Modernisation: progress report : Mark Higson

[bennny7]

i have to agree with most people cant do the walk in time with trolleys dont use one so we can finnish on time cwu a waste of time they told us to vote for this s**t so we can stay out all day on sats

[charlie1]

Some of the customers served by our office would just like a regular delivery everyday Mr Higson. The ones affected most are those on the continuous lapsed walks, these same walks are lapsed every week and have now been for well over a year. Any office resigns do not ever include these lapsed walks.

Monday to Friday you leave your absorbtion behind in the frame if you have not got time to complete it. These cut offs are then delivered through a mixture of of spares, overtime etc.

However on a Saturday (when the staffing is more limited) everyone has to take the absorbtion out, even if you have informed them you will not be able complete. All the management then bugger off early and as the office looks clear, this gives them all a nice early finish.

Monday morning all the Saturday cut offs are piled up in the managers office. These are then either offered out on overtime or quietly slipped into the frame along with the Monday mail in the hope the duty holder does not notice.

Years ago management would have gone out and completed walks where their was no resourse. However in this office where we still have more managers than we have people on the inward sorting most mornings, doing anything but a delivery takes precedent. Lets see what WCM means here when it finally arrives.

[clashcityrocker]

i have to agree with most people cant do the walk in time with trolleys dont use one

The overarching objective is to reduce the weight on the shoulder.
Anyway, have none of you done "The Big Picture"?
If the volume of packets continues to increase your silly little pouches will be of no use to you.

[Dee Plish]

So packets are the future, a growing market. Mr Higson: Why do your managers/planning teams create duties that are so overloaded that there isn't enough time to deliver them? Packets are left in D.O's, piled up in yorks, undelivered for days. Your managers hide behing USO and budgets set from on high for wilfully delaying these items that customers have paid RM to deliver.

One of Moya's recent missives said "grasp the big opportunity in parcels...That's why this Christmas is our most important ever. If we don't get it right our competitors will" . Deliberately FAILING packets for the reasons stated above is the reality of the situation in RM, not some cloud cuckoo land soundbite. Rank bad management is the root cause.

You have a week to get it sorted matey.

[Martin Walsh]

packets are the future of Royal Mail , they now account for 50 % of Royal Mail's revenue. What is more is that it is a very competitive market where there are literally dozens of other alternatives. This means that revenue from what was the core of Royal Mail a few years ago letters and flats are reducing.

Years ago in delivery offices we use to deliver parcels and data post etc , prior to it being given to parcel force. Parcel Force has a significant amount of self employed staff which is growing.

Royal Mail want to ensure that all packets are tracked and signed for in the future hence the new PDAs ordered. Even now CDVs are now too small in some areas to fit the packets. Remember the packet growth is not evenly spread across the UK it is very much driven by rich areas and those who do not live near big shopping outlets.

Royal Mail in many offices have been short sighted and not counted the packets in their revison plans and allotted enough time and are therefore failing to give packets the service they need.

However what is without doubt , is that bags on shoulders , managers turning a blind eye to cars on delivery and the non use of the mandatory equipment will now be targeted in Royal Mail's desire to capture and retain a growing market which Royal Mail still have just 20% of the market for.

I have been in this business for over 28 years and have seen our many members find loop holes to cut corners in order to chase father time and we all know that to be true , well the choice of the future must be if you want good pay and a future then you have to work till your time and use the tools provided and agreed.

[mdm]

That is still a problem, Dingo, but what about us on park and crap who do use the tools for the job and find that doing so you go over your time!! And when you tell the so-called managers they say leave the packets!! The walks are too big and they won't put the hours back in! When is the CWU going to come out of it's ivory tower and look into it!

[fishtank]

well the choice of the future must be if you want good pay and a future then you have to work till your time and use the tools provided and agreed.

If you want your members to do that then as a union you better be prepared to protect them because with the management structure we have you are asking members to paint a target on their backs.
Unit reps have to lead the way in educating and influencing members but it's difficult to take a rep seriously if they are sitting on a management inspired "rep's walk",finishing early but telling you not to.
It's also very difficult for members to take advice from someone at branch,divisional or HQ level who hasn't delivered a letter in 5,10 or even 20 years.
As long as nothing changes in the management structure and nothing changes in the union structure,nothing will change on the shop floor and the race to the bottom will continue at pace.

[ewancurze]

Some of the customers served by our office would just like a regular delivery everyday Mr Higson. The ones affected most are those on the continuous lapsed walks, these same walks are lapsed every week and have now been for well over a year. Any office resigns do not ever include these lapsed walks.

Monday to Friday you leave your absorbtion behind in the frame if you have not got time to complete it. These cut offs are then delivered through a mixture of of spares, overtime etc.

However on a Saturday (when the staffing is more limited) everyone has to take the absorbtion out, even if you have informed them you will not be able complete. All the management then bugger off early and as the office looks clear, this gives them all a nice early finish.

Monday morning all the Saturday cut offs are piled up in the managers office. These are then either offered out on overtime or quietly slipped into the frame along with the Monday mail in the hope the duty holder does not notice.

Years ago management would have gone out and completed walks where their was no resourse. However in this office where we still have more managers than we have people on the inward sorting most mornings, doing anything but a delivery takes precedent. Lets see what WCM means here when it finally arrives.

