5 Day Delivery

[Mr Rush]

a five day delivery would play into royal mails hands it will be another tool to make more
cuts on delivery as for jobs as a whole we would lose between 5000-10,000 duties across the uk.

Of course it plays into RM's hands. The majority of us probably tolerated a noon finish on a Saturday, but who can now say they enjoy being on the street till 3 at the latest? I'd say making Saturday's worse was a strategic move to get us on-side for a future reduction in service and the concurrent demise of a sixth of the workforce. Coupled with the non-delivery here of 1 in 4 Sats off, I could see opinion shift toward acceptance of job losses. Well played, RM

[fishtank]

I could see opinion shift toward acceptance of job losses. Well played, RM

I don't think it's even a shift.
If you were to put Mon-Fri on the table now you would win it about 70/30 even with the job losses.
If you were to put Mon-Fri on the table 10 years ago you would have won it by much the same margin even with the job losses,maybe even more when we still worked 6 days.
It doesn't make it right,just popular.

[Danelectro]

a five day delivery would play into royal mails hands it will be another tool to make more
cuts on delivery as for jobs as a whole we would lose between 5000-10,000 duties across the uk.

Of course it plays into RM's hands. The majority of us probably tolerated a noon finish on a Saturday, but who can now say they enjoy being on the street till 3 at the latest? I'd say making Saturday's worse was a strategic move to get us on-side for a future reduction in service and the concurrent demise of a sixth of the workforce. Coupled with the non-delivery here of 1 in 4 Sats off, I could see opinion shift toward acceptance of job losses. Well played, RM

if it went to 5 days what makes you think it would be Saturday delivery that would be dropped.Its the busiest day for the callers box,more likely monday or tuesday.

[daveallum]

I think if RM were to ever go for a 5 day delivery it would be Mondays that would get axed as it would mean that MCs, RDCs and logistics would not be needed on a Sunday, saving them all that money on Sunday rate. The hours from Mondays would probably either be split five ways and added to each day (Tue-Sat) or added to a single day (longer Saturday plus collections?)

Don't think this would work as firms/business/schools etc would not get a delivery on mondays.Cannot speak for other areas but in the two delivery offices that I worked,the majority of those places that I mentioned did not have a delivery on saturdays so are we suggesting that they only have four deliveries a week.That would go down like a lead balloon.

[TheCobra]

a five day delivery would play into royal mails hands it will be another tool to make more
cuts on delivery as for jobs as a whole we would lose between 5000-10,000 duties across the uk.

Of course it plays into RM's hands. The majority of us probably tolerated a noon finish on a Saturday, but who can now say they enjoy being on the street till 3 at the latest? I'd say making Saturday's worse was a strategic move to get us on-side for a future reduction in service and the concurrent demise of a sixth of the workforce. Coupled with the non-delivery here of 1 in 4 Sats off, I could see opinion shift toward acceptance of job losses. Well played, RM

if it went to 5 days what makes you think it would be Saturday delivery that would be dropped.Its the busiest day for the callers box,more likely monday or tuesday.

It would seem to me to be fairly naive to suggest that the post will just 'have a day off' in the week, when businesses rely the most on getting their mail. We are constantly told that businesses and business mail are our most important things now, so if they dropped a delivery day I could only really see it being Saturday. Could still have caller's office open for people to go and collect their parcels.

[rhino49]

Keep all the rotation jobs
Mon - Fri delivery but only work 4 shifts with a day off - days will be longer but fewer (4 x 9:45 approx.) which many work now anyway.
keep the rolling rota so that your long weekends come round more frequently and are four day ones instead of three
I'd work a ten hour day for a deal like that !
We could still have a "special delivery" staff paid a premium to deliver a premium service on Saturdays on a voluntary or agreed rota basis

[Mr Rush]

if it went to 5 days what makes you think it would be Saturday delivery that would be dropped.Its the busiest day for the callers box,more likely monday or tuesday.

The Ofcom report already highlighted dropping Saturday would be acceptable to both residential and business customers. It also recommended caller's offices remain open on Saturdays so packets could still be collected in the absence of deliveries.

[steve1873]

I posted this in the last thread that was on this topic. The whole losing 1/6th of the workforce is a red herring. If we assume Saturday delivery simply disappeared, what do you think would happen to that work that was due for delivery on the Saturday?

Assuming that all 6 days have an equal workload, then that would mean that monday - friday would have to absorb around 17% of the weekly workload - therefore again using the assumption that current post revision duties are timed correctly would mean having to decrease the size of duties by the same 17% to enable the whole thing not to fall flat in its face.

This would mean offices would presumably need to create an additional 17% of new duties. This would offset the loss of reserve and rotational staff.

