Not the Deal of the Century

[Razzamadazz]

Pat, thanks for your response. In answer to your comment

where you get your maths from

I learnt my maths at school, it's a very basic equation, £20.60 divided by 39 hours equals £0.52. The reason I used maths at all is because of the comments made in this thread

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

and

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 thought that was how it was done on here, you respond to peoples comments.

You also said,

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.

The reason I never mentioned this in my calculations is because it's wrong. Where did you get the extra £8.57 from? As I said, due to the 1hr reduction in the working week, the hourly rate will automatically increase from £8.69 to £8.91, that's not just for part timers, that's for everyone and I'm sorry if it bores you but here's the maths to prove it: £347.61 divided by 40hrs = £8.69, reduce the working week from 40hrs to 39hrs and the sum is now £347.61 divided by 39hrs = £8.91. Actually with the 2.5% pay increase in the first year, the the hourly rate is worth even more.

You also said,

The bottom line is that the pro-rata element should not have been used for the delivery supplement.

It is used for other payments such as, Christmas Bonus and the old 50/50 share scheme for example. If you took away the "pro rata" and paid everyone the same the argument could be reversed, I can already hear full time people shouting "why are part timers getting paid the same as us when they work less hours than we do?"

You also said,

The bottom line is that the pro-rata element should not have been used for the delivery supplement.

As I said in my original post,

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

Sorry but here we go again with the maths, using this scenario, the £18.00 would be worth £0.46 per hour, therefore full timers would get the maximum £18.00, where as a part timer on a 25hr delivery contract would get £11.50 + £5.57 (because of the automatic icrease in the hourly rate) = £17.07. So F/T = £18.00 and P/T = £17.07, a difference of £0.93 per week. OK I see your argument, £48.36 per year. With this in mind maybe someone should put a motion to conference to reduce full timers Christmas bonus and increase part timers bonus, I think it's only fair, or do you think full timers would complain about that?

You stated,

Royal Mail have no intentions of increasing contracts to compensate for the extra workload.

The new agreement states: "That the operational transformation programme and associated workplan support the nationally planned staffing mix of around 75 percent full time/25 per cent part time." There's your answer right there.

You asked the question,

I would also love to know where we are expected to find the extra time to do this increased work.

which is basically the same question clashcityrocker asked

The question people should be asking themselves is what do WE gain by putting D2D into workload.

With the introduction of D2D's into worload, with our delivery duties as the currently stand it would be impossible to include this work without looking at how the duty is structured. The new agreement is called the Business Transformation agreement, this indicates a massive change in the way we currently work, nothing is ruled in and nothing is ruled out, it is all about structuring duties that best suit your office, these could be 5,4,3,2 and even 1 hour delivery spans, it’s up to your office to decide what suits your offices workplan and individuals choices. The duties will be structured using three tools, the Indoor Workload Tool, (this tool basically determines how many indoor staff are required to sort all the mail based on prep rates and traffic levels (which will increase with the introduction of D2D's into workload), Pegasus and Geo-route, these two tools are combined and feed off each others data, Pegasus stores information such as delivery points, post codes, ect ect, Geo-route, based on the data entered into Pegasus along with other data such as walking speeds, call rates, delivery spans, traffic levels, down time (time you need on your delivery to knock on a door and get a signature for example) ect ect, these two tools combined basically plot your delivery route. The agreement indicates that joint working groups have been set up to look at these issues and there are still negotiations going on over the data that will be input into these planning tools. All three of these tools are computer programmes, there is nothing wrong with the actual programmes and they will be used as planning tools, remember, a computer programme is only as good as the data you put into it. Therefore before anyone starts structuring any new duties this data, such as traffic levels, prep rates, down time, walking speeds and other such data must be agreed nationally first. It’s been indicated that these talks have been making good progress and are nearly completed. With the introduction of D2D’s into workload it has already been accepted that the call rate will have to increase dramatically. Other issues also need to be taken into consideration, Health & Safety for example, i.e. reducing weight over the shoulder by use of new equipment such as, powered trolleys and car derived vans. (given a choice of a van or a bike to deliver my mail, I’d choose a nice warm van with my flask of coffee and a sandwich next to me). A friend of mine not connected to the business in any way I hasten to add, once said to me "I can't believe the British postal service, it's so modern up to a certain point, it uses planes, trains and lorries to whiz the mail from one point to another, then it's all put into some fantastic machine that whiz's it around and miraculously sorts it, then eventually it all comes down to some guy pushing a barrow", was he right do you think?

