ELECTION MATERIAL:EXTENDED DELIVERY OVERTIME ISSUE:AND MORE:UPDATE:May 6th 2021 Election

[TrueBlueTerrier]

You can't opt out of Poll Cards

Why not?

You need a reason to opt out and conscience clause or H&S would be difficult to apply. Unless you are against elections but then under a Dictatorship they would tell you to take them anyway. (sorry weak joke)

Also, when we were paid for D2Ds you couldn't opt out then either, so I guess that's a precedence.

[IloveMYredTROLLEY!]

Prepping poll cards in your own time?

It is part of the workload, done in contract hours.

They are extracting the urine, when as a depot, we always get the worst possible rate for election material. Woppie doo, 3.3p per card, while many depots around the country are getting double.

[ziggy]

We get about 3.5p but they won't let us count them. It's worked out by our call rate plus half again so we are majorly ripped off. We were told that if we elect to deliver them over more than one day then we forego the payment for them. I realise that's not quite the same as opting out but that's the option I'm going for the next time . I will prep and deliver them in RM time and finish when I'm supposed to. I'm sick of the battle to be honest, I know we are being shafted but the rep is a selfish bstard and the rest of the office is gutless. I'm sick of fighting their battles for them.

[hampshireman]

It's about time offices were singing from the same hymn sheet regarding polling cards.

We were told from DOM and union that they MUST all go in one day and need to be prepped in our own time. If we deliver them over two days then we get no payment for them. It's unreasonable to expect us to prep and deliver this amount on the day they come into the office. By the time you take into account how late we actually got out on delivery plus how long we went over, (most got finished after 5pm) the polling card payment isn't worth it.

I'm opting out the next time, I don't want the payment but I will prep and deliver them in RM's time, not my own.

your DOM is an arse.... and is totally wrong

[Chewster]

We were also told that we only had one day to deliver them in one day if we want paid for it. And we also get paid our call rate x 1.5 for them, which is rubbish. I've got a lot of big big houses on my route, many of them were getting 4 polling cards and some even more. They'd be as well as bending me over the table and calling me bitch!

As for overtime, they say that we don't get to claim overtime for election material causing us to go over, but to be quite honest I claim anyway. In the frantic rush to get them delivered, how do I know exactly what pieces of mail has caused me to go overtime?

[steve1873]

Bottom line. I am paid by the hour. That doesn't change for x weeks of the year where RM takes on extra work during election time. I will do election materials and claim the unit payment. But you can be 100% certain that I will be claiming overtime in addition to that, should it be incurred - regardless of the reason! If they don't want to pay me the OT, then I will be going home at my finishing time and someone else can do it, on overtime presumably!

How do you decide if election materials are the cause for incurrring overtime when they are done alongside all other work?

[dennis12]

Our office got told we had to do them in one day until we said fine but no lapsing one phone call by Dom and all of a sudden yes you can split them over two days as long as you take your lapsing.

[loverman shabba]

our office cant even get them sorted up never mind delivered. we cant even handle the usual mail that comes through the door.

[motherhubbard]

You can't opt out of Poll Cards

Why not?

You need a reason to opt out

Whilst it is expected that delivery will be made by the individual due to undertake the
particular delivery, local management will deal sensitively and sympathetically with
genuine requests to deviate from this arrangement.

I don't think you are dealing sensitively or sympathetically with my desire to deviate from the arrangement.
You are worse than a local manager. Did Huddersfield lose again?

In times gone by we had a DSM who refused to acknowledge the existence of the conscience clause and we were told that we either took them all or we took none.
I opted for the latter on several occasions until he moved on and a more sympathetic regime was put in place.
And I won't be doing any this year either.

[POSTMAN]

You can't opt out of Poll Cards

Why not?

You need a reason to opt out

Whilst it is expected that delivery will be made by the individual due to undertake the
particular delivery, local management will deal sensitively and sympathetically with
genuine requests to deviate from this arrangement.

I don't think you are dealing sensitively or sympathetically with my desire to deviate from the arrangement.
You are worse than a local manager. Did Huddersfield lose again?

In times gone by we had a DSM who refused to acknowledge the existence of the conscience clause and we were told that we either took them all or we took none.
I opted for the latter on several occasions until he moved on and a more sympathetic regime was put in place.
And I won't be doing any this year either.

Lame.

[pinstripe]

All our local offices received poll cards yesterday (Saturday).

For the first time since we became a MPU, they arrived uncoded and are to be sorted manually. It will take ages, staff coming in an hour early to sort them Monday.

If they had been coded we could have sequenced our entire area through the CSS machines without running over our time by much, very strange.

[CAMPINGBLUNDERER]

Our cards always have to be manually sorted , normally alpha / numerically by postcode .

We can't understand why they cannot be run through the machines to come in order

[postslippete]

For example, we are not supposed to be paid overtime if we happen to work past our time when we are delivering D2Ds. This is because we get an additional supplement for delivering the D2Ds right? But 4 or 5 lots of D2Ds that need to be prepped and delivered would usually put me past my finish time, no question.

Whoever told you this is wrong, we no longer are paid for d2d, we get a delivery supplement but that isnt a direct payment for doing d2d - we get the same amount if we have 0 d2d that week or 5 or 6 sets.
You dont have to extend to do d2d unless you saved them all up for the entire week and tried to do them all on a Friday or something, then that would be your fauit. So long as youre spreading the workload evenly and you have so many d2d that you extend then OT should be paid.

Yes, you are right they replaced the separate door to door payments with a 'delivery supplement' i.e. a fixed rate per week. But how many times have we actually had zero D2Ds a week?? More likely, we always get at the minimum 3 lots per week and this is an area which has a lot of growth potential for Royal Mail - which means we will potentially deliver more mail and receive less money for it than what we used to get!! But you are absolutely right, we don't get paid for D2Ds anymore as even those guys working on the machines get the delivery supplement as well as an additional allowance for working at night.

Anyway, I totally agree with your point about delivering the D2Ds over the course of the week (as long as they include the time to prep them in work plans). We used to do that with the polling cards as well a few years ago, but now I can see the sh*t hitting the fan when they expect us to deliver them all in one day...

[TrueBlueTerrier]

You can't opt out of Poll Cards

Why not?

You need a reason to opt out

Whilst it is expected that delivery will be made by the individual due to undertake the
particular delivery, local management will deal sensitively and sympathetically with
genuine requests to deviate from this arrangement.

I don't think you are dealing sensitively or sympathetically with my desire to deviate from the arrangement.
You are worse than a local manager. Did Huddersfield lose again?

In times gone by we had a DSM who refused to acknowledge the existence of the conscience clause and we were told that we either took them all or we took none.
I opted for the latter on several occasions until he moved on and a more sympathetic regime was put in place.
And I won't be doing any this year either.

The question you asked was about poll cards. Can you explain how poll cards fall under the conscience clause, just in case anyone at my unit wants to as well.

The election leaflets do fall under the clause and I have used it successfully myself.

[motherhubbard]

The question you asked was about poll cards. Can you explain how poll cards fall under the conscience clause.

No. The sweeping statement you made was about polling cards. Who said polling cards were anything to do with the conscience clause?

Election material is extra work that isn't and never has been obligatory.
The polling cards fall under the same category and are not and never have been obligatory.
Where does it say that they are?