Poll - longer deliveries or less Full Timers.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

The following post is by a poster wishing to remain anonymous and asked I post it for them.

See we are on page 4 of this debate, think halfull's 1st post on this page is spot on, also DVBuk55 comments ring true and the post from Sugar is also very true, you have seen that in the past I have been the dissenting voice in all the CWU have foisted upon us under the banner of 'We believe this is in your best interests". Unfortunately with idiots like ****** and ***** we are on the long slippery road to oblivion, the CWU doesn't stand up for it's members any longer, it is now simply a case of Royal Mail are planning to do this or that, so how do we facilitate that?

Such bollocks as 6hr deliveries is symptomatic of a union who has no idea what the hell is going on down in deliveries, has no real idea of the long term impact of the current delivery spans, and certainly has no concept of the damage that 6hr deliveries will cause.

Let's face it, agreements struck by people who haven't delivered a letter in years if ever are never going to be what we need.

I think one thing is true in all this, should 6hr deliveries come to pass, then the membership of the CWU will decrease dramatically, not sure I will hang around to try and facilitate the introduction of this pile of crap. I hear a lot of people talking sense in relation to shorter working weeks, problem is are the CWU listening? Not sure I am hearing any real evidence of it. To illustrate the CWU's commitment to pursuing a shorter working week, when I started as a rep ** years ago the then Area rep was talking about how the CWU were looking for a 35 hour week, the CWU had just achieved a reduction from 41.5 hrs to 40, here we are ** years later and we have achieved a reduction in the working week of 1 hour since then, so you can see it has been at the top of the CWU's priorities all these years.

The best part is anyone watching what was happening in all these years could see this coming, RM has had a desire to create a P/T workforce for many, many years, the CWU knowing that should have made greater efforts to get a significant reduction in working hours, but all they have done in all that time is get the money in exchange for deteriorating working conditions, we get more money for doing longer deliveries.

The hierarchy in the CWU should hang their heads in shame, they have consistently let their members down over the years, and as a result betrayed the faith placed in them by those members.

I fully expect the current plans by RM to bring about the demise of the CWU, because by installing 6hr deliveries, and I am sure they will come because they cannot seem to come up with anything else, and the shorter hours we need I reckon they will say are unachievable, therefore I figure that will be the final straw for the majority of members.

I will continue to fight the case for the members and oppose longer deliveries, but when it happens that will be me done.

I have always believed in the principle of a union, but this is not the type of unionism I believe in,

[halfull]

The following post is by a poster wishing to remain anonymous and asked I post it for them.

See we are on page 4 of this debate, think halfull's 1st post on this page is spot on, also DVBuk55 comments ring true and the post from Sugar is also very true, you have seen that in the past I have been the dissenting voice in all the CWU have foisted upon us under the banner of 'We believe this is in your best interests". Unfortunately with idiots like ****** and ***** we are on the long slippery road to oblivion, the CWU doesn't stand up for it's members any longer, it is now simply a case of Royal Mail are planning to do this or that, so how do we facilitate that?

Such bollocks as 6hr deliveries is symptomatic of a union who has no idea what the hell is going on down in deliveries, has no real idea of the long term impact of the current delivery spans, and certainly has no concept of the damage that 6hr deliveries will cause.

Let's face it, agreements struck by people who haven't delivered a letter in years if ever are never going to be what we need.

I think one thing is true in all this, should 6hr deliveries come to pass, then the membership of the CWU will decrease dramatically, not sure I will hang around to try and facilitate the introduction of this pile of crap. I hear a lot of people talking sense in relation to shorter working weeks, problem is are the CWU listening? Not sure I am hearing any real evidence of it. To illustrate the CWU's commitment to pursuing a shorter working week, when I started as a rep ** years ago the then Area rep was talking about how the CWU were looking for a 35 hour week, the CWU had just achieved a reduction from 41.5 hrs to 40, here we are ** years later and we have achieved a reduction in the working week of 1 hour since then, so you can see it has been at the top of the CWU's priorities all these years.

The best part is anyone watching what was happening in all these years could see this coming, RM has had a desire to create a P/T workforce for many, many years, the CWU knowing that should have made greater efforts to get a significant reduction in working hours, but all they have done in all that time is get the money in exchange for deteriorating working conditions, we get more money for doing longer deliveries.

