Rumour of franchising the walks.

[Martin Walsh]

Bench merging is what happens in Holland where there is 10% full timers and 90 % part timers with an average contract of 18 hours. A signicant amount of part timers are what is known as waysiders anything which Royal Mail are interested in where they would drop the work out to part timers at certain points and part timers would not have an office.

The idea behind bench merging is that when all your work come in on one wave you would not need to then put your work into a frame but simply add your manuel to the work they are even considering not prepping the door to door into the bench merging. All of this is due to be trailed in the Wasall area.

[BarnsleyLackey]

Bench merging is what happens in Holland where there is 10% full timers and 90 % part timers with an average contract of 18 hours. A signicant amount of part timers are what is known as waysiders anything which Royal Mail are interested in where they would drop the work out to part timers at certain points and part timers would not have an office.

The idea behind bench merging is that when all your work come in on one wave you would not need to then put your work into a frame but simply add your manuel to the work they are even considering not prepping the door to door into the bench merging. All of this is due to be trailed in the Wasall area.

I don't get it. Would the mail come in perstorps, in order? How would you add your manual to it?

[dvbuk55]

Bench merging is what happens in Holland where there is 10% full timers and 90 % part timers with an average contract of 18 hours.

Well we're heading up that way right enough - in fact we've been heading up that way for a number of years. Saving full time jobs? Tell that to the offices already on 50/50, 40/60 and to the officers already on part time contracts of 20, 24, 25, etc hours.

[A2B]

I don't get it. Would the mail come in perstorps, in order? How would you add your manual to it?

There wouldn't be any manual, it would be sequenced

[dvbuk55]

I don't get it. Would the mail come in perstorps, in order? How would you add your manual to it?

There wouldn't be any manual, it would be sequenced

Flats too?

[fishtank]

All of this is due to be trailed in the Wasall area.

Why are the union allowing a trial of something that can only be detrimental to its members?
I thought we were now allowed a say in the future plans of the business, Is that only the case if that say agrees with the business position?

In order to bench merge you would have to have very little mail other than what's sequenced and the OPG would need to know the general layout of the delivery otherwise you would waste more time flicking through the sequenced mail than you would prepping it. On some days I can get 4 or 5 trays of sequenced mail, It will need to be a big bench to handle that and what exactly becomes of health and safety? How would redirection quality be maintained and how do you warn staff of hazards without the ability to use a frame warning card?

Is anyone with any relevant up to date delivery experience left at HQ and don't tell me Dave was a telegram boy, that doesn't cut it.

[Tman]

So to finish I would advise you all to contact the CWU and let them know that franchising is not acceptable.

Don't worry too much about something which is never going to happen. All Chinese whispers and "let's criticise the CWU" on here.
You really think all those share-holders are going to allow their "investment" to rely on whether 50,000 press-ganged franchised posties can make a go of one-man-band small business within an ever-reducing mail delivery service?

[dvbuk55]

So to finish I would advise you all to contact the CWU and let them know that franchising is not acceptable.

Don't worry too much about something which is never going to happen. All Chinese whispers and "let's criticise the CWU" on here.
You really think all those share-holders are going to allow their "investment" to rely on whether 50,000 press-ganged franchised posties can make a go of one-man-band small business within an ever-reducing mail delivery service?

Oh it's going to happen tman, the trial in Walsall is merely the first stage of a complete rethink on delivery in general. You'd think a union that is financed by the members would actually be against such things but no, if it's RMs wish then it'll happen. Anyone who pays the CWU these days is being taken for a mug.

[Martin Walsh]

Fish I am opposed to the idea of modelling but the details of the mails optimisation project is going to be covered in a separate terms of reference as was stated within the National Joint Statement.

The CSS machines were originally set up on the basis of a 60/40 split between wave 1 and wave 2. The actual performance currently according to auto miss is that 75% on the first wave is regularly achieved on wave 1.

Large machines LMS already produce a single wave of sequenced work for offices around the UK and accounts for 8% of sequenced mail.

Royal Mails ( not the CWU ) rationale for the project is based on the fact that they believe that 18% of the overall delivery courage some 26 million hours used in delivery offices involved mail preparation. They estimate that 73% of prep time involved manually adding already sequenced mail into a prep fitting. They want to review questions like do we need to prep sequenced mail into a manual sequencing prep frame ?

Do we need to bring parcels into the mail prep area ?

Do we need to prep D2D into a prep frame ?

They believe by delaying sequenced mail coming into delivery offices they could do it in one wave.