I think what we need to do is look at the new agreement in a more informed way rather than just write it off without fully understanding it first.

[fishtank]

Razzamadazz wrote
I think what we need to do is look at the new agreement in a more informed way rather than just write it off without fully understanding it first.

Unfortunately your "informed way" relies on one uncontrolablle factor.
The complete and continued co-operation of both local and national managers.
Oh and no unexpected savings plans over the next 3 years.

With the introduction of D2D’s into workload it has already been accepted that the call rate will have to increase dramatically

Accepted by who?
On a 500 call duty with a call rate of 85% the introduction of D2D into workload would increase that call rate by approx 3%.
Any real delivery OPG will tell you the difference between hitting 85% of your doors and 88% of your doors is negligable in terms of delivery span.

[fishtank]

Razzamadazz wrote
I’d choose a nice warm van with my flask of coffee and a sandwich next to me

It had better not be egg on that sandwich or things may be quite tense between you and your park&loop buddy in that nice warm van.
Anyway it's nice to see you back on Razzamadazz it must be all of 2years.

[Razzamadazz]

Unfortunately your "informed way" relies on one uncontrolablle factor.
The complete and continued co-operation of both local and national managers.

I totally agree, it's going to be an uphil struggle to trust these people but at least the new agreement keeps the union involved right from the outset.

Accepted by who?
On a 500 call duty with a call rate of 85% the introduction of D2D into workload would increase that call rate by approx 3%.
Any real delivery OPG will tell you the difference between hitting 85% of your doors and 88% of your doors is negligable in terms of delivery span.

Now that would be telling, the DSM for my area came into my office the other day and I asked him about the D2D into workload issue, he said to me "at least you'll get a 100% call rate out of this" Maybe we will, maybe we won't but it stands to reason that it has to increase, increased traffic levels also means more indoor work that might counter act against the reduction of 9 minutes prep time on each delivery due to walk sequencing. Most importantly, increased traffic levels helps towards maintaining full time employment.

It had better not be egg on that sandwich or things may be quite tense between you and your park&loop buddy in that nice warm van.

Ha ha ha ha, isn't that why windows were invented.

Fishtank, thanks for the welcome back, has it been two years? Time flies so fast in this business.

[coxie]

well i got this response from thisismoney.co.uk

Dear xxxxxx,

Thanks for your comment. The story was written by one of the Daily Mail's
journalists and we received a great deal of comments when we carried it.

Hence this, which I think answers your points. Please feel free to leave a
comment on the blog. It would be much appreciated.

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

[Pat Ostman]

Razz

I hoped you might understand exactly what I meant with the maths analogy, obviously not, so here is a watered down version. You can add, divide or multiply to your hearts content but you will not convince the average part time worker that this particular part of the deal is fair. A full timer gets a full time wage because they work full time. Nobody can deny that.

It is used for other payments such as, Christmas Bonus and the old 50/50 share scheme for example. If you took away the "pro rata" and paid everyone the same the argument could be reversed, I can already hear full time people shouting "why are part timers getting paid the same as us when they work less hours than we do?"

Most part timers in my office over Christmas worked more than the average 'full time hours (40)' because of the workload to help clear the office. Were they rewarded further for this increase in effort? Like hell they were, they got the same pro-rata payment.

However, the real problems comes into force when you have a supplement that is directly tied to (by the CWU's own admission) D2D's. And this I am afraid is a delivery workload shared EQUALLY between full and part time workers. Occasionally you could even have part time workers doing more D2D work than someone with a bigger contract. From my experience on this issue the vast majority of full timers think this part of the deal is grossly unfair to part timers. I think the only shouting will be your own. Also, the point about the ESA being lost is a moot point, not all Full Timers get it yet they will not have a penalty inflicted on their supplement so why should part timers finance it?

