Briefing report from -Paul Fisher Area Delivery Rep for TA.

[chewi]

we crashed and burned big time today. Not enough people in the office to do the work!!! ?The shape of things to come!! AA anyone?

[Martin Walsh]

Up my road enlighten me how do you see the delivery job going forward when walk sequencing is introduce in Nine Elms for your area. As both the trials areas for walk seqeuencing demonstrate that 60% of the work which clears a mail centre at midnight can be walk sequenced and be ready for appox 0530 , but the second 40% of work does not clear the mail centre till 4 40 in the morning . Presently this work arrives in the dellivery office for IPS sorting but now this work will be first run on the ilsm"s and then on walk sequencing.

Which will mean all the ips work you will have in your office is machine reects , packets and flats. Once the 40% of the work arrives then this work can then be prepped but it wont be arriving till in most cases till after 9 in the morning.

So lets examine if you lose a big potion of your ips say an hours work, then you have not got 40% of your prep till after 9 then tell me what solutions you have for maintiainig full time jobs.

The Union is attempting to argue why would you delay the mail later by using the machines on the second wave of 40% if that could be done quicker in the delivery offices. Plus can 3.5 hours sustain a full time job on an 8 hour day if you lose your ips have sequcencd mail rather then normal preping.

Now Kwik Fit unlike you i wont insult you, but i know the side i am on and i have work dammed hard over the last 3 weeks to move everyone forward who has made that scarifce becuase I believed they deserved not to lose anymore money, But despite days in meetings with acas etc we have not been able to. Therefore we will be asking for more action. I am happy to come and meet your office again at anytime . But lets get one thing stragiht this is a fight about whether we have full time jobs in the future with good terms and conditons.

So with that goal in mind and knowing Royal Mail "s automation and pipeline plans , yes we are looking at a shorter working week which means a genuine reduction of your 40 hours. Now there is over and above that a debate wetherer you remove paid breaks in return for an increased hourly rate. The plus side to this is that your hourly rate would go up and of course your pay will increase based on a 3 year deal. The downside is that your meal relief would in future be unpaid. However legally you have to have meal relief in the first 5 hours.

Now in terms of longer spans well I think there is a choice to be made, in an 8 hour day or less with a shorter working week what other work is available, well door to door into workload will help but Royal Mail have a obsession with working all hours and they will check workload against hours to ensure that this is taking place

Now just to let you and others in the London area know that within the leaked in commericial document which we recieved in London about Royal Mail s plans for London it states

All offices will have a geo route revison before March 2011

All will have indoor workload tool based on 100 BSi

All offices to have car derived vans for all walks less than a mile from the office

All groups of 4 walks will be called links and will have to have their leave allocation within these groups and absorb eachothers leave and sickness.

On top of this they talk about clousres of delivery offices including a plan for the amalgamation of the Norwood offices , SE2 and SE28 going into the new office for woolwich

Further offices into SE1

SW4 and 8 into Battersea

Plus a few others.

So you see its a complex plan the union is dealing with. Of course everyone likes to believe these things will not happen but the trials are proving otherwise and does the union deny this to be popular or do they attempt to negotiate in order to protect full time jobs in the future?

[dvbuk55]

Now just to let you and others in the London area know that within the leaked in commericial document which we recieved in London about Royal Mail s plans for London it states

All offices will have a geo route revison before March 2011

All will have indoor workload tool based on 100 BSi

All offices to have car derived vans for all walks less than a mile from the office

All groups of 4 walks will be called links and will have to have their leave allocation within these groups and absorb eachothers leave and sickness.

On top of this they talk about clousres of delivery offices including a plan for the amalgamation of the Norwood offices , SE2 and SE28 going into the new office for woolwich

Further offices into SE1

SW4 and 8 into Battersea

Plus a few others.

So you see its a complex plan the union is dealing with. Of course everyone likes to believe these things will not happen but the trials are proving otherwise and does the union deny this to be popular or do they attempt to negotiate in order to protect full time jobs in the future?

