joint statement on deliveries due out

[POSTMAN]

f**k me do you two want to be tucked in!

[Glenno]

Are we talking Naughty Room

[POSTMAN]

I regularly tuck the 'other' two in.

[Glenno]

[Danelectro]

Totally agree Glenno, problem is it's much easier to stand on the sidelines and blame someone else if everything isn't perfect according to Yourself then actually get involved Yourself and as you say make the best of agreement for whole office sake not only oneself.

Well it must be different strokes for different folks,the more i get involved the more brickwalls i come across,there is not enough guidelines or support for reps and there is far too much of the leave it to the experts attitude rather than open up a dialogue with the membership.

I really wish some of the people who say the union has got everything in this deal right take a look at the age and physical fitness of some of its members.I do believe the idea that if indoor content drops then having to fill it up with outdoor work is going to force many people to leave royal mail.

If the union thought that the DSA agreement couldnt be challenged and accept the business agenda which is what they used to call a race to the bottom then they should have just bit the bullet and admit in future Royal Mail would be a mainly part time industry rather than create duty structures and performance standards that seem to take no account of age and length of service.

The agreement should have had more protection for the people currently employed by Royal Mail rather than this false promise(up to 6 hour CDV is not a job you could do from school to retirement) of a full time industry.

Of course of all this is happening in the context of major cut backs for public services and rationalisation of people in many workplaces and it wont go away without a major political change which dosnt look very likely in the near future,so i accept some concessions would probably had to be made but this agreement throws the baby out with bath water.

[Martin Walsh]

Ok Dvbuk and others who are quick to slag the agreement off what would you have done different.

The facts the union had were the machines were purchased , the CDVs were purchased , Royal Mail were saying they were no longer willing to turn away business in the unaddressed market , and that they wanted to standardise perfromance across the industry by moving everyone up to the level of the highest performing offices in the UK and they wanted to reduce mail centres. In addition they wanted to change the workplan to one outward pass and one inward pass which a lot of people have failed to grasp how significant that plan is.

Now lets examine each one of those , Walk sequencing machines with the money from the Government , the union could not stop Royal Mail purchasing them and we could not become some modern day luddites. Now when you do have your walk sequencing revison you will understand how that changes your working life in a major way.

You will recieve appoxmately 60% of your work on the first wave and some offices will be able to get that work in before 0600 but depending on your location some will recieve that work after 0600. Now that work which normally forms your ips will no go straight to your prep frame. Your only IPS will be packets , flats and rejects.

Your second 40% clears a mail centre by about 5 in the morning , that then needs to be transported to the MPU which houses the walk sequencing machines and then the normal plan is to run the office furthest away from the MPU first in batchs of appoxmately 12 walks, each batch has to run 3 times and then once that office is ready then a 7.5 tonne van from the mail centre will take that to the delivery office. Some small offices have chosen to have call and collect which is a van from their own office picking work up from the MPU but for larger offices this is not an option. Now the van from teh mail centre has to suit their duty pattern . Now some offices will recieve their work earlier than others and some will recieve their work as late as 10 in the morning. Now Royal Mail stated that they would not agree to stop running the machines on a saturday therefore they wanted a longer Saturday duty. The union knew that whilst longer saturdays was never going to be popular , the fact remained that delivery offices all had different finishing times some very early and some as late as 3.

Now Royal Mail did threaten at one stage to not have two waves of work and only have work on the second wave which would have meant that all work would arrive in the delivery unit later and the job would simply become a part time industry. Instead the union achieved a 70% national average of full time jobs, plus a committment to less Saturdays.

Now its very easy to moan about things , but what would you have done, remember you have to reprsent 130 thousand members some very strong members and some very weak sectons of the membership.

Now lets look at CDVs, when I first starting on deliveries 35lb meant a delivery anything over was either given to an assistant or was paid at overtime. Now it is not uncommon for delivery postamn and women to have over 10 bags. So what delivery tools were avaiblable tot hem some offices had good arrangements bag drops ect but equally a lot of offices still pile them into their car and work from their car. Now Royal Mail decided that they would adopt CDVs , now I know some people dont like working with others but sorry if it abolishes the use of cars and limits the amount of back injuries then tough. You dont have to be best mates with your partner . So tell me what would you have done different, as a union we have had campaign after campaign about not using cars ?