The hierarchy in the CWU should hang their heads in shame, they have consistently let their members down over the years, and as a result betrayed the faith placed in them by those members.

I fully expect the current plans by RM to bring about the demise of the CWU, because by installing 6hr deliveries, and I am sure they will come because they cannot seem to come up with anything else, and the shorter hours we need I reckon they will say are unachievable, therefore I figure that will be the final straw for the majority of members.

I will continue to fight the case for the members and oppose longer deliveries, but when it happens that will be me done.

I have always believed in the principle of a union, but this is not the type of unionism I believe in,

Such a good post,
the cwu care about subs and thats it! If they can keep fulltime subs coming in they see that as victory but its total defeat if its at the physical & mental detriment of the people paying those subs who you should be looking after.
I remember dave ward saying a few years back that royal mail were short sighted in their plans, it was rogue management he said, but as time goes by dave you were totally wrong! The royal mail were the ones with the long term plan- cripple the current full time workforce with an impossible workload physically & mentally & drive them out any way they can & replace us with a new partime workforce on inferior t&c.
We the workers could see this happening a long long time ago, but you dave & all the way up the cwu ranks were the ones who were too short sighted to see this coming as you were too interested in telling cwu members to agree to deal after deal to protect yourself & the cwu, sleep walking into what all us in delivery could see coming!
Now dave & co you are in a very hard spot, you are going to try & tell people who have had their lives part ruined by the last increase in walk size & workload that the only way forward is to increase deliveries by another 2+ hours in the dark at 4/5 pm!
You have a huge part of your membership that is suffering horribly from the job they do & you are the union they pay to protect them from such things, do yourself & your members who keep you all in very well paid jobs a favour & get the short sighted glasses off & start doing your jobs & protecting your employers! Us!

[dvbuk55]

I consistently warned that privatisation and the union don't go hand in hand. I experienced this before and as I said the union I was with then would agree to anything in order to remain in the mix and make agreements totally detrimental to the very people who employ them. At one meeting I went to a full time member of that union was on the same platform as a manager of the company I was with then and that man said "I know you don't want to go on strike it brings about kicking your dog and hitting the wife" and the union man said absolutely nothing. I would add that we still went on strike but to no end really agreement was reached without any benefit. When I came to RM the union had a real say in the operation of the work force, that position has been eroded over the years to become just another tier of management.

[bustedflush]

There is a higher force here. There is no economic reason to increase profits by a few million of an already highly profitable and professional company, at the expense of the workforce's health. There is a natural monopoly for logistical and market reasons. As TNT found there are colossal costs in infrastructure such as vehicles and uniforms, delivery and sorting offices plus ancillary services such as redirections and enquiry offices. And that was with cherry-picking!

Now those fools in the EU and OFCOM don't seem to appreciate the impossibility of natural competition in letters if they want a USO. They are forcing RM to cut costs with illogical 'efficiency drives' which we all know are based simply on the good basic pay of RM posties and staff compared to the cut-throats employing zero-hours and imported cheap labour. So this is the target. Not reducing the rate of pay, but the hours worked and the quantity of staff.

This is why we are at a crucial juncture in this matter and the CWU needs to grab the bull by the horns on our behalf without further ado. There are genuine needs to cut costs in some industries, but in our case it is being done for the sake of it. £350 million operating profit could be turned into £375 million over a few years if we batter the posties and DO's. Needless to say they are intransigent to the long-term expense of all this, mainly sickness and lack of service due to it along with the associated costs. Bean-counters know the price of everything and the value of ****-all. It is also in conflict with the CWU's much-vaunted 'Way Forward Agreement' which only a 18 months ago many were extolling the virtues of as it 'protected' us until 2019. It obviously won't.

The CWU needs to start dialogue with us members as soon as they sniff the real content of these plans, not wait until they are ready to sign the dotted line,

[Martin Walsh]

Only on Royal Mail chat can you have posters criticising the union over apparent 6 hour spans which they are not agreed or want to agree.

Let's be clear. Royal Mail Strategy is :

To move to one wave of sequencing which will mean most offices will get their work at least two hours later than currently.