That paragraph alone sums it up, for me at least, this isn't about a National issue at all and the call for unity is simply a bolster for London. As has been stated on this site dozens of times most of what is in store for you, WE have already endured and with the unions blessing - so the plan was no more complex before it was leaked/published than it was when we had the georoute and park and loop and the loss of hundreds of hours over the last 15 months. For us there is no going back, we have lost out because there was no support for us and any deal now will not alter our position one iota.

As far as I can see you haven't absorbed Phase 3 yet which WAS agreed in the 2007 agreement- what should be on the table NOW is Phase 4 and the equalisation of work loads without the bullying and harassment and to increase the contractual obligations of part timers to reflect the amount of work they have to do.

I feel that the negotiations are being sidetracked and unduly biased towards London when there are at least 90,000 of us who actually DO work outside London and financially, proportionately and numerically outweigh those who feel they should have a disproportionate input on these negotiations.

[POSTMAN]

Now just to let you and others in the London area know that within the leaked in commericial document which we recieved in London about Royal Mail s plans for London it states

All offices will have a geo route revison before March 2011

All will have indoor workload tool based on 100 BSi

All offices to have car derived vans for all walks less than a mile from the office

All groups of 4 walks will be called links and will have to have their leave allocation within these groups and absorb eachothers leave and sickness.

On top of this they talk about clousres of delivery offices including a plan for the amalgamation of the Norwood offices , SE2 and SE28 going into the new office for woolwich

Further offices into SE1

SW4 and 8 into Battersea

Plus a few others.

So you see its a complex plan the union is dealing with. Of course everyone likes to believe these things will not happen but the trials are proving otherwise and does the union deny this to be popular or do they attempt to negotiate in order to protect full time jobs in the future?

That paragraph alone sums it up, for me at least, this isn't about a National issue at all and the call for unity is simply a bolster for London. As has been stated on this site dozens of times most of what is in store for you, WE have already endured and with the unions blessing - so the plan was no more complex before it was leaked/published than it was when we had the georoute and park and loop and the loss of hundreds of hours over the last 15 months. For us there is no going back, we have lost out because there was no support for us and any deal now will not alter our position one iota.

As far as I can see you haven't absorbed Phase 3 yet which WAS agreed in the 2007 agreement- what should be on the table NOW is Phase 4 and the equalisation of work loads without the bullying and harassment and to increase the contractual obligations of part timers to reflect the amount of work they have to do.

I feel that the negotiations are being sidetracked and unduly biased towards London when there are at least 90,000 of us who actually DO work outside London and financially, proportionately and numerically outweigh those who feel they should have a disproportionate input on these negotiations.

dv i agree with you in part mate and i know you're pissed along with others,but what about the other part of Dingo's post?

[BELIAL]

Well this bit seems crucial


So lets examine if you lose a big potion of your ips say an hours work, then you have not got 40% of your prep till after 9 then tell me what solutions you have for maintiainig full time jobs.

Where does this one hour IPS saving come from? I just can't fathom it . As a trial area and for reasons stated elsewhere our IPS volume has increased not decreased . The introduction of sequencing machines will never increase the amount of walksorted mail arriving at your DO indeed quite the reverse.
Even if this magic 1hr saving materialised ,I still don't get the logic of needing longer walk spans to protect FT jobs .
Save 1 hr per day = 7hr day , X 5 = 35 hr week

[dvbuk55]

I am not for one moment criticising Dingos commitment to his members nor him pushing their case but it is time to face reality.

It is not going to be possible to avoid an increase in part time duties. Every post that has been filled in our office in the last 3 years has been filled on a part time contract ranging from 16 to 30 hours. To my knowledge only 3 of 52 duties have been made full time in that same period. It is common knowledge that this has been going on throughout the country and it is to bury your head in the sand if anyone thinks this is not about to continue in deliveries at least.

It is true that we are going to lose some time to mechanisation but how much? To me RM state a case and the negotiators don't seem to have any argument as to why it is wrong to assume the amount of savings. There is also the point that mechanisation IS coming BUT it isn't here yet. The reason why these negotiations are stymied is because neither side truly know what the exact position is.

