Morning Star needs postmen to explain why they're striking

[opgpat]

I would maintain that RM need more delivery staff to ease the burden of 8bags a day per postie. So these indoor staff should be allowed to transfere to deliveries so that staff cuts are minimalised.

In my MC it's common to see operators doing O/T on deliveries or driving duties, and at repick times DO staff come onto mech duties and vice versa.
"Should be allowed" doesn't apply, as they do it already.

If you read my post with the slightest bit of attention you'll see it clearly says 'transfere to deliveries' - you even quoted that! As far as I am aware MC staff are NOT going to transfere to deliveries when they become surplus to requirements, they will be shown the door.

[Tman]

If you read my post with the slightest bit of attention you'll see it clearly says 'transfere to deliveries' - you even quoted that! As far as I am aware MC staff are NOT going to transfere to deliveries when they become surplus to requirements, they will be shown the door.

OPGPat, rest assured,I give your posts every bit of attention, but I was making the point that they "transfere" now, so why should that stop in the future? In my place delivery staff turn over so quickly that there's probably always vacancies to be filled, so why do you think MC staff will be shown the door rather than move across to a delivery job?

[opgpat]

Because they won't need anything near the numbers in delivery that are going to be cut from indoors work! 65,000 positions have been wiped out in the past 5 years by this management team. If the company continues it's introduction of new machinery without consultation or agreement as it fully intends to do then thousands and thousands of people will be needed no more. If thousands, as is likely, don't want VR they won't be transfered across to delivery offices as they will also not be 'needed' there! That's according to the companys idea of adequate delivery staffing levels ofcourse. Annual 10% cuts in DO's wont happen with thousands comming in from MC's.

I think you give the company too much credit Tman. Look at their proposals in the leaked doc. Total scum bags.

[Tman]

"]Because they won't need anything near the numbers in delivery that are going to be cut from indoors work! 65,000 positions have been wiped out in the past 5 years by this management team.

Mostly from non-operational grades though. Wages, HR, Buildings maintenance, etc etc all centralised and "down-sized" (hoho) but the only ops grades losses I've seen have been old PHGs, coders etc retiring. Many MC staff are agency/students/1 hour per week people now who would probably voluntarily leave rather than pound the streets anyway.

If the company continues it's introduction of new machinery without consultation or agreement as it fully intends to do then thousands and thousands of people will be needed no more.

My point is that the staff turn-over seems so high that there wouldn't need to be a mass cull of staff.

Privatisation is a far worse prospect for job losses.

[Martin Walsh]

Trman you seem to attract these debates. But to put my penny worth into the matter I think a number of issues cloud the debate and mean that no one opinion is right.

I have been in the job since 1984 and when I joined 35lb was a delivery.( anything above was either overtime or given to assistants. ) In my delivery office in London back then we had 150 nights and 250 walks and van duties on days. 25 years on there are now 8 night duties and 90 walk and van duties,plus rest day covers. So duty wise we have lost 302 duties in 25 years.

Now in that time in we have had a number of reccesions and it is true in any recision firms and start cutting what they send by post as a means to save money. That has been no different to any reccision and that work normally comes back once the reccision ends.

When I started we measured traffic by WLA sample counts and averaging the amount of items. In the early 1990s Royal Mail introudced WLA by weight where we agreed items per kilo (ipks) so thats how we measured traffic apart from those which were recorded by mech.

3 years ago Royal Mail came to the CWU and said that traffic and revenue didt add up. So they wanted to introduce delivery re-enigneering in delivery offices. They claimed that we were overstating traffic by 17% ( ie the traffic was never there in the first place ) They wanted to tip bags and measure it through machines and mist. The problem with this is that some offices still get bags from the mail centre when they are under pressure and this means that traffic is unrecorded.

Plus some traffic is measured still by items per kilo. For example at the walk sequencing trial in Gatwick management reduced the IPKs from 250 to 150 however when a joint count was made at the Eastbourne delivery work the acutal average of items per box was 267.

I am not suggusting that traffic has not declined and off course in mail centres they have lost outward mail as a result of downstream access however i do not believe that traffic has fallen by anywhere near 6% or that Royal Mail can argue that over the next year it will fall by 10%.

Notwithstanding that all offices have increased producitvity year on year and under SDD alone 30 000 operational jobs were lost.

Now with regards to your arguement about how can they close mail centres if traffic was not falling then I think this is a red herring. Some of the mail centres which have closed have been transfered to the new bigger supper mail centres such as Swindon , Jubillee , Greenford , Northampton , HWDC , East London SEMAC , Wolvehampton and numerous other purpose built mail centres. Plus more mail is now processed by automation then at anytime in Royal Mail history.

Finally in the Hooper report Royal Mail were heavily criticised for the lack of transaparcy in their traffic and finance accouts and it was recommended that of com would have more power to have access to Royal Mail"s information on the above.

[Tman]

[these debates. Trman you seem to attract

Nothing wrong with that, unless endless "my DOM is a tw*t" threads appeal?

Now with regards to your arguement about how can they close mail centres if traffic was not falling then I think this is a red herring. Some of the mail centres which have closed have been transfered to the new bigger supper mail centres such as Swindon , Jubillee , Greenford , Northampton , HWDC , East London SEMAC , Wolvehampton and numerous other purpose built mail centres.

Yes, there's been new bigger offices and "streamlining" ( ) of the MC network, and that's to be expected. I was referring more to the rumoured closure of Portsmouth and/or Dorset (as an example) and the concentration into Southampton, when SO hasn't been upgraded or enlarged materially since it was opened.
Or in other words, closing of existing MCs and the work transferring to other existing MCs. That's further proof (if that were needed) that mail is declining.
"Our" MC used to hit the start buttons at 13.00 Monday and run until 16/17.00 Saturday, then again from 15.00 Sunday until 05.00 Monday. No more though, and that's a lot of mail NOT being processed that used to be.

Plus more mail is now processed by automation then at anytime in Royal Mail history.

Yes, but if the MCs are still running light, then the true picture re declining mail is even worse, isn't it?