Royal Mail know the growth in the parcels industry is people ordering between 7 and midnight. Currently Royal Mail do not deliver these parcels until the following day hence Amazon , Argos and others are introducing quicker and cheaper same day next day models. Royal Mail want to open RDCs and mail centres to have later acceptance time up to 3 in the morning. Clearly if a parcel is in Manchester at 3 in the morning and needs to be delivered in Bristol the next day then it has to be sorted transported and inward sorted and than delivered. This is why Royal Mail want a later delivery window moving from 10-5 or 6 instead of the current 3.

Royal Mail want over 5 years to move to no indoor work in 80% of delivery offices so delivery is totally an outdoor job.

This means Royal Mail want to purchase 20 Large Letter sorter machines which will perform the sequencing of flats and large letters.

Royal Mail want to close over 300 delivery offices within this plan.

Royal Mail state that if there was only outdoor work in delivery offices than they could not sustain any full time staff or part time staff contracted over 28 hours without going to a longer span.

Whilst this is a 5 year strategy Royal Mail believe that they could move over 60% of delivery offices to one wave next years moving the start times later as the work will be arriving later.

This has an impact on professional drivers who take the work to DOs / MPUs , it will have an impact on MPUs , it will change the outward and inward times of mail centres as well.

It is a game changer!

So now let's cut the bullshit

The CWU has not agreed the plan , does not support 6 hour deliveries , does not support the closing of delivery offices or the move to 1 wave.

It is so typical of people to turn inwards without knowing the facts.

Let's be honest Royal Mail Chat is not going to change Royal Mails plans or fight them , neither are non members the only organisation which is going to influence , change and fight Royal Mail's plans are the CWU and it members.

Some of us are up for this fight and those who turn inwards are already showing all their interested is in the blame game ! I can tell you this the part of the country I am from will be having a strike if Royal Mail attempt to move to one wave in our offices next year and we are up for a row over the strategy. We all must realise we need to capture more of the parcel market but not at the cost of no inward work , 6 hour spans , hundreds of DO closures and a part time industry.

So I am not getting into petty arguements cause the above are actually the facts not conspiracies or made up.

[motherhubbard]

I can tell you this the part of the country I am from will be having a strike if Royal Mail attempt to move to one wave in our offices next year and we are up for a row over the strategy.

I think the question is = is the part of the country you are from prepared to strike if RM attempt to move to one wave anywhere, or are you prepared to see the rest of us picked off?

[halfull]

Only on Royal Mail chat can you have posters criticising the union over apparent 6 hour spans which they are not agreed or want to agree.

Let's be clear. Royal Mail Strategy is :

To move to one wave of sequencing which will mean most offices will get their work at least two hours later than currently.

Royal Mail know the growth in the parcels industry is people ordering between 7 and midnight. Currently Royal Mail do not deliver these parcels until the following day hence Amazon , Argos and others are introducing quicker and cheaper same day next day models. Royal Mail want to open RDCs and mail centres to have later acceptance time up to 3 in the morning. Clearly if a parcel is in Manchester at 3 in the morning and needs to be delivered in Bristol the next day then it has to be sorted transported and inward sorted and than delivered. This is why Royal Mail want a later delivery window moving from 10-5 or 6 instead of the current 3.

Royal Mail want over 5 years to move to no indoor work in 80% of delivery offices so delivery is totally an outdoor job.

This means Royal Mail want to purchase 20 Large Letter sorter machines which will perform the sequencing of flats and large letters.

Royal Mail want to close over 300 delivery offices within this plan.

Royal Mail state that if there was only outdoor work in delivery offices than they could not sustain any full time staff or part time staff contracted over 28 hours without going to a longer span.

Whilst this is a 5 year strategy Royal Mail believe that they could move over 60% of delivery offices to one wave next years moving the start times later as the work will be arriving later.

This has an impact on professional drivers who take the work to DOs / MPUs , it will have an impact on MPUs , it will change the outward and inward times of mail centres as well.

It is a game changer!

So now let's cut the bullshit

The CWU has not agreed the plan , does not support 6 hour deliveries , does not support the closing of delivery offices or the move to 1 wave.

It is so typical of people to turn inwards without knowing the facts.