A simple way to look at it would be say the business currently delivers 60 million items across a 6 day week. Assuming the 6th day disappeared, then the business would still have to reaource for delivering the same 60 million items across 5 days. How would that be even remotely possible by cutting jobs by up to 1/6th???

[TheCobra]

I posted this in the last thread that was on this topic. The whole losing 1/6th of the workforce is a red herring. If we assume Saturday delivery simply disappeared, what do you think would happen to that work that was due for delivery on the Saturday?

Assuming that all 6 days have an equal workload, then that would mean that monday - friday would have to absorb around 17% of the weekly workload - therefore again using the assumption that current post revision duties are timed correctly would mean having to decrease the size of duties by the same 17% to enable the whole thing not to fall flat in its face.

This would mean offices would presumably need to create an additional 17% of new duties. This would offset the loss of reserve and rotational staff.

A simple way to look at it would be say the business currently delivers 60 million items across a 6 day week. Assuming the 6th day disappeared, then the business would still have to reaource for delivering the same 60 million items across 5 days. How would that be even remotely possible by cutting jobs by up to 1/6th???

I'm sure they'll give it a damn good try mate.

[fishtank]

Assuming that all 6 days have an equal workload

But they don't.
If we're honest in the majority of delivery offices you could absorb tuesday's workload into any other day or worse case scenario over a couple of days.
Plan screwed on page 1.

[POSTMAN]

It does not just affect the rest day covers on deliveries,there are those who work at RDC's,MC's,network drivers,'anyone' in the pipeline.
It's not as simple as it sounds.

[chooch]

Keep all the rotation jobs
Mon - Fri delivery but only work 4 shifts with a day off - days will be longer but fewer (4 x 9:45 approx.) which many work now anyway.
keep the rolling rota so that your long weekends come round more frequently and are four day ones instead of three
I'd work a ten hour day for a deal like that !
We could still have a "special delivery" staff paid a premium to deliver a premium service on Saturdays on a voluntary or agreed rota basis

Yo, 50 min. break (or 30 + 20 min.) too cos it's over 9 hr.s.. We relocated too so we're in the van back to the old DO area for 20 min.there (at least),
be too late for breakfast 'specials' though.. 20 back..
so that's 4 x 8:15.. just thinking aloud.. pace yourself with smoke and toilet breaks.. I could turn-up for a deal like that.. .

[bodger]

i hate working these longer saturdays!

[CORTINA]

A simple way to look at it would be say the business currently delivers 60 million items across a 6 day week. Assuming the 6th day disappeared, then the business would still have to reaource for delivering the same 60 million items across 5 days. How would that be even remotely possible by cutting jobs by up to 1/6th???

In the same way they dumped parcels and packets onto letter deliveries.... the 6th day..saturday ... will be added to monday and tuesday deliveries......simple, you deliver more over 5 days.... mon - fri...

And your answer to the obvious question will be...you either want the job or not...?

Do not expect much help from the union .....they did not stop parcel and packets added to letter deliveries...?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

I posted this in the last thread that was on this topic. The whole losing 1/6th of the workforce is a red herring. If we assume Saturday delivery simply disappeared, what do you think would happen to that work that was due for delivery on the Saturday?

It would be absorbed into Monday/Tuesdays work as you intimate.

Assuming that all 6 days have an equal workload, then that would mean that monday - friday would have to absorb around 17% of the weekly workload - therefore again using the assumption that current post revision duties are timed correctly would mean having to decrease the size of duties by the same 17% to enable the whole thing not to fall flat in its face.

The assumption that all 6 days have an equal workload flies in the face of my experience at least. There are % figures on RMC somewhere that show the levels by day and I'll try to find and link them to this thread.

This would mean offices would presumably need to create an additional 17% of new duties. This would offset the loss of reserve and rotational staff.

As its "traditional" to make 10% savings year on year I sincerely doubt that they would create nearly 1 in 5 new posts, the logic behind moving to a 5 day service for RM is savings so its in my opinion more likely they will expect us to absorb the extra workload. They won't get rid of the 17% extra staff under EVR/redundancy - I think more likely they will allow 10% or so to go under a special leavers scheme like the USPS are, and then put a freeze on recruitment until natural wastage brings the number of employees down slowly but surely.

A simple way to look at it would be say the business currently delivers 60 million items across a 6 day week. Assuming the 6th day disappeared, then the business would still have to reaource for delivering the same 60 million items across 5 days. How would that be even remotely possible by cutting jobs by up to 1/6th???

It may be a simple way to look at it and given your numbers it would make some sense. However we should base the numbers on the real world where the average daily traffic is 56 million - or 336 million a week. To be presumptive your next point would make the obvious connection that the greater volume would back your point up. Indeed in the real world it might, but in RM world where savings is king, and drives every single agenda (including employee treatment) they tend to ignore, or suppress anything that doesn't fit their perceived view of the world.