on each walk 3 days per week. I’m pretty sure this is going on in every office in the country. If the delivery postmen have the brains to shorten their loops to account for the extra weight and a desire to make it work - the thing that is clearly missing from many of the contributors on this forum...

I assume your DO must be on the official s**t list regularly then?

[Mikeb99]

At the moment, you're only doing one walk, under USO, you'll be doing both.

I think you misunderstand. I should have a partner to do 2 walks together but due to being short staffed I do his walk one day then mine the next with double mail each day. This is pretty close though not identical to the proposed system under the reformed USO.

[claretandblue]

At the moment, you're only doing one walk, under USO, you'll be doing both.

I think you misunderstand. I should have a partner to do 2 walks together but due to being short staffed I do his walk one day then mine the next with double mail each day. This is pretty close though not identical to the proposed system under the reformed USO.

Don't forget triple mail Monday, Tuesday, I've done what you're doing, it's doable, but a lot harder as a pairing.

[GRS]

At the moment, you're only doing one walk, under USO, you'll be doing both.

I think you misunderstand. I should have a partner to do 2 walks together but due to being short staffed I do his walk one day then mine the next with double mail each day. This is pretty close though not identical to the proposed system under the reformed USO.

Don’t want to come across as rude or disbelieving but could I ask how long your walks are.
In our office your looking at 5 hours so there just isn’t enough time to get the walk prepped, do IPS, tie up, load up, get out, deliver everything including 100+ Tracked, return to the office and pouch off in seven & a half hours. This is doing one days mail let alone two or three.
Obviously if as I’m led to believe some offices still have three & a half hour walks then it probably is possible to do two days mail at a time.

[Perseus]

At the moment, you're only doing one walk, under USO, you'll be doing both.

I think you misunderstand. I should have a partner to do 2 walks together but due to being short staffed I do his walk one day then mine the next with double mail each day. This is pretty close though not identical to the proposed system under the reformed USO.

Are you rotating between two walks that EACH have 800-1100 delivery points, or is that the combined between the 2 walks. If it's the latter, then that is not possible going into this new way of working, unless it's a 6 hour delivery span. When you are doing walk A with 2 days mail and 1 days parcels, who is doing the parcels on walk B?
I, like other in my office regularly flip between 2 sides of a shared van duty, around 700 houses each side. Monday and Tuesday can work, by Wednesday/Thursday the wheels come off as the mail and parcels volumes increase.
I do agree with you in the respect that this new way of working will be totally alien to some staff lucky enough to have had a set duty and decent staffing levels in their office, but I don't think it's fair to say 'look in the mirror'. Things are going to be hard enough.