It is ridiculous to believe that just to keep adding to the delivery span is the answer to the problem together with an increase in D2D. Don't these people realise that packets have increased to such an extent that pouches are as heavy as ever and more numerous. If there is another round of mechanisation or whatever do we increase the delivery span to 6 hours, 6.5 hours. That to me is the crux of the matter certainly for deliveries - it cannot be done. A longer delivery span may well preserve full time jobs BUT it would certainly mean a huge loss of full time jobs because the deliveries would be less - how many? again another imponderable because it would depend on the area and how close to the 3.5 hour span they are now.

I wouldn't disagree that this is a complex problem but the CWU has had 2 years to see the problems that would be encountered and to formulate a plan that meets any criteria and quite frankly have sat on their hands.

[kwikpost]

Up my road enlighten me how do you see the delivery job going forward when walk sequencing is introduce in Nine Elms for your area. As both the trials areas for walk seqeuencing demonstrate that 60% of the work which clears a mail centre at midnight can be walk sequenced and be ready for appox 0530 , but the second 40% of work does not clear the mail centre till 4 40 in the morning . Presently this work arrives in the dellivery office for IPS sorting but now this work will be first run on the ilsm"s and then on walk sequencing.

Which will mean all the ips work you will have in your office is machine reects , packets and flats. Once the 40% of the work arrives then this work can then be prepped but it wont be arriving till in most cases till after 9 in the morning.

So lets examine if you lose a big potion of your ips say an hours work, then you have not got 40% of your prep till after 9 then tell me what solutions you have for maintiainig full time jobs.

The Union is attempting to argue why would you delay the mail later by using the machines on the second wave of 40% if that could be done quicker in the delivery offices. Plus can 3.5 hours sustain a full time job on an 8 hour day if you lose your ips have sequcencd mail rather then normal preping.

Now Kwik Fit unlike you i wont insult you, but i know the side i am on and i have work dammed hard over the last 3 weeks to move everyone forward who has made that scarifce becuase I believed they deserved not to lose anymore money, But despite days in meetings with acas etc we have not been able to. Therefore we will be asking for more action. I am happy to come and meet your office again at anytime . But lets get one thing stragiht this is a fight about whether we have full time jobs in the future with good terms and conditons.

So with that goal in mind and knowing Royal Mail "s automation and pipeline plans , yes we are looking at a shorter working week which means a genuine reduction of your 40 hours. Now there is over and above that a debate wetherer you remove paid breaks in return for an increased hourly rate. The plus side to this is that your hourly rate would go up and of course your pay will increase based on a 3 year deal. The downside is that your meal relief would in future be unpaid. However legally you have to have meal relief in the first 5 hours.

Now in terms of longer spans well I think there is a choice to be made, in an 8 hour day or less with a shorter working week what other work is available, well door to door into workload will help but Royal Mail have a obsession with working all hours and they will check workload against hours to ensure that this is taking place

Now just to let you and others in the London area know that within the leaked in commericial document which we recieved in London about Royal Mail s plans for London it states

All offices will have a geo route revison before March 2011

All will have indoor workload tool based on 100 BSi

All offices to have car derived vans for all walks less than a mile from the office

All groups of 4 walks will be called links and will have to have their leave allocation within these groups and absorb eachothers leave and sickness.

On top of this they talk about clousres of delivery offices including a plan for the amalgamation of the Norwood offices , SE2 and SE28 going into the new office for woolwich

Further offices into SE1

SW4 and 8 into Battersea

Plus a few others.

So you see its a complex plan the union is dealing with. Of course everyone likes to believe these things will not happen but the trials are proving otherwise and does the union deny this to be popular or do they attempt to negotiate in order to protect full time jobs in the future?

so are you saying the union is going to negotiate job loses. is that what we striked for.

[Martin Walsh]

Kwikpost are you saying we are not going to lose jobs with automation and the fact they are closing mail centres as a result of one outward pass , the increase useage of Downstream access and increased automation. In collection Hubs now that wave 1 collections are largely being collasped do you think we can sustain the amount of collections.