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

and

Sorry but here we go again with the maths, using this scenario, the £18.00 would be worth £0.46 per hour, therefore full timers would get the maximum £18.00, where as a part timer on a 25hr delivery contract would get £11.50 + £5.57 (because of the automatic icrease in the hourly rate) = £17.07. So F/T = £18.00 and P/T = £17.07, a difference of £0.93 per week. OK I see your argument, £48.36 per year. With this in mind maybe someone should put a motion to conference to reduce full timers Christmas bonus and increase part timers bonus, I think it's only fair, or do you think full timers would complain about that?

I said this did I? Nope, you quoted your own conundrum and then proceeded to answer yourself

Where did you get the extra £8.57 from?

Full timers not getting the 'free' extra hour then? (actually around 8.58) Add that to the supplement and you have around 29.18 for full timers. You are the one that used this example for bumping up the worth of the part timers D.S, the same applies to full timers as well so it should have been reflected.

There's your answer right there

So I can look forward to an increase in my contract hours then can I? Guaranteed?

No, you did not answer the question. We all know my contract is not going up but my workload IS. 1Hr delivery spans. I'll believe it when I see it.

I think what we need to do is look at the new agreement in a more informed way rather than just write it off without fully understanding it first.

Slightly arrogant but I'll let that slip.


Debate on!

[Razzamadazz]

Pat Ostman wrote:
Razz

Pat Ostman

Slightly arrogant but I'll let that slip.

Firstly I'd like to apologise if my response came across as arrogant, that was not my intention at all. Debate on you said, OK I shall

I hoped you might understand exactly what I meant with the maths analogy, obviously not, so here is a watered down version. You can add, divide or multiply to your hearts content but you will not convince the average part time worker that this particular part of the deal is fair. A full timer gets a full time wage because they work full time. Nobody can deny that.

I fully understood exactly what you meant with the "maths analogy" quote, I just chose to answer it my own way using facts and figures, hoping that you would understand my point, obviously not!

You can add, divide or multiply to your hearts content but you will not convince the average part time worker that this particular part of the deal is fair.

I have spoken to many part time workers who can see how this part of the deal is fair, I have also spoken to, and have already managed to convince a number of part time workers, by using facts and figures that this part of the deal is fair, and by the way, I personally don't class these part time workers as being "average", you however, as proven in your quote, you do consider them as "average", so as I obviously can't convince you, does that make you above or below average? Please be a little more respectful of your fellow colleagues in future.

Most part timers in my office over Christmas worked more than the average 'full time hours (40)' because of the workload to help clear the office. Were they rewarded further for this increase in effort? Like hell they were, they got the same pro-rata payment.

At the risk of losing some of my anonymity, I am an area delivery rep, and over the last Christmas period a lot of the part time workers in my area worked more than 40hrs per week, when I found out that they had only been paid the Christmas bonus on a pro rata basis, I registered a disagreement straight away, and to cut a long story short, after a bit of debate with the DSM, an instruction was sent to all DOMs that all part time workers who had worked more than 40hrs per week were paid the full Christmas bonus. If you know of any of your part time colleagues that can prove they worked 40hrs or more over the Christmas period and yet only got paid the bonus on a pro rata basis, I suggest they raise a grievance.

However, the real problems comes into force when you have a supplement that is directly tied to (by the CWU's own admission) D2D's. And this I am afraid is a delivery workload shared EQUALLY between full and part time workers. Occasionally you could even have part time workers doing more D2D work than someone with a bigger contract.

I think that one thing we can both agree upon is that the D2D service we provide is a "Royal Mail Product", the same as Special Delivery items, Mailsort items, packets, letters and all other streams of mail. My point here is, we don't get paid any extra for delivering any other stream of mail, it was the CWU, that many years ago, negotiated an "extra payment" for D2Ds. At the beginning of the most recent negotiations Royal Mail decided to totally withdraw the "extra payment" on this product. The CWU managed to negotiate as part of this deal, to secure part of the revenue made on Royal Mail products and incorporate it, together with the early morning shift allowance, into a delivery supplement. Pat don't be afraid of delivery workload being shared equally between full time and part time workers, most of us welcome and some of us actually fight for equality.

Full timers not getting the 'free' extra hour then? (actually around 8.58) Add that to the supplement and you have around 29.18 for full timers. You are the one that used this example for bumping up the worth of the part timers D.S, the same applies to full timers as well so it should have been reflected.