Let's be honest Royal Mail Chat is not going to change Royal Mails plans or fight them , neither are non members the only organisation which is going to influence , change and fight Royal Mail's plans are the CWU and it members.

Some of us are up for this fight and those who turn inwards are already showing all their interested is in the blame game ! I can tell you this the part of the country I am from will be having a strike if Royal Mail attempt to move to one wave in our offices next year and we are up for a row over the strategy. We all must realise we need to capture more of the parcel market but not at the cost of no inward work , 6 hour spans , hundreds of DO closures and a part time industry.

So I am not getting into petty arguements cause the above are actually the facts not conspiracies or made up.

you will not answer the big elephant in the room! WE ARE NOT ABLE TO DO THE CURRENT WALKS IN OUR HOURS NOW!!!!
We are wayover everyday! the walk are anhour plus too long! Plus delivery to neighbour which we have had notime for on jobs that were planned already too big!
so these machines will enable us to get done ontime & use the agreed methods which is the other elephant in the room!
You keep talking about 6 hour delivery spans! We on royalmail chat are telling you & the cwu that the CURRENT delivery spans are already too much & need addressing! Its totally wrecking your members!
You talk about facts & cutting the bullshit! The facts are posties are dropping left right & centre due to a CURRENT workload that is totally undoable on a longterm basis, and the bullshit is the excuses & lack of spine our union has in dealing with this problem. You can like that or lump it because all us workers are all saying the same thing up & down the country.
Its us the members who should be at the table doing the negotiating not the people who get as close to delivery work as i do winning the lotto.

[fishtank]

I think it's very interesting that dingo states that the union will not support 6 hr deliveries, he does not state that the union will not support an increase in delivery spans.

So what is your line in the sand dingo? 4 1/2 hrs? 5hrs? 5 1/2hrs? 5hrs 59 minutes?

[dvbuk55]

I think it's very interesting that dingo states that the union will not support 6 hr deliveries, he does not state that the union will not support an increase in delivery spans.

So what is your line in the sand dingo? 4 1/2 hrs? 5hrs? 5 1/2hrs? 5hrs 59 minutes?

Fair point. Perhaps the CWU would think 5hrs 59mins was a win win situation. No matter what dingo says most older members will see that the union will spin the longer delivery/saving full time jobs (again). I would like to know exactly where the full time jobs have been saved in previous attempts, I'll bet the statistics don't support that nugget. Perhaps the 6hr deliveries will be touted once again as "an enabler".

[Martin Walsh]

Before I answer the question from Fish I just want to answer the points of mother and Hatiful.

Mother the point is that Royal Mail are likely to propose via the IR framework to this offices where they could move to one wave of traffic. We all know that they cannot move to one wave everywhere yet , so the point I was making is if they propose it in my area , every office or Branch has to have their own strategy for dealing with it. In 2009 when the National Union said no Office should agree any savings my area and others did that and we took 20 days of strike action to back it up when Royal Mail took executive action. The reason why the CWU called the policy is that Royal Mail said they no longer was going to pay for change and they did not need to pay for the BT revisions , a SHorter working week or a pay deal for BT 2010. Too many offices throughout the UK did agree savings against the policy.

Hatiful how many offices do you talk for so many generalisations which have no evidence to back it up. If your office is like that then talk about your office don't make out your an expert on other offices .

Now Fish I can only give a personal opinion and not a United CWU position as this is an emerging debate and subject.

The average age of a postal worker in the Eastern geographical directors control area ( there are 3 geographical directors for the UK ) is 48.

According to Royal Mail's records via thousands of test letter sampling 95% of walks complete by 14:30

There are approximately 66 thousand walks of varying lengths.

We have rural deliveries already around 6 hours due to the time between delivery points

Within offices there is a range of delivery times as walks are unbalanced.

The other thing is we have an appetite from OPGs and part timers to work over their contracted hours by doing belateds , or performing their own walks.

Equally let's be clear you could have 2 different walks of 4 hours and it may be completely different in terms of time actually out on delivery ! One could have hardly any attendance calls and the other could have 40% of his walk in attendance calls. They are both 4 hour walks but one takes 6 hours and the other 4 hours ! This is happening now in offices !
As since BT revisions walks are going longer for a variety of reasons more delivery points , more traffic congestion , more attendance calls etc.

