Just agree to multi-bundling!

Martin Walsh · Post by **Martin Walsh** » 02 Oct 2017, 07:54

It is important that you understand that within the talks Royal Mail want too change the way trials happen in Royal Mail. They don’t want long winded trails with terms of reference they want pilots which can be rolled out everywhere and changed too work. This is why the £375 lump is linked too the trail and the consolidation of the lump sum is linked to it being rolled out in all offices from the 31st March 2018.

Now the CWU will not be agreeing to the concept of merging three bundles out on delivery.

However the CWU are not opppsed too merging from three bundles indoors. The fact is that D2D will over the course of the next few months be collated in more offices. If Royal Mail do push back the final dispatch plan in Mail centres from around 22:00 than the inward will come in later and that first wave will be heavier even if it won’t be 95% in all offices.

Royal Mail if they maximise the first wave think it is than inefficient for Delivery staff to throw that up in a sorting frame and than the second wave and manual.

The issue is are Delivery staff instance they have to sort the work into a frame ? Of course Royal Mail have an a clear motive on why they want to remove the size of the frames and it is linked to their closure and merger plan.

Remember in any agreement no one side gets everything they want and there is never a one sided agreement. Any agreement is a balance of compromises and red line issues.

So if we stop Royal Mail’s last letter of 17:00 , even their next proposal of 16:00 and we move that as well , we also stopped the multi bunddle option of merging on delivery , would staff accept multi merging of bundles indoors without necessary the use of current prep frames ?

By the way we are miles apart from the above but it is worth now considering options in any deal.

worktotime · Post by **worktotime** » 02 Oct 2017, 09:05

these ideas come from people who have never done the job and so don't know the impact of doing away with duty sorting frames and merging mail either indoor or outdoor would be a nightmare and outdoor would take a lot longer ,and how would you mark a letter for pkts and parcels ? and would the mail come in as the loops start and finish on your frame ? clueless

CAMPINGBLUNDERER · Post by **CAMPINGBLUNDERER** » 02 Oct 2017, 09:13

We struggle to gets 50/50 split between the waves usually 40/60 with all the packets on the second wave.

hibernian1875 · Post by **hibernian1875** » 02 Oct 2017, 12:29

Summer lapsing trial..became summer, winter then all year ..trials are just an excuse to force there mad ideas on the work force ..say no to trials ...vote yes and watch them panic

fishtank · Post by **fishtank** » 02 Oct 2017, 14:54

would staff accept multi merging of bundles indoors without necessary the use of current prep frames ?

In principle I can't see a problem with that but it would have to be conditional on a set percentage of sequenced mail.

Today is a perfect example, there is no way a bulk posting of screwfix catalogues could be efficiently merged on a bench. A great deal would need to change in the way the mail is presented to delivery offices before any bench merging would be feasible, perhaps they should sort out the horse first then we'll worry about the cart.

It's almost 10 years since they first promised us 90%+ sequenced and we've actually gone backwards, our final wave now comes walksorted not sequenced to save time/cost in the mailcentre. At a best guess I'd say 55-60% of the mail that comes through our doors is sequenced, that's 40-45% left to bench merge and that's not going to fly for however long it takes them to get their act together.

Let's see them prove they can hit their targets first and consistently then we'll move on to trailing bench merging.

pinstripe · Post by **pinstripe** » 02 Oct 2017, 14:57

I knew I had read something about this on here.

POSTMAN wrote:For reference and see an old thread in competitors forum...

https://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/communi ... 3&p=783568" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Canada Post Admits Two-Bundle
Delivery Method is Dangerous

I would have thought that Moya might have at least kept up with developments from one of her previous jobs, especially one which is relevant. Oh well, guess she's a bit busy

ewancurze · Post by **ewancurze** » 02 Oct 2017, 15:24

It would have worked well in our office today!!
Letters all came in late.....and none of them were sequenced,so we would have been "bench merging" 100% today.
At least the flats were "buddied".

clashcityrocker · Post by **clashcityrocker** » 02 Oct