They have scoped other postal systems like the German postal system , the Dutch , Norway , Belguim , Canada , Austria and Post Nord covering Denmark and Sweden and they all do one wave and their delivery spans in Germany of 6.5 hours and in Holland of between 2 and 4 hours the Holland ratio of full time and part time is 95 part timers and 5 % full timers whereas in Germany it is 90 % full timers and 10 % part timers.

The CWU are opposed to any new model which reduced full time jobs and part time hours. We will see how this plays out.

[dvbuk55]

The CWU are opposed to any new model which reduced full time jobs and part time hours. We will see how this plays out.

Not difficult to see how this plays out dingo, remember the 75/25 split that never was, well there hasn't been a full time post advertised in my area in 5 years and in that time the ratio in my office has continually fallen and is now about 52/48 and will continue to fall. As to being opposed to any new model, what exactly are you going to do about it now, that you didn't do to police the 75/25 ratio...........no, don't tell me it's an easy guess.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

The CWU are opposed to any new model which reduced full time jobs and part time hours. We will see how this plays out.

and the membership??????

Personally, I would prefer to reduce my hours (even with loss of pay) rather than walk for 6 hours in all weathers.

Sorry but its getting to a stage where the Union need to canvass all members not just active members, and Union FTRs. Most especially if they see protecting full time jobs as the overriding issue and not work/life balance, fatigue and age. At some point we have to address the fatigue issue directly, and if the Union fail to do that on the altar of subscriptions then they are no longer a Union for members and I will then seriously have to decide whether I need protection from the bosses or from the Union.

[dvbuk55]

The CWU are opposed to any new model which reduced full time jobs and part time hours. We will see how this plays out.

and the membership??????

AKA the cash cow.

[halfull]

Fish I am opposed to the idea of modelling but the details of the mails optimisation project is going to be covered in a separate terms of reference as was stated within the National Joint Statement.

The CSS machines were originally set up on the basis of a 60/40 split between wave 1 and wave 2. The actual performance currently according to auto miss is that 75% on the first wave is regularly achieved on wave 1.

Large machines LMS already produce a single wave of sequenced work for offices around the UK and accounts for 8% of sequenced mail.

Royal Mails ( not the CWU ) rationale for the project is based on the fact that they believe that 18% of the overall delivery courage some 26 million hours used in delivery offices involved mail preparation. They estimate that 73% of prep time involved manually adding already sequenced mail into a prep fitting. They want to review questions like do we need to prep sequenced mail into a manual sequencing prep frame ?

Do we need to bring parcels into the mail prep area ?

Do we need to prep D2D into a prep frame ?

They believe by delaying sequenced mail coming into delivery offices they could do it in one wave.

They have scoped other postal systems like the German postal system , the Dutch , Norway , Belguim , Canada , Austria and Post Nord covering Denmark and Sweden and they all do one wave and their delivery spans in Germany of 6.5 hours and in Holland of between 2 and 4 hours the Holland ratio of full time and part time is 95 part timers and 5 % full timers whereas in Germany it is 90 % full timers and 10 % part timers.

The CWU are opposed to any new model which reduced full time jobs and part time hours. We will see how this plays out.

my god, & the cwu think 6 hour delivers are just ok??
what about peoples knees,hips,ankles,feet?????? we are not machines we are humans with bodies that cannot take 40+ years of 6 hour walks 6 days a week!
The cwu are just rolling over for the royal mail in everyway, soon we will have boxes to empty, longer delivery's, later start/finish times delivering in the dark........
And just so you know we are fast becoming a part time workforce! & the more fulltimers that you allow to take vr's the more diluted & weaker the union is becoming as 20 hour bag carriers have no clue what we have all fought for,for years!

[dvbuk55]

my god, & the cwu think 6 hour delivers are just ok??

Of course they do, they don't have to do it, what they have to do is find a compelling reason why YOU should be doing it.

[fishtank]

they all do one wave and their delivery spans in Germany of 6.5 hours

If there is anybody at HQ who believes that simply extending deliveries in their current form beyond the current levels is a sustainable way to protect full time jobs let them do a 6.5 hr delivery for a month or so and we'll see if they change their mind.

Time to get real I think, If the future of the business is predominantly part-time it's a damn shame but trying desperately to hold that back by turning it into some kind of ridiculous test of endurance is not sustainable. It's time to stop thinking about the CWU balance sheet and start thinking about CWU members.

Rather than come on here telling us that German Posties have 6.5hr deliveries lets hear about how that 6.5hr delivery is achieved, lets compare like for like because unless they are superhuman they aren't doing what we're doing for 6.5hrs day in day out.