We also have a variety of attendances some work 4 days so walks would natural be longer to fill a 9:35 day , we have a rotating rest day , we have 9 day fortnights and we have wallingtons where people work 6 days a week to gain a rest week where some work their rest week.

We also have varying walks within offices we have those who have high terrain , we cdvs , we have HCTs we have those who do businesses we have those who do council houses we have those who do upper class areas etc . No one walk is the same.

Personally I think 6 hours is not a target which any Union should support. However getting obsessed with a span length is not the issue ! The 6 hour span is only going to be a factor if Royal Mail ever purchases the 20 large letter machines and that is probably 3 to 5 years. The real immediate threat which none of you seem to get is if your work does not come until 8:30 or 9 than in order for you to complete your contracted hours your attendance times would have to move from say 06:30 -1430 but to 0900 too 1700. This is not lengthening the delivery span it is changing the time your work gets into the office.

It is almost the best red herring get everyone arguing about the span length when it will only ever happen if they buy the 20 machines and sequence all the work which will mean there is no indoor work at all ! This is a 5 year plan!

The real threat is moving to one wave which is next year !

[fishtank]

A change in start times while not being something the members might like would not be a direct threat to job security, surely that makes this point the red herring. Delivery spans are far more important to members than you believe, it's almost all they talk about and far from being an appetite to work over there is a combination of a sense of duty, the belief that they really don't have much choice and a need for part-time staff to earn a decent wage. It's interesting that you state that royal mail say 95% of deliveries are completed by 2.30 but if that's the case where is this significant amount of overtime coming from?

In my opinion the present delivery spans of around 4hrs is plenty especially considering that it isn't fixed and depending on traffic can go anything up to 5 hrs. What we all know is that royal mail is absolutely useless when it comes to planning duties and a 5hr delivery will without a doubt turn into 6 hrs, through experience I can tell you that this would be a difficult to sustain for any length of time.

This brings me to delivery methods which would obviously form part of any deal to bring in longer spans, well don't make me laugh, there must be around 40 thousand trolleys lying rusting outside delivery offices, their use has not been policed by either party and if you know that methods will not be used you cannot use them to mitigate the damage longer spans will do.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

It is so typical of people to turn inwards without knowing the facts.

Sorry but no - you personally, and the CWU as an organisation have to take some of the blame for the nature of the comments made in this thread. We have received No official information, the information we are receiving is piecemeal, fragmentary and incomplete.

It is almost the best red herring get everyone arguing about the span length

While we probably aren't representative of the majority of staff, span length is not a red herring, its the bane of contention for most because of the lack of planning, resourcing, the out of date "overrunning deliveries" agreement, and the culture of command and control from RM and to some degree the CWU.

But then its only an opinion easily dismissed because we don't represent anyone.

[paulf0203]

Apologies as I suppose this is covered somewhere but can someone explain how this one wave will work why is there a view that there will be no inside work? whether the mail comes in one, two or three waves it's still got to be put in the frame has it not? we will still have to sort the parcels and packets will we not? we will still have to put in the d2d's will we not? or am I missing something?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Apologies as I suppose this is covered somewhere but can someone explain how this one wave will work why is there a view that there will be no inside work? whether the mail comes in one, two or three waves it's still got to be put in the frame has it not? we will still have to sort the parcels and packets will we not? we will still have to put in the d2d's will we not? or am I missing something?

Yes.

1 wave won't cancel all indoor work straight away but over 5 years when they introduce the new machines which will be sequencing all letters, flats and small packets, D2Ds will arrive pre-sorted and the frames won't exist (it's even got a name - bench merging). Therefore either the D2Ds will arrive mixed in with the mail, or you'll have specific addresses on specific days, and you'll only need to sort through the bundles to mark the packets that aren't presorted.

Though how this will work with Christmas Cards which the machines can't read, I can only guess at extended delivery being a matter of course, and 5-6 hour deliveries during the rest of the year being 8 hour duties at Xmas.

[k979aaa]

What ever happens a reduction in the working week for no loss of pay is the very least for the next pay deal and nothing less is acceptable with the full knowledge that the CWU have to what is coming down the tracks headlong at us all.