Flying sam Royal Mail made a decison prior to the Business Transformation agreement that they would no longer pay a supplement for door to door when they believed traffic was falling and prep time and IPS would be reduced through automation.
They did not orginally want to give a supplement, their view was why should we continue to pay for a product which could be put in workload and delivered with the rest of the mail which they were already paying a basic wage. Royal Mail also made it clear that they were not going to continue turning away money because there was a cap in place limiting door to door to 3 items. On top of this the unit payment did not mantian any quality and the fines the busniess was getting from customers whos door to door did not get delivered was costing them dear and they had to pay comphensation to the customer including the printing of the items , any extra staff they employed for the door to door drop ie a call centre etc.
Now in terms of the early start allowance the reality is I doubt if many will still be on 0500 0r 05;30 following a walk sequencing revison or did you expect the CWU to fight that you mantain an early shift allowance but you dont ever start at that time ?
Now at the moment only 800 000 out of 28 million addresses get 6 door to door payments. So the union argued for all the money which was being payed in early shift and door to door to be trapped and payed to only delivery office staff. This meant that the CWU sercured the money in a permanent addition to basic pay.
Now you may have lost money on a weekly basis but have you lost it over the whole year. As door to door in the main was not delivered in the 2 christmas weeks and you would not have been paid for you annual leave and any sick or special leave you had. On top of this door to door does not remain static during a year sometimes people will get 3 , 4 ,5 or 2 or even 1 however the supplement gets paid every week.
On top of this you have to remember we did not have a rise in door to door since the early 90s , already the supplement has gone up with the pay rise and will go up with future pay rises.
Now in terms of the part time rate , well for part timers it had to be paid pro rata , if it was paid the same as a full timer then the part timer would be on a higher hourly rate than the full timer as the supplement is now a permanent addition to basic pay.
So I know its popular to have a go at the CWU but the union has to deal with an employer who does not accept that people can continue to be paid a unit payment for door to door and a payment for the early shift allowances when they no longer start at 0500 or 05:30.
The CWU has to deal with what the employer is intending to do and argue from that postion. Of course everyone loves the status quo but the employer who pay our wages was never going to continue with the product we had on door to door which stopped their plans for growth.
