Not the Deal of the Century

[Roy Mayall]

Reading some of the news reports about the national agreement signed between the CWU and the Royal Mail last week, you’d be forgiven for thinking that we’d secured the deal of the century. Under the headline ‘Pay rise and bonuses for striking postmen’, the Daily Express said: ‘Royal Mail postal workers who caused havoc with a series of strikes before Christmas are to get a pay rise, shorter hours and bonuses of up to £2500.’ Or try this headline from thisismoney.co.uk (owned by the Daily Mail): ‘Royal Mail strikers get more for less work.’

Read more here: http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2010/03/15/ro ... e-century/

[brothermagrew]

Well said brother and please keep the informative articles coming

[Pat Ostman]

Are the comments moderated Roy, mine just disappeared into the ether somewhere?

[Roy Mayall]

I'm not sure what they do with the comments. You have to log on and I suspect they will be moderated. Hopefully your comment will appear soon, and I can reply to it. I like the idea of us postal workers leaving comments on the London Review of Books website.

[clashcityrocker]

When you say "most " postal workers will be between £10 and £30 worse off, where do your figures come from?

[Pat Ostman]

When you say "most " postal workers will be between £10 and £30 worse off, where do your figures come from?

Reality. Average 'drops' - 'average payments'

Where do the CWU figures come from when they say we will be better off?

[Roy Mayall]

Your comment is up Pat.

Clash: I must admit that's an ad hoc figure plucked from my conversations with colleagues at work. Personally I'm about £20 down. How much are you losing?

[Lounge Lizard]

The Daily Express said: "Royal Mail postal workers who caused havoc with a series of strikes before Christmas are to get a pay rise, shorter hours and bonuses of up to £2500." - well that just gives everyone the message that going on strike is the way to get what you want encouraging a return to 1970s Britain

[postmanpat9]

LEAVE THE UNION AS THEY OBVIOUSLY DO NOT REPRESENT DELIVERY POSTMEN.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

LEAVE THE UNION AS THEY OBVIOUSLY DO NOT REPRESENT DELIVERY POSTMEN.

But after your vote or your view if it gels with others will not be accurately represented.

[Razzamadazz]

Just to get into the debate on the issue of the delivery supplement, first of all you need to look at D2D's, there has always been an agreement that the maximum D2D contracts per week is three, this limit has stifled the business in the past and has stopped it from being competitive in a very lucrative market. Currently the UK market leaders in the D2D’s is TNT, they own the greatest number of contracts over the whole of UK market, placing leaflets in the national press, Sunday newspaper supplements, national magazines ect. Royal Mail however only owns a small number of contracts due to the maximum limit of three. The remaining is owned by smaller companies who place leaflets inside local newspapers and some magazines for example. Raising the limit on D2D’s now gives Royal Mail the ability, for the first time; to actively compete with TNT and other companies for the lion’s share of this very profitable market.

As for how many D2D’s you could receive per delivery per week, currently even if Royal Mail was to obtain 100% of the UK D2D market it would only equate to about nine contracts, but don’t be alarmed by the thought of delivering nine sets of D2D’s per week, across the world other postal industries such as America for example deliver as many as they can, they do this by employing mailing houses which prepare, and or fold the leaflets before placing them into what they call a “sheath” this is like an envelope which is designed to carry all the leaflets as one item, when it is posted through the letter box it opens up to present the leaflets in like a splayed out fan for the customer to choose which D2D’s they wish to retain. If Royal Mail was to go down this route, and as I understand it they will, instead of employing mailing houses, this work could be given to Walk Bundling Centres for example, more work equals more jobs.

As I understand it, from asking questions on what was the rationale behind the new delivery supplement, from the outset of negotiations Royal Mail’s stance was, as they currently couldn’t compete in the UK D2D market with a maximum limit of 3, and so they would introduce D2D’s into workload and give a one off lump sum payment and lift the cap on D2D’s. This would mean losing D2D payments for ever and delivery staff would be delivering more D2D’s for no extra payment.

“The unaddressed Door to Door market provides an opportunity to grow volume which will potentially help to protect jobs and bring additional revenue into the business”, this statement taken from the agreement is true, the more work we have, the more jobs we have, the more revenue we have, the more opportunity the union have to make claim to that revenue and negotiate an increase in basic pay and the £20.60 supplement.

The delivery supplement of £20.60 will be paid over a 52 week period, currently when you’re on annual leave you don’t receive a payment for D2D’s, the person covering your duty gets it because they are delivering them, also over the 2 - 3 week Christmas period D2D’s cease and therefore there is no payment at all. This means you personally, currently only get 44 - 45 payments a year. (based on 5 weeks annual leave)

The £20.60 incorporates the early morning shift allowance (EMSA) “shown as Network 2007 Pay Protection on your wage slip” worth £12.37 and it also takes into consideration of the possible total loss of D2D payments.

