future of deliveries. email to bob gibson

[SpacePhoenix]

Maybe its time for a breakaway union just for delivery staff if the top brass aren't going to listen to its members?

Delivery staff may complain about national agreements (Agenda For Growth, Pay & Mod, etc) but it's delivery staff that voted for them. Delivery staff outnumber MC staff by at least double. RM would love your idea, they'd just turn round and refuse to recognise the breakaway union and they might then say the CWI doesn't represent enough staff and so de-recognise the CWU. Bang, all union support gone

[RedRich]

Maybe its time for a breakaway union just for delivery staff if the top brass aren't going to listen to its members?

Delivery staff may complain about national agreements (Agenda For Growth, Pay & Mod, etc) but it's delivery staff that voted for them. Delivery staff outnumber MC staff by at least double. RM would love your idea, they'd just turn round and refuse to recognise the breakaway union and they might then say the CWI doesn't represent enough staff and so de-recognise the CWU. Bang, all union support gone

And its the CWU that can't enforce them. My post was a little tongue in cheek but also out of frustration at how detached from our reality they are.

[dvbuk55]

Well it's a hard days rain gonna fall. I said years ago when privatisation reared its ugly head the union would be prepared to accept and recommend anything in order to be sat at the table. The new leader of the union seems to have gone into hiding since the election and no new initiatives in combatting the part time ratio, longer delivery spans, lapsing/collapsing roughly all the things that delivery staff are concerned about is ignored. As for a new union being recognised , the old union is ignored anyway by RM who have coerced them into another tier of largely irrelevant management.

[clashcityrocker]

the union should be all over this from the word go.

What exactly do you want the union to do?

If RM want to buy machines the union can't veto it. That isn't within their remit and it isn't what a trade union is there for.
If those machines are going to take away from your indoor time, then there are only 2 viable options:
1. You lose all your full time jobs.
2. You increase the outdoor element to compensate for the lost indoor element.

Given that a lot of people will have made financial commitments based on a full time contract, going part time isn't really an option for them.
So if there have to be longer delivery spans, what can the union do to alleviate the obvious repercussions of longer deliveries?

Fighting to maintain the status quo isn't a realistic option.
Our world is changing, rapidly. So either get used to the idea that our outdoor workload is going to increase or start making preparations for the day you move to a part time contract.
Or both. (First the machines, then one wave and then the end of 6 deliveries/week)

[dvbuk55]

the union should be all over this from the word go.

What exactly do you want the union to do?

Well listen to the membership in recognition of the fact that they are the employer and not Royal Mail. Ask the membership what their aspirations are, for example a shorter working week to combat the longer delivery span. None of the so called solutions to maintaining full time hours contracts has worked.

[Christianity]

Ye right, 6hr deliveries they can do one, hey bob you go out and do 6hrs delivery What you trying to do kill us!! The union need to wake up they all seem like they're being paid off to sell us down the river! The area reps are just as bad. The sick is through the roof already with 4hr planned deliveries that take 5hrs. They think they can let royal mail give us 6hr deliveries that really take 7hrs, do away with our finish time, promise that meal reliefs will be enforced Lmao, tell us we'll have better shoes which you will be told you can't have new one's cuz you're having them to regular, tell us we'll have more annual leave which you will never be able to book, and they really think we are going to accept that crap! Well as a delivery rep myself ill speak for the WHOLE OF DELIVERY NATIONWIDE you can FORGET IT!!! Stop wasting yr time with these pathetic excuses for what you call negotiations. Come to the table with something realistic and a workload that's sustainable longterm for delivery staff, ie promises of part timers being made up to full time, tm1s being filled properly with the right contracts not 20hr contracts which no one can work with, tell moya to do one with her foreign ideas were alright as we are 750 million is plenty of profit, walks made smaller as they are totally unachievable with the packet increase, and 1st time delivery they keep pushing for which has us constantly knocking neighbours. For God's sake bob, and Dave ward wake up and smell what your shoveling!

[Christianity]

I hope you don't mind that I added some formatting to make you post easier to read

these are my thoughts, tackled section by section

Delivery spans
I like the idea of the 2x3 hrs. coming back to the office in between and having a sensible place to have your break makes sense. 6 solid hours in the sun, rain, freezing cold with nowhere to shelter for you break is only going to lead to an increase in sickness.

Full time working....
I guess most of those have been thought out with a certain sized/located office in mind. We have 30ish walks, and only 3 collections atm (and only 1 on a saturday) so not a lot of scope for introduction of hybrid duties. As for rotating duties with indoor work, we only have one indoor job and are too far away from a mail centre or even MPU for that to be viable. I'm sure it could work in a few places but very limited.