Some posters are on here are living in a parallel universe from what Royal Mail plans are and what we were strike against and what we were seeking was to stop Royal Mail"s imposition of change both nationally and locally and to negotiate probably the most complex and most important national agreement ever.

I have been in the job for almost 26 years when I started there was at most lsms which was used to mech a few items , then we had imps and ilsms and increased mech. We have had IWM ( improved working methods ) we have had RULC real unit labour costs, we have had Cadr revisons the first computerirsed revisons , we have had SDD , we have had Pay and Mod , plus we have had 5 % cuts ,public sector pay caps. To name just some of the changes we have seen and yes we have lost jobs in that time but we were able to negotiate change which not only protected everyone who wanted to remain in the business and at the same time improved basic pay and benefits.

Now Kwikpost if you really think we were asking you to strike in order to save every job then your wrong. The scale of change we are facing will mean there are less jobs but there cant be anyone forced out the job on complusory terms and we must make the job full time and its got to be a realistic workload job , with good basic pay and a good future for all postal workers free from bullying and imposition. Thats what we were fighting for and thats what we might have to once again man the picket lines in order to achieve it.

Our members have been so loyal in London like yourself and this union owes it to them and the others around the UK who sacrifice their wages in March , April , May , June , July , August and September before the rest of the UK joined the fight. Therefore if the interim agreement is not working then we must fight on and get the right agreement which delivers a proper future for members.

Fishtank and Dvbuk it would not have mattered what was said about the possiblity of further strikes before chirstmas the mail and the right wing media would and will still have a field day. Some of the public will also because of the delays to their chirstmas presents etc. The fact is that we have to do whats right for our members futures and that is further strike action.

[dvbuk55]

From your post Dingo I get the impression that your service has been entirely within the Mail Centres and that would certainly explain your desire to increase the delivery spans and increase D2D, but the truth of the matter is that it is not possible to continue to increase outdoor activity continuously without a true regard for the amount of work already carried out.

When I read your posts I seem to be working for a different Royal Mail, a Royal Mail where part time contracts have been a reality for at least three years, where increased delivery spans have been in existence for years, where the use of PDAs, Park and Loop, HCTs, no job and finish have been a fact for 18 months and more, where people are put on and taken off duties at will, where promises are broken daily, weekly, monthly by management, where bullying and harassment is a reality, where duties are imposed, where executive action is the rule and not the exception - and if these are the things you are fighting against well the stable door has been open for far too long.

If there is to be a recall for strike action I sincerely hope they have the decency to send people out to the provinces to drum up support before making a statement via the press, which is how we found out the strikes had been called off - so you may deny the power of the media when it doesn't suit but seem to use it when it does, and really it is not the media who judge us, they merely report it, it is the people who will judge us and having been promised a strike free Christmas that is what they will expect.

[hantsman]

I do have to say that the above post is spot on!

[Martin Walsh]

Dvbuk your wrong I come from a delivery office, a rather large one in London which when I started had over 150 nights and 230 on days. We had a 6 day week working 43 hours per week.

That same delivery office now has 16 night duties and less than 100 on days. It use to have a 4 day week but now has a 5 day week. It has moved away from its postcode area becasuse Royal Mail wanted to sweat the assets. It has pda"s , and works to time. Yes some workload has gone like datapost , parcels and Postrooms in BOs but in the main the rest has gone due to Royal Mail1s drive for effeinecy.

So dont talk to me about change we have all seen it happen but the difference is that you either decide to be a monument to change or you shape it. Thats why we are fighting to make sure that we all have a future.

Now its not a case of us demanding help and explaining things to anyone. I suggust you have a look at the Scotland leaked document which is on this site, we have the same one in London and their is one which has been leaked from Thames Valley. But you can be sure that each region has its own which will be very similar. The facts are Royal Mail will introdce their quarter 4 budget plans in January and this is 10% saving for most regions. Over and above this will be Royal Mail"s modensation plans.

