Owner drivers working DPR’s Good Friday

[Agencyoap]

We have 10+ owner drivers doing DP routes in our office today - Good Friday
I’m GobSmacked !!

[ted_e_bear]

Didn't know we had owner drivers have I missed it being mentioned ?

[Agencyoap]

We’ve had owner drivers in starting this past week - varying nationalities
Taking DP duties previously taken by contracted staff earlier than were allowed to start, and staff then being given the excess and lates
So over 10 of the 28 DP duties going to owner drivers
Whilst our hours have been put back to 11.00 to 19.00

[ted_e_bear]

Do they turn up in their own cars/taxis etc like evri or do they have to have a half decent looking van ?

[Agencyoap]

Maybe half are hire vans other various but haven’t seen any real bangers
But bearing in mind our average diesel experts that we drive are 10 years old they’d struggle to be worse than ours

[TopperGas]

We have 10+ owner drivers doing DP routes in our office today - Good Friday
I’m GobSmacked !!

I'm not sure why you're gobsmacked as I assume Amazon and EVRi will also be out working today? What's surprising is that the CWU have allowed owner drivers as I assume that was a no go for them?

It makes you wonder where this move will now end will every office's DPR's eventually be carried out by owner drivers, I wonder what they are earning per hour and whether they just doorstep like the the two companies I've already mentioned?

[Agencyoap]

Why wouldn’t I be gobsmacked ???
I’m gobsmacked as the work was not offered or mentioned to any contracted staff
And I had no knowledge this would ever happen

[Paul1983]

What office is this? are the union aware of this? I know parcel force have some owner drivers but was not aware of RM having any...

[ted_e_bear]

What office is this? are the union aware of this? I know parcel force have some owner drivers but was not aware of RM having any...

That's what I thought, I think the parcel force ones have liveried vans so you wouldn't know the difference but this sounds "evri-fied" if it's going to get rolled out I'm surprised we haven't heard of it

[menditsa]

We have 10+ owner drivers doing DP routes in our office today - Good Friday
I’m GobSmacked !!

Unless your in Scotland all delivery offices were closed so how did you find this out ?

[robriggs]

This will certainly be an eyebrow raiser for most of the Royal Mail staff. It is to me,had no idea this was going on. Am just thinking of the logistics involved. So I guess these parcels arrived at the said offices on the Thursday evening as surely no mail centre/wagon drivers would be loading / delivering Friday would they? Royal Mail staff would be needed to open the office,hand out PDA’s (Tracked 24 I am guessing is what’s being delivered),they would have to be scanned by these owner drivers,some form of basic training would have to be given for that surely? Royal Mail staff would be needed to scan and create a manifest route for these owner drivers right? Never in a million years would the union agree to this? Lots of questions.

[postmanplod2026]

thats ur union pretending that the jobs different from evri and amazon ,yodel when the reality shows it not much different now got owner drivers

[Roadie8282]

We’ve had owner drivers in starting this past week - varying nationalities
Taking DP duties previously taken by contracted staff earlier than were allowed to start, and staff then being given the excess and lates
So over 10 of the 28 DP duties going to owner drivers
Whilst our hours have been put back to 11.00 to 19.00

Suprised it's taken this long to have owner drivers.
They'll deliver more as guess it's pay per drop?
So they'll run around, RM saves on vehicle costs and any employment related costs. If they're no good it's bye bye and the next day someone else. Plenty of foreign guys working for less is a win for royal mail

[Jb1969]

Like most, I’m quite shocked at this.
Certainly goes against any CWU agreement, I suspect the first time they were aware of it was from here.
Pretty stupid too, considering the agreement to be finalised next wk has not been signed off.
Thought this would happen, just not for 3-4 yrs!

[Smoothbackground]

About a year ago, we had five or so PFW drivers being sent over to do parcels, clearly as an informal arrangement between our office and the local PFW depot, and they were all owner drivers rather than PFW employees. They were invariably in white vans, though one was a red PFW Sprinter, and none wore uniform. This went on for a month or so, maybe a bit longer, and then stopped. Could this be something similar? The “real” PFW drivers in our area say they’re very quiet these days.