Now we have walk sequencing which is reducing IPS and pre time, and we have a growing market in unadddressed mail. We have conference policies to have door to door into workload in order to protect jobs. The average payment was £12 ,and some offices did not do them at all ,some had door to door barrons . So in a declining market did the union reject new work or did it get it into workload and get ROYAL mAIL TO PAY TWICE ONCE IN THE WAY OF WORKLOAD VIA A REVISION AND SECOND IN THE WAY OF A 52 WEEK SUPPLEMENT PAID PERMANENT ADDITION TO BASIC PAY. That means when Royal Mail automate it and its easy to do once you have 6 tehn you will still have money protected. Plus the union has got the right to review extra revenue. So what would you have done reject the increase in door to door , try and fight for an early shift payment hen you know under walk sequencing very few will qulaify and knowing under pay and mod it was included in the agreement that grandfather rights would only apply if their was no pay simplifaction.

Its easy to have an opinion and it`s easy to play to the gallery but tell me what the alternative was.

[fishtank]

Instead the union achieved a 70% national average of full time jobs

Tell me that's a typo dingo and not a subtle movement of the goalposts.

[clashcityrocker]

Instead the union achieved a 70% national average of full time jobs

Tell me that's a typo dingo and not a subtle movement of the goalposts.

Whether it is a typo or a moving of the goalposts is slightly irrelevant.
We (nearly) all know we will not see that percentage in our DO.
He could have typed in 50% and hardly anyone would have batted an eyelid.

[POSTMAN]

The crux of it is RM HAVE NOT taken the workforce with them,it'a case of it's my ball we play my game.
They have f****d us over,we've just got to make the best out of it.

If there was NO deal,what would it be like.

[stokes11eg]

Dingo, if you read your post back, you will see how R/M bullied the Union into accepting this deal. 'They' weren't willing' and 'they wanted' As for the rest of the agreement. Well ,it seems likely that in some offices the CDV debacle will not be introduced.What then for those offices! I see also thet R?M 'threaten' at one stage--to make the job a part time industry, and again the Union buckled under this threat.
I think also the Unions are burying their heads in the sand about how this agreement is already changing in the telling! And as for the 70% full time job, that must apply to the Management only. Can the Union come back to us with proof of how many workers are full time now?

[DGP1]

Dingo, I'd personally like RM to abide by the agreements they do make, my office has had it's planner taken away and given to another office when it's widely known in the area that my office is a complete disaster (so much so that we now have monthly HYS to guage how the office is now doing), we're now stuck with duties that are too large that we where promised would be fixed from they where put in.

[dvbuk55]

Instead the union achieved a 70% national average of full time jobs

Tell me that's a typo dingo and not a subtle movement of the goalposts.

I can pretty much guarantee it is a typo Although what does it matter there is never going to be a 75/25 split or even a 70/30 split it is both unmanageable and unworkable and is a NATIONAL average - so in Watford it may be 90/10, in Bradford 55/45 so what good is a national average to a part timer in Bradford? Of course these union people speak of the big picture and winners and losers.......................... says it all really.

TBH I'm sick of listening to the same old excuses. Royal Mail bought this, Royal Mail said that, so what? What the membership wanted to hear is what the union said and did - it's pretty obvious from the outcome that they had no bottle - after just two days of National IA they had reached an interim agreement which actually didn't hold water and almost 12 months down the line there are still debates ongoing.

What should have been done differently was to use the IA to get a better deal, such as a much shorter working week and not fool people with false promises of full time work which in the main is pie in the sky. You cannot exchange indoor work for outdoor work as you and the union seem to think and so consequently you need to adjust the working day.

As for the bs about D2D saving full time jobs, really - face facts that was never a goer and that excuse was merely a sop to get it accepted. There were untruths told about RM getting rid of them and even employing a second workforce. Any means at all were employed to get a yes vote but the fact of the matter was it was a bad deal and the union to maintain any credibility should have said so.

[Big Daz]

Still waiting for extra DTD on my delivery

[Broxi51]

Ok Dvbuk and others who are quick to slag the agreement off what would you have done different.

I would have lifted the cap on d2d's but pushed for a pay rise in them. RM would have gladly accepted the extra d2d's and still pay the pittance and we would be in the same boat as we are now only we would have been paid for them. The extra we are carrying now means nowt to RM who still want to slash and burn in offices even with the extra volume of traffic that d2d's are generating.
We used to get the traffic figure in our office on a daily basis but since d2ds are mail there has been nothing about traffic figures to show an increase in the volume.
I would have communicated with all members during all aspects of discussion with RM since they are paying me to do this. There is no need for secrecy.
I would have an agreement that no member of staff will be bullied or pressurised into going over without OT. If there is a genuine problem then both the rep & dom should check out what the problem is and either restructure duty or retrain staff member. RM should value their staff.
I do believe that there can be savings nationwide but it is NOT in every office and RM should be made aware of that fact and act accordingly.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh......................pipe dreams

[gb93]

Still waiting for extra DTD on my delivery

Same here BD but evrythng comes to he who waits