Their were joint working parties after 2007 but they hardly met and didt achieve anything.

In terms of what progress I would want to have seen in the national talks well some agreements on geo route , revison methods , mtsf , mail centre strategy and movement on the benefits package. However we have not moved most of these any further forward in fact Royal Mail are even claiming that the pay bill is more expensive now then it was in 2007 with all the job losses which we have seen.

So you tell me is that enough or do you want to give me any other excuse why the unions selling you out and its all to late or that its London and you have suffered more ?

So in conclusion dvbuk we all face the same things and we have all seen change.

[dvbuk55]

Well Dingo you and I are poles apart.

I have seen and digested the Scottish document and guess what - that isn't the future for us - that is the here, now and yesterday, not tomorrow.

You say that there has been no movement since 2007 and yet people were charged to make agreements and have seen the denigration across most of the country but obviously not everywhere and now it comes to the crux of the matter - are the strikes going to change those offices who have had executive action already foisted on them or not - will agreements be retrospective?

It was your call to have the interim agreement accepted and we, who also went on strike, had no choice - our next choice is do we go out if the call comes to strike? Lets not jump the gun though - what will the PEC decide - after great deliberation, just like last time?

[wranglered]

Well Dingo you and I are poles apart.

I have seen and digested the Scottish document and guess what - that isn't the future for us - that is the here, now and yesterday, not tomorrow.

You say that there has been no movement since 2007 and yet people were charged to make agreements and have seen the denigration across most of the country but obviously not everywhere and now it comes to the crux of the matter - are the strikes going to change those offices who have had executive action already foisted on them or not - will agreements be retrospective?

It was your call to have the interim agreement accepted and we, who also went on strike, had no choice - our next choice is do we go out if the call comes to strike? Lets not jump the gun though - what will the PEC decide - after great deliberation, just like last time?

I line up with you DV....the horse is well and truly bolted beyond London....

[upmyroad]

Kwikpost are you saying we are not going to lose jobs with automation and the fact they are closing mail centres as a result of one outward pass , the increase useage of Downstream access and increased automation. In collection Hubs now that wave 1 collections are largely being collasped do you think we can sustain the amount of collections.

Some posters are on here are living in a parallel universe from what Royal Mail plans are and what we were strike against and what we were seeking was to stop Royal Mail"s imposition of change both nationally and locally and to negotiate probably the most complex and most important national agreement ever.

I have been in the job for almost 26 years when I started there was at most lsms which was used to mech a few items , then we had imps and ilsms and increased mech. We have had IWM ( improved working methods ) we have had RULC real unit labour costs, we have had Cadr revisons the first computerirsed revisons , we have had SDD , we have had Pay and Mod , plus we have had 5 % cuts ,public sector pay caps. To name just some of the changes we have seen and yes we have lost jobs in that time but we were able to negotiate change which not only protected everyone who wanted to remain in the business and at the same time improved basic pay and benefits.

Now Kwikpost if you really think we were asking you to strike in order to save every job then your wrong. The scale of change we are facing will mean there are less jobs but there cant be anyone forced out the job on complusory terms and we must make the job full time and its got to be a realistic workload job , with good basic pay and a good future for all postal workers free from bullying and imposition. Thats what we were fighting for and thats what we might have to once again man the picket lines in order to achieve it.

Our members have been so loyal in London like yourself and this union owes it to them and the others around the UK who sacrifice their wages in March , April , May , June , July , August and September before the rest of the UK joined the fight. Therefore if the interim agreement is not working then we must fight on and get the right agreement which delivers a proper future for members.

Fishtank and Dvbuk it would not have mattered what was said about the possiblity of further strikes before chirstmas the mail and the right wing media would and will still have a field day. Some of the public will also because of the delays to their chirstmas presents etc. The fact is that we have to do whats right for our members futures and that is further strike action.

I think all the CWU really wanted from these strike's was to get their feet under the table. They are far more worried about being sidelined then they are about our working conditions. Dingo when was the last time you did a delivery

[wranglered]

Yeah Dingo, when????