Walking pace upped to 4mph has postmen complaining

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 11 Dec 2008, 09:23

Walking pace upped from 2.4mph to 4mph has postmen complaining about 'unrealistic' rounds to save money

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... money.html

Postal workers have complained they are being pressured into walking faster to complete their rounds under cost-saving measures.

The Communication Workers Union said today delivery staff were being told to walk at a speed of 4mph, an increase over a previous target of 2.4mph.

The union said delivery workers were being pressed to complete 'unrealistic' rounds to gain financial savings.

The Royal Mail denied the union's claims.

The row has flared over a software system that originated in Canada, which is now used by many countries including the UK to plan delivery walks.

The idea is that by using the system, deliveries will be more efficient, but the union said it had been introduced without agreement and claimed that a number of problems had occurred in various parts of the country.

A union official said today: 'Royal Mail has altered the system to meet budgetary savings, not to consider the actual physical realities of delivery rounds.

'In some areas jobs are being lost or changed to part-time as the system finds efficiency savings. In other areas overtime is taken away.

'More and more managers are going out and delivering mail, which is not in their job description and they should not be doing.

'Mail backlogs or consistent returned mail, because of an over-estimated workload, have been reported this year in Watford, Enfield, Oxford, Coventry, Belfast, Cambridge and Evesham, amongst others.

'Managers in problem areas are putting delivery workers under undue pressure to complete unrealistic rounds.

'In some offices this is leading to bullying and harassment by managers trying to force delivery workers to take on larger rounds, work beyond their finish time and refusing to pay overtime.

'In extreme circumstances this is leading to suspension and even sacking.'

The Royal Mail has denied that anyone was being bullied or harassed.

DGP1 · Post by **DGP1** » 11 Dec 2008, 16:00

Does anybody want to send the Pegasus training brief to the newspaper/radio show.

or maybe this one

Thank you for your email to Allan Leighton.

Allan has asked me to look into your case.

Within the Pegasus application a number of parameters come together to make
up the overall working speed expected of a postman on a delivery route. It
is important that these parameters are not assessed individually but rather
collectively. Below is a break down of how the expected walking speed is
achieved.

A speed of 6.44km/hr and a calling time of 6.6 or 9 seconds are applied to
each delivery point (address point). 6.6 seconds for address with no path
to the door and 9 seconds for address with paths leading to the door. The
calling time is the average time allowed to open and close gates to the
house, take out mail and any signed for items.

How it is made up:

Average calling time 9+6.6/2 = 7.8 seconds
Average number of delivery points per route = 450
Average call rate (which the frequency delivery point receiving mail on
each delivery route each day) is 85%
This means 382.5 of the 450 delivery points will receive mail each time the
postman goes out on a delivery round.

Typically a delivery route is about 9km long taking an average of 3.5 hours
(210mins) to complete.

Applying an average calling time of 7.8 seconds to 382.5 dps = 2983.8
seconds = 49.73mins = approximately 50 mins (for ease of illustration)
This therefore means 9km is covered in (210-50) mins = 160mins = 2 hours
40mins (2.67)

To work out the overall expected walking speed from this would

2.67=9
1 = X

X = 3.37km/hr = 2.1m/hr

It is important to note that if the expected walking speed of our postmen
and women throughout a delivery round is 6.44km/hr, they will have to cover
a total ground distance of 22.5km at the end of 3.5 hours delivery duty.
This is clearly not the case as our postmen and women cover on average 9km
on each route.

Many Thanks

Robert

Robert Brushfield-Hodges
Executive Correspondence Manager

Post by **rhino49** » 11 Dec 2008, 16:42

Interesting phone in on the subject on the Jeremy Vine show on BBC radio 2 today included an interview with Bob Gibson and a closing comment from a customer who said "Postmen's welfare should be our concern - after all, a postman is for life not just for Christmas" See if you can get it on the iplayer system - the bit about the walking pace came about 35 minutes into the show.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/listen/#j

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 11 Dec 2008, 16:47

http://richie71.wordpress.com/2008/12/1 ... l-workers/

Postal workers have been told to walk at a speed of at least 4 mph apparently.

Royal Mail denies it, but the CWU has claimed it is part of the company’s plans to cover its massive round of cuts and make sure the mail is still delivered on time.

Personally, having seen Royal Mail in action, I prefer the CWU’s account. I’ve sat in on Royal Mail meetings as a reporter, and I’m not impressed by the way they do business. Recently they announced plans to close the Crewe sorting office, dressed up as ‘improvements’ to the service. It’s bound to be an improvement to take Crewe mail to Warrington, then back to Crewe. Not to mention the 600 posties who have been told to move to Warrington or lose their jobs. Its a similar story in Stoke, with the work moving to Wolverhampton.

Anyway, the idea of making posties walk at 4mph is quite funny. How will management tell? I’ve got visions of RM bosses standing on Tunstall high street with a speed gun, waiting for the posties to wander past.

There’s a story written by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman) called The Long Walk. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, athletic teenagers are encouraged to take part in a marathon ramble across country. The rules are, if their speed drops to below 4mph they get a warning. Three warnings and they get shot. They are not allowed to stop either. The endurance walk continues until only one walker is left alive.

