LTB 182/25 – Update on USO Negotiations

[postslippete]

The ODM has flopped if most of the pilots can't clear in the quiet summer months. Maybe Bob didn't really want to do Evie or Ahmed's duty and Evie didn't want to do Bob or Ahmed's duty? Maybe the walks were too big before the ODM and merging 4 into 3 was asking people to do the impossible? Maybe the company looked at the spreadsheets whilst ignoring the human factor and the practicality of all of this?

The CWU's "heavy/light" alternative appears to be more workable by keeping people on their own duties. Regular posties on regular rounds generally know what is achievable or not but despite whatever model is being cut there are bound to be bigger workloads overall. The heavy/light model isn't reducing the total volume of mail but is spread out differently so that every duty ends up carrying a slice of extra work across the week that is packaged in a way that is possibly easier to manage. I emphasis "possibly" because no 2 rounds are ever the same or equal in our office.

[Acca Dacca]

If every van share in an office currently cleared daily and had enough staff then where does the savings come from doing this unless duties were taken out and the rounds made bigger? Im none the wiser about how this model works.

[postslippete]

If every van share in an office currently cleared daily and had enough staff then where does the savings come from doing this unless duties were taken out and the rounds made bigger? Im none the wiser about how this model works.

The heavy/light model appears to be designed to make "savings" in time by spreading mail over 2 days instead of clearing daily. But it doesn't actually reduce the overall workload - it just spreads it out and makes it look more manageable day to day creating the illusion of efficiency. The risk is that RM will treat those time savings as slack to cut duties which only leads to bigger rounds and heavier workloads in the long run.

The issue with bigger duties is whenever there's a bulk posting. I suspect it might then be unmanageable to take half a walk of double mail and getting on top of everything when there are also more packets as well because it's a bigger duty.

[worktotime]

New way of lapsing

its funny that a few weeks ago walsh said they had a plan b , included NO LAPSING in his words , so that was a load of shite as this is just lapsing on a massive scale and will allow dims to dictate workload again , so more failures and it wont improve morale in offices , they may as well just go Monday - Friday instead of all this f***ing about and have done with it .

[tramssirhc]

The CWU is broken. No mention of the refusal of divisions to engage in Martin's optimised delivery method. Now Martin is claiming that there is more mail even though he repeatedly said mail was down. Martin said there was no plan b and members were standing in the way of progress. The CWU ignored members when they were on their knees and stood by whilst decent loyal hard working members left the industry because there was no other option. This latest press release is pathetic and workers need to put the CWU in the dustbin of history. Stop paying the CWU to kick you in the teeth.

[Mr Rush]

This new proposal isn't based on using it to fix the current problems within many offices. There is no mention of that. It's based on a fantasy office where every duty is achievable and staffed fully and clears every day.

Indeed. If every office were like that, then the savings would plainly come from reducing our 'over-provision' of service - ie, too many staff and not enough letters to justify daily delivery, hence the ODM. But in reality these savings have already been made and then some through gross understaffing and the concomitant decline in quality of service over the last several years.

To extend the metaphor: they trimmed the fat long ago, kept going till they passed through the bone, and now are sawing at thin air.

[Whippy]

This new proposal isn't based on using it to fix the current problems within many offices. There is no mention of that. It's based on a fantasy office where every duty is achievable and staffed fully and clears every day.

Indeed. If every office were like that, then the savings would plainly come from reducing our 'over-provision' of service - ie, too many staff and not enough letters to justify daily delivery, hence the ODM. But in reality these savings have already been made and then some through gross understaffing and the concomitant decline in quality of service over the last several years.

To extend the metaphor: they trimmed the fat long ago, kept going till they passed through the bone, and now are sawing at thin air.

Love this analogy, spot on!

[ted_e_bear]

they may as well just go Monday - Friday instead of all this f***ing about and have done with it .

Yes we've said that for ages parcels and 1c only Saturdays, easy to implement I think even our manager could do it, I don't know about elsewhere but we wouldn't lose any staff we probably still wouldn't have enough, apparently wasn't an option as only saves 50 million per year but surely that's better than piss arsing about spending a fortune dreaming up and implementing ideas that are doomed to failure.

[ebbzie]

Why is it that whenever they want to make savings it always front line staff? Why dontthey cull some of the numerous managers they seem to have starting with the clueless one who keeps coming up with stupid ideas like bench merging, 3 into 4 among them.

[TopperGas]

they may as well just go Monday - Friday instead of all this f***ing about and have done with it .

Yes we've said that for ages parcels and 1c only Saturdays, easy to implement I think even our manager could do it, I don't know about elsewhere but we wouldn't lose any staff we probably still wouldn't have enough, apparently wasn't an option as only saves 50 million per year but surely that's better than piss arsing about spending a fortune dreaming up and implementing ideas that are doomed to failure.

Dropping Saturday 2c should have been the first step, and then that would give RM a pointer as to how delivery staff coped with double mail on Monday's, then Tuesday 2c could also be dropped and, eventually, Thursday's 2c. The business eventually gets to the low and high days but in a more gradual manner.

[SkiSunday]

Why is it that whenever they want to make savings it always front line staff? Why dontthey cull some of the numerous managers they seem to have starting with the clueless one who keeps coming up with stupid ideas like bench merging, 3 into 4 among them.

Don't worry, DK and his advisors will be coming to the conclusion that COM positions are a very much extinct job roll at this business shortly. You can pay people an extra quid per hour to 'manage' us plebs who are delivering/sorting mail and parcels very easily.

[chickenwittle]

This new proposal isn't based on using it to fix the current problems within many offices. There is no mention of that. It's based on a fantasy office where every duty is achievable and staffed fully and clears every day.

Indeed. If every office were like that, then the savings would plainly come from reducing our 'over-provision' of service - ie, too many staff and not enough letters to justify daily delivery, hence the ODM. But in reality these savings have already been made and then some through gross understaffing and the concomitant decline in quality of service over the last several years.

To extend the metaphor: they trimmed the fat long ago, kept going till they passed through the bone, and now are sawing at thin air.

Exactly this , Royal Mail have scaled back the service so much in recent years that there is nothing left to take . To think they could then save £300 million and still provide a reliable service that would hit ofcom targets, is a pipe dream.

[kazardaimenu]

Would save on wages and bonuses definitely savings to be made from staff who don’t deliver the goods.

[Perseus]

Another thing, why is it such an important goal of the CWU to promise people they can do the same route every day?

[Pidleypoo]

It's delusional to think that everyone gets to stay on a fixed duty, does half a duty a day of all items and half 1C and packets, gets an earlier start/finish, shorter Saturdays, work every other Saturday, and the company saves hundreds of millions a year.

We're either being trolled or they are really that out of touch with how things are on the ground.

Not really because we’ve been doing for this for about 2 years and the deliveries are so big that you can only do one side of mail and the tracked/parcels off the other …..doesn’t even include the 1st class because we wouldn’t get it done if we did.

Think some offices don’t have a clue what the reality is in most of them.

This new proposal isn't based on using it to fix the current problems within many offices. There is no mention of that. It's based on a fantasy office where every duty is achievable and staffed fully and clears every day. They do exist, I'm sure.
I've said this before, but again they seem to be promising everything to everyone, and the fact RM haven't jointly signed up tells you everything.

Royal mails proposals weren’t going to fix anything either and in fact they were going to exacerbate every single current problem.