Actually Pat, no, the full timers will not get the 'free' extra hour as you call it. They will if they perform more than 39hrs, but that's called overtime. To explain, as wages currently stand without the proposed basic pay increase, the reduction in the full time hours has been reduced by one hour, from 40hrs per week to 39hrs per week, the hour reduction is spread across the remaining 39 hours, this automatically raises the hourly rate and full time workers will now be paid £347.61 for a 39hr week instead of £347.61 for a 40hr week. There is no 'free extra hour' at all. So my question to you still remains un-answered, where did you get the extra £8.57 from?

So I can look forward to an increase in my contract hours then can I? Guaranteed?

OK point taken, nothing in life is guaranteed apart from one thing inevitably. Sorry I didn't explain my point very well, a bit lazy on my behalf but I thought my response said it all. "That the operational transformation programme and associated workplan support the nationally planned staffing mix of around 75 percent full time/25 per cent part time." Through the total re-structuring of your delivery office via the transformation of the business, you may be given, if your workplan allows, the opportunity to increase contractual hours. The new agreement also says: The mix of full time and part time is planned to be around three quarters full time and one quarter part time by 2013. The exact ratio will vary locally depending on the current local mix, needs and employee preferences.

Finally

I said this did I? Nope, you quoted your own conundrum and then proceeded to answer yourself

I think you need to go back and read my post again properly.

Fishtank made a point in an earlier posting,

Anyway it's nice to see you back on Razzamadazz it must be all of 2years

One of the main reasons it's been two years since I last posted anything on here is because I find that, text messages, e-mails, posts on chat forums can be very impersonal, and without being able to listen to the tone in which comments are made or see the facial expression as they are made can be very misleading and give the wrong impression or meaning.

Debate on!

I think not, when a debate comes down to point scoring on something as trivial as "who said this and who said that" and the other debater can't even get that right, it usually means that he/she has nothing relevant left to debate. The "Business Transformation - 2010 & Beyond" agreement is 79 pages long, it covers a host of issues, I feel from the posts I have made, I have covered off a lot of issues and yet the only part of the agreement, that keeps coming back again and again, is the delivery supplement and the pro rata element. I've tried to explain that issue using facts, figures and my own personal experience and understanding. I've been as honest as I can and you choose to call this arrogance. It is for these reasons that this will be my final posting on this particular thread. It's been .................an experience.

[axeman]

d2d already in work load as they are preped during your duty ? why should you have your break in a van perhaps after being out in torrential rain wet and bedraggled when others are sitting in a nice warm canteen ? shouldn't we be getting these posties back into the office for there breaks and toilet relief a constraint of health and saftey which is being ignored by both the cwu and royal fail or if it's not practial (ie rural may be some real distance from the office) then renumeration to them for putting up with royal fails 'modernisation'

[Pat Ostman]

I think you have been pretty hostile to me actually Razz, but it's water off a ducks back to be fair. However if you want to cop out of a debate because you have actually nothing to really add other than CWU spin, well that's your choice.

I've been as honest as I can and you choose to call this arrogance.

Saying along the lines of 'if you read the document properly you will see I am right', is arrogant.

I have spoken to many part time workers who can see how this part of the deal is fair, I have also spoken to, and have already managed to convince a number of part time workers, by using facts and figures that this part of the deal is fair, and by the way, I personally don't class these part time workers as being "average", you however, as proven in your quote, you do consider them as "average", so as I obviously can't convince you, does that make you above or below average? Please be a little more respectful of your fellow colleagues in future.

You have either intentionally or unintentionally taken the different meaning to the word 'average'.

full time workers will now be paid £347.61 for a 39hr week instead of £347.61 for a 40hr week. There is no 'free extra hour' at all. So my question to you still remains un-answered, where did you get the extra £8.57 from?

Semantics and poor at that, word play perhaps.

39x£0.22 = yep, £8.58. You should know, you used 25 x 0.22 as one of your selling points to the part-timers in your office.

Fudging figures, twisting words, and relying on the goodwill of Royal Mail is not going to convince me, or most of my colleagues that this deal is worth voting in.

So either the majority of my office is wrong, or you are right. Who's arrogant again?