Now there’s an idea to speed up the national postal service! Chief executive Adam Crozier following his workforce round with an Uzi and a speed gun! I’m sure there’s plenty of posties who feel that’s the case already.

Or, maybe Royal Mail could invest in improving their business and properly planning for the future.

DGP1 · Post by **DGP1** » 11 Dec 2008, 16:54

Anyway, the idea of making posties walk at 4mph is quite funny. How will management tell? I’ve got visions of RM bosses standing on Tunstall high street with a speed gun, waiting for the posties to wander past.

The bad news is they plan the duties at a walking speed of 4MPH

Pat Ostman · Post by **Pat Ostman** » 11 Dec 2008, 16:56

The postal delivery workers you are targetting in this question will not be able to answer because they are all out working hard.
Theirs is a valued job, and I hope they know that.

HM

I agree, and to add to that - Our postlady is really cool. Always a smile, whether it's cold and rainy, or sunny and warm. She always has something nice to say, despite the pressures from work.

Our postman before her, was exactly the same - Very good natured person, with an excellent disposition

VeryProud American, United Kingdom

Sometimes I just love our customers :)

From the BBC Have Your Say Debate

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread. ... 1211165110

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 11 Dec 2008, 17:12

My fav

I suspect am one of the main Post Office users in North Wales - several thousand items posted a week - and I cannot find praise enough for the way the post is handled. Losses and damage are almost non-existent.
However, the other side of the coin is the senior post office management, most of whom really ought to be taken out and shot!
If only an efficient management could be welded to the existing workforce........................

Tristan Bradshaw, Bangor, United Kingdom

bandit650 · Post by **bandit650** » 11 Dec 2008, 17:23

I know since the new run with peggie 2 it has caused more problems than we started with,in the new round of cut backs for our office it has included shutting the callers office which has resulted in more lost gear than you could shake a stick at they stick anybody in there often the staff member is not trained so feels under pressure all the time,more walks just not achievable the DIM seems to think that all staff are taking the mick,comes out with so many stupid things you just can not believe what you are hearing,the bullying has increased to epidemic proportions we have more and more staff putting in grievences the sick has gone up and so has the accident rate,nobody seems to making the connection yet,today you hear that we have to walk faster and do more work to save money but of course the managers will still get the inflation busting bonus they get every year.

k979aaa · Post by **k979aaa** » 11 Dec 2008, 17:30

bandit650 wrote:I know since the new run with peggie 2 it has caused more problems than we started with,in the new round of cut backs for our office it has included shutting the callers office which has resulted in more lost gear than you could shake a stick at they stick anybody in there often the staff member is not trained so feels under pressure all the time,more walks just not achievable the DIM seems to think that all staff are taking the mick,comes out with so many stupid things you just can not believe what you are hearing,the bullying has increased to epidemic proportions we have more and more staff putting in grievences the sick has gone up and so has the accident rate,nobody seems to making the connection yet,today you hear that we have to walk faster and do more work to save money but of course the managers will still get the inflation busting bonus they get every year.

It is time we all said ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

Stormproof · Post by **Stormproof** » 11 Dec 2008, 17:37

I'm sick & tired of managers insinuating that us posties are lazy and the docket grabbers should knock the overtime on the head for a couple of weeks so the cuts off don't get done then RM would be in the s**t

Post by **dvbuk55** » 11 Dec 2008, 18:54

k66yla wrote:I'm sick & tired of managers insinuating that us posties are lazy and the docket grabbers should knock the overtime on the head for a couple of weeks so the cuts off don't get done then RM would be in the s**t

If only - we once had a "work to rule" where only scheduled overtime was supposed to be done - the docket rats loved it, couldn't get enough.

mailman71 · Post by **mailman71** » 11 Dec 2008, 19:27

royal mail have said on bbc news that they dont expect posties to walk at 4mph,so lets get rid of this stupid computer or get them to put the proper mileage rate in.
any offices going into a pegases revision should tell them either to get it sorted or any agreements are scrapped and if it takes industrial action to achieve this then so be it,its about time we stood up to thesefaceless nupties who think up these crazy revisions or we will all be in early graves.
the bbc reporter on the news tonight said royal mail were expecting us to walk at 2.1 miles per hour so lets go for it.

k979aaa · Post by **k979aaa** » 11 Dec 2008, 19:45

Go an all buy a mileometer at a speed of 2.1 mph over three and a half over delivery span should equate to 7.35 mile's or 11.83 kilometer's.

mailman71 · Post by **mailman71** » 11 Dec 2008, 19:50

k979aaa wrote:Go an all buy a mileometer at a speed of 2.1 mph over three and a half over delivery span should equate to 7.35 mile's or 11.83 kilometer's.

im not speeding up for anybody.

apple · Post by **apple** » 11 Dec 2008, 20:24

get a hand held gps and it will tell you how fast your going
oh i forgot that will come for the walkers anyway when they get rid of the paper for signed for items
can you see it now? a read out of how fast you have been going?

ROYALMAILCHAT