You must be in the same office as me,that is exactly what happens with us.I have been doing the same bit of lapsing for 2 years now (doesn't matter about the model week) and recently had it extended to include Saturdays which i rarely have time to do,the upshot of this is that the customers on my Saturday lapsing never get any mail on a Saturday but then get 2 deliverys on Monday.

[dvbuk55]

The missive from Mark Higson reminds me of a Honda advert of some years ago "6 out of 10 Honda owners buy another Honda" - which begs the question why didn't the other 4?

It isn't what he says, it's what he doesn't say - like how, without a new agreement, is the other 50% of delivery offices to undergo modernisation when the current agreement runs out in March? It's taken 2 and a half years to get this far Like the immense expense for the CSS machines, which are now debatable, when by their own admission the letters volume is falling and there is no process for sorting packets and parcels other than by hand which takes the IPS beyond it's scheduled time and of course the CSS machines are very very very limited in what they can process. He cdidn't mention how the PIP scheme went down like a lead balloon with customers who blithely use the envelopes of their choice and couldn't give a s**t about RMs scheme and ordinary Joe Public hasn't the faintest idea how it works - as will be seen during the next few weeks with the volume of surcharges!

There is no doubt in my mind that Royal Mail management, with the collusion of the CWU admittedly, has driven this business into the ground and should be thoroughly ashamed of their performance over the last 10 years.

[Lesannste]

It's easy for people to sit on here and slag the union and royal mail off ! Why not grow some balls and realise you are all doing this to yourself by not doing the job properly, you have the right to work your hours, you have the right to demand the correct equipment and you have the right not to be bullied and pressurised. Stop doing this to yourselves

[dvbuk55]

It's easy for people to sit on here and slag the union and royal mail off ! Why not grow some balls and realise you are all doing this to yourself by not doing the job properly, you have the right to work your hours, you have the right to demand the correct equipment and you have the right not to be bullied and pressurised. Stop doing this to yourselves

Get real! Is the modernisation our plan - no. Was the concept of the CSS machines - no. Has the plan been a disaster - yes. As for balls I was born with them how about you?

[Martin Walsh]

Fish I agree that Indivduals who are bullied need to be protected, I think the bully and harassment letter and proforma being sent out to all members asking for indivdual cases to be reported and returned to the CWU to act on is a good thing. Let's get the real evidence and then stop it in the offices where bullying is taking place.

In terms of unit reps , they have a very challenging job ,most attempt to do the job well of representing the members in a unit whilst doing their own jobs as well. Resourcing is one of the important tasks a rep should be doing and I do think he or she should be released to allow this to happen. I don't believe in reps walks they used to exist in most offices years ago but don't think they should be in offices now. However reps should recieve release when they need to reprsent members either in collective bargaining or indivdual matters.

Now I don't think it matters whether you done a delivery a year ago , or 20 years ago you understand the job. in fact I probably now understand the pipeline , the tools and a lot more about the delivery office and goings on then when I did a delivery only. I think it's a weak argument to suggest that if you no longer deliver mail then you no longer can have a say in the job.

It's very similar to a rep saying unless you have been in high level Negotations you cannot comment on what happens in talks. Or Alec Fergurson being told you can no longer comment on football as you no longer play it.

Delivery work is changing , packets will now be called parcels and parcels will be in two sizes in future in Royal Mail stuff which can fit in letter boxes and stuff up to shoe box size. All other packets will go to Parcel Force. Royal Mail will charge two prices letterbox or shoe box. Automation will now be purchased. I will when I get time go further on the new parcels strategy all of which will be bar coded.

[dvbuk55]

Apparently bullsit is not just the preserve of higher Royal Mail managers, it must be something to do with the ability to negotiate at high levels. I mean it must give a great insight into current deliveries of 4/5/6 and more hours having once done a 2 and half hour first delivery follwed by a 45 minute second with an hour or so between.

[fishtank]

Now I don't think it matters whether you done a delivery a year ago , or 20 years ago you understand the job. in fact I probably now understand the pipeline , the tools and a lot more about the delivery office and goings on then when I did a delivery only. I think it's a weak argument to suggest that if you no longer deliver mail then you no longer can have a say in the job.

I didn't say that,the point is of course it's easy for members to say that someone who hasn't done the job in the last 10 years doesn't really know what the job entails because to a certain extent they are right,the job has changed dramatically during that time and the physical demands of a 4 hour+ delivery are very difficult to understand...unless you've done a 4 hour+ delivery,not for a day or a week but for months on end.

That doesn't mean they don't have a valid opinion on the job,i'm quite prepared to listen to anyone's position on the state of delivery but if you speak from limited experience you should understand and respect those limitations especially when it comes to listening to experienced opinion before negotiating on their behalf.

Decisions were made during the negotiations for BT2010 that showed a lack of real,current experience in delivery,assumptions were made based on practices that died out 10 years ago at least and mistakes were made because not enough people had experience of shared vans HCT's or LWT's,sequenced mail,even RM2000 frames and D2D.
I include management's negotiating team in that as well.

[pants123]

Mr Higson : Why do staff who have been doing the job for years suddenly cannot? Its not down to new methods and failure to accept a new method, its due to untrained planners who have hidden agendas to f**k up offices, georoute - totally useless due to packet increase - managers who havent done deliveries for years bullying staff to a point some go off with stress - tosser DSM's who only ever want to save money at all costs - staff leave and they dont get replaced which eventually increases workload for everyone.

well said,,, here,, here...