The EMSA has been used to make up part of the new delivery supplement due to the agreement reached in 2007 on Pay & Modernisation. The 2007 Pay & Modernisation agreement stated that the CWU and Royal Mail would “agree how this money, and equivalent MTSF payments for early shifts, may be used going forward as part of the pay restructuring process in Joint Working Group 2 – if no satisfactory solution is found then grandfather rights will be retained. The early shift payment is ceased in delivery on agreement to pay restructuring”. Therefore rather than lose that money altogether they looked at how they could restructure pay and secure as much money as possible for the future. In coming up with the decision to agree a delivery supplement the CWU considered several factors and options such as:

• As people leave the business the EMSA is lost, £3, million was lost to this last year alone.
• Only two thirds of delivery members are currently being paid D2D money
• Spread the money available out evenly between F/T & P/T delivery members by way of a delivery supplement, this would reduce the £20.60 to about £18.00 each
• Secure the delivery supplement over 52 weeks of the year
• Individuals in receipt of pensionable allowances incorporated into this payment will retain full pensionability of those elements on a reserved rights basis.
• Spread the money across the whole of the business by increasing basic pay by about half a percent
• Keep the EMSA of £12.37 as “grandfather rights” and still lose the money on D2D’s or agree upon a £20.60 delivery supplement
• Most P/T members don’t currently receive the EMSA
• Lose all the money completely by not reaching an agreement

Now let’s look at the part time issue of the delivery supplement only being paid on a pro rata basis. The £20.60 delivery supplement divided by 39 (39hrs = the new full time hours) £20.60 / 39 = 0.52 (approximately) per hour. Most part time delivery contracts are currently 25hrs, so we’ll use 25hrs as the example. So, 25 x £0.52 = £13.00. With the introduction of the shorter working week by 1hr, this automatically raises part time staff’s hourly rate from £8.69 to £8.91, on a 25hr contract that increases the weekly wage from £217.25 to £222.82, an increase of £5.57 per week. So on the basis that you was going to lose the D2D payments completely and the fact that most P/T delivery staff never received the EMSA, £18.57 seems better than nothing at all.

It's not a fantastic deal, it's the best that they could get, it's very rare that when you enter into a negotiation you get everything you want, you have a starting point and negotiate to point where both parties have got something near to what they wanted. This I believe is what the CWU have done, they have shifted Royal Mail's starting point of "you're getting nothing" to the deal we currently have on the table now, "Business Transformation 2010 & Beyond".

[Pat Ostman]

As for the pro-rata system, I personally do not see where you get the maths from or why you even bothered using maths. The fact of the matter is that by your calculation the Full Timer will be getting 29.17+ extra per week when you take into account the reduction by an hour and the D.S, not just the part time staff. I did not see that mentioned in your calculations. Also just because a few full time people get allowances does not give a carte blanche to rape part time contracts. Royal Mail have ALWAYS used this unfair system. Unfair because of the average hours part timers actually end up doing. It's also not fair to divide anything. the delivery of the D2D's will not be divided. The part time staff will be expected to deliver the whole of the week's worth, same as a full timer. If someone is doing the same work they should be paid the same.

The bottom line is that the pro-rata element should not have been used for the delivery supplement. Most part time staff do far more hours than they are contracted for and are constantly shafted.

Finally and even more importantly,

I would also love to know where we are expected to find the extra time to do this increased work. Royal Mail have no intentions of increasing contracts to compensate for the extra workload. If I do not have enough time now, how am I expected to find the time if this deal passes? There is only so much you can do in 5hr's a day, I am already over that limit now.

More D2D's means increased call percentages and heavier loads and even more work.

Sorry but the tank is already running on fumes.

[clashcityrocker]

Clash: I must admit that's an ad hoc figure plucked from my conversations with colleagues at work. Personally I'm about £20 down. How much are you losing?

I don't think what I am personally losing is relevant.
The question people should be asking themselves is what do WE gain by putting D2D into workload.
The D2D money is not guaranteed and as/if TNT take a bigger share of the market we all stand to lose without gaining anything.

[coxie]

i emailed editor@thisismoney.co.uk to tell them what a load of s**t their article was

[Pat Ostman]

i emailed editor@thisismoney.co.uk to tell them what a load of s**t their article was

http://blogs.thisismoney.co.uk/2010/03/ ... -mail.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

They have apologised because of emails like yours Coxie

Last week it was reported that postmen and women would be getting more money for less work under a new contract.

But the overwhelming response from posties to This is Money has been to tell us that this is not necessarily true. Instead they warn that the new contract will actually mean less money for them and more junk mail for you.

At least Simon Lambert can keep his integrity. Becky Barrow, who wrote the works of fiction (writing it solely based on Royal Mail/CWU press releases) hasn't though. If you look through her history she has had an agenda against posties for some time.