New products...
Without a doubt new/different products are needed, a happy compromise between SD and tracked available for the average domestic customer is a must. Scan on doorstep, with a signature OPTION. Get rid of recorded deliveries. People don't fully understand it they think it's treated and tracked the same as a special
Royal mail already has a dedicated same day courier service, I'm not sure it could be easily absorbed in to our side of the business and if it was, it would be a nightmare to manage.

Planning tools..
I don't know much about this but from what I experience, if RM and the Union believe they have adequate tools, those tools need a good clean up and sharpening.

Wish list...
Nothing I can disagree with there.
Is point 2 about an increase in our personal leave allowances or about ensuring everybody is able to take their allowance?

our rep received this today. and said to put it on here to gage the response.
its an Email from the north east div/rep to bob Gibson. it makes you wonder who's side the hierarchy are on....:-

hi bob, please find below a collation of ideas and suggestions from area delivery reps in the north east division.

FUTURE DELIVERY SPANS OPTIONS( based on 6 hours delivery)...
1.delivery spans of 6 hrs with use of singleton vans and scheduled meal relief whilst out on delivery.
2. single van deliveries with a delivery span of 2x3 hrs with a return to office for meal relief.
3. shared van deliveries of 2x3 hrs with a return to office to take meal relief.
4. all of the above have a return to office policy after last letter, imposed meal reliefs and stringent H&S measures to combat fatigue.

FULL TIME WORKING IDEAS AND REDUCING EFFECT OF 6 HR DELIVERY SPANS.
1. 6 hrs spans as above for full time working.
2. hybrid duties including collection work.
3. hybrid duties including IVO work.
4. cross functional work with mail centres where D.O.s are in travelling distance.
5. rotating duties from mail centres, collection hubs, IVOs and delivery so people only do a delivery once every other week or 1 in three.
6.introducing more HTCs where possible on delivery which would mean looking at vans so a HTC can fit in and be used outside of the 1 mile radius of a D.O. at present.
7.annualised/term time hrs could be looked at to assist full time working based on traffic fluctuations.

NEW PRODUCTS THAT COULD ENHANCE FULL TIME WORKING.
1. timed deliveries for all mail.
2.premium packet deliveries 7am to 7pm.
3. same day delivery.
4. local to local delivery eg..within the delivery area of the office so if a TSO has mail to be collected can it be brought back to the office and go out with the 2nd wave of deliveries.
5. premium business deliveries 7am to 10pm....

page 2. ....
PLANNING TOOLS.:-
1. there needs to be a full understanding of the PDA and what they can be used for to enhance our working conditions on delivery.
2. the model week needs to be looked at if delivery spans are going to be based on 6 hrs there is little scope to flex up in the morning on indoor workload without affecting outdoor spans.
3.the breakdown of mail needs to be looked at taking into account the decrease in letter traffic and the increase in parcel traffic and the affect it has on outdoor delivery call rate, delivery to neighbour, doorstep scanning etc.
4. the outdoor tool would need to incorporate the rest and relation elements currently being discussed.
5. indoor kit needs to be looked at if the CLLSS machine comes in then there is little need for RM 2000 fittings so what kind of merge process can we have.

CWU NEEDS/WISH LIST.
1.shorter working week is a must for delivery and we need to look at reducing the full time working week as much as possible without going to part time working.
2.increased annual leave should be looked at to ensure people can get more time off.
3. extending meal reliefs if possible.
4. enforced standards of meal reliefs, use of equipment has to be mandatory and enforced by RM.
5.current shoe wear must be looked at with more analysis in the future on what kind of shoe/boot fit best depending on age, height, weight of a person. 6.MTSF must not be allowed to disappear there is a clear need for this to remain for the future
7. discussions on the future of delivery must not be functionalised and there is a need that all discussions should cover the entire industrial indoor and outdoor network, processing distribution etc.
8. delivery must be the driver in the discussion ensuring delivery influence their start and finish times/ attendance patterns and other functions support this policy. .....

that's it...it ends saying the north east reps will be using this document to encourage debate within their delivery offices and across the division with delivery unit reps. kind regards...all comments appreciated for discussion

Are you on drugs? Are you a manager? You LIKE the idea of 6HR deliveries, what the hell are you on abt! The Union should have us on strike for trying to implement compulsory redundancies to start with, which is what they are trying to do. There should be a law suit put in for our h&s which would be at huge risk if we were forced to do 6hrs on delivery which as everyone in delivery knows means no way in a million years would they be achievable in the span planned at, they would be more like 7-8hours. Wake up you silly person. Its not even worth putting to the members it's not going to happen!

[IloveMYredTROLLEY!]

Some of us all have supposed 4hr30min outdoor time that takes ~5hrs30mins everyday bar Tuesday outside Xmas pressure, when we still have reasonable odds of needing overtime to complete on most Tuesdays... Especially if they decide to use some of the scheduled 30mins work time learning!

Chances are, these supposed 6hr delivery spans will be closer to ~7hrs45mins for those of us doing the job reasonably correctly, so even if I simply arrive at depot and tie up I will be going over.

Maybe the time has come to say forget a full time week of 39 hours, give us full time duties based on 5 days of 7 hours? If you want/need extra through overtime, go form a queue at the managers' office!

[SpacePhoenix]

A lot of the problems that deliveries have are down to delivery staff themselves, how many:

* Run round your walk
* Come in before their official start time
* Don't cut-off or claim ot when running over
* Prep d2d in their own time

You could probably add a dozen other things to that list but when so many delivery staff keep on doing that no matter how many times they're told by union reps, it's no wonder that RM keep cutting hours out and making walks longer, tbqf too many idiots give them the scope to do so. It's no wonder that deliveries get sh*t on, they sh*t on themselves

[franco1]

Cutting hours and increasing walks has absolutly nothing to do with running around, going over and not claiming or anything else that posties do.
Its all to do with declining volumes of mail and achieving profits - thats it. Nothing else.
Its unfair to blame posties for something completely out of their control.
You could also say that these new machines will come in and cost people jobs in mail centers because MC staff sit on their arses all day doing nothing.
Is this also true??

[SpacePhoenix]

Cutting hours and increasing walks has absolutly nothing to do with running around, going over and not claiming or anything else that posties do.
Its all to do with declining volumes of mail and achieving profits - thats it. Nothing else.
Its unfair to blame posties for something completely out of their control.
You could also say that these new machines will come in and cost people jobs in mail centers because MC staff sit on their arses all day doing nothing.
Is this also true??

wake up and smell the coffee, RM are cutting hours because too many delivery staff are giving them the scope to cut hours. If delivery staff didn't do them things, then RM would be forced to put hours in

[franco1]

wake up and smell the coffee, RM are cutting hours because too many delivery staff are giving them the scope to cut hours. If delivery staff didn't do them things, then RM would be forced to put hours in

Do you really think that RM executives and their financial people look at how Bob the postie finished his round early or how Bill the postie didnt claim overtime??
The reality is that its a business and like every business they look to cut corners just like Bob does to finish early, even if we worked how you say we should these changes would still have come.

[IloveMYredTROLLEY!]

Management apply pressure with impossible workloads for the contracted hours and sadly, far too many OPGs cave in and make the workload look more achievable by doing things that jeopodise their own safety/health and/or the security of the items they are responsible to deliver, plus saving up to 40 minutes (or more if they end up doing a 9+ hour day) by not taking/claiming for their paid breaks.

Less overtime needs to be claimed at depot, because of many OPGs making rods for their own backs, DSM then reduces depot budget further.

Management then apply more pressure, rinse and repeat.

[SpacePhoenix]

wake up and smell the coffee, RM are cutting hours because too many delivery staff are giving them the scope to cut hours. If delivery staff didn't do them things, then RM would be forced to put hours in

Do you really think that RM executives and their financial people look at how Bob the postie finished his round early or how Bill the postie didnt claim overtime??
The reality is that its a business and like every business they look to cut corners just like Bob does to finish early, even if we worked how you say we should these changes would still have come.

They tell the DOMs that they must cut x hours out, by doing them things delivery staff hand it to the DOM on a plate and possibly scope to cut more hours on top of that. Just like in any business, any unused budget for one financial year is taken away from the total buget for the next financial year

[daveyeff]

the union should be all over this from the word go.

What exactly do you want the union to do?

If RM want to buy machines the union can't veto it. That isn't within their remit and it isn't what a trade union is there for.
If those machines are going to take away from your indoor time, then there are only 2 viable options:
1. You lose all your full time jobs.
2. You increase the outdoor element to compensate for the lost indoor element.

Given that a lot of people will have made financial commitments based on a full time contract, going part time isn't really an option for them.
So if there have to be longer delivery spans, what can the union do to alleviate the obvious repercussions of longer deliveries?

Fighting to maintain the status quo isn't a realistic option.
Our world is changing, rapidly. So either get used to the idea that our outdoor workload is going to increase or start making preparations for the day you move to a part time contract.
Or both. (First the machines, then one wave and then the end of 6 deliveries/week)

well for a start clash I don't want them playing ball with the company to give them ideas for 6 hrs deliveries that is going to cause MASS redundancies. if the figures mentioned are anything to go by this will mean a massive loss jobs and of subs each week which will inevitably mean the end of the union. they will have to join forces with 'unite'. redundancies on THAT level is completely unacceptable. no union should be taking a back seat or indeed helping this come about by helping the company do it.!!.. a shorter working week is the obvious first step. they keep banging on about mail dropping. well if that's the case we don't need 39 hrs a week to do it then. having said that, I know our office could not function if overtime was removed. theres earlies in every day and overtime from handbacks is practically guaranteed. there's no shortage of work. that's just their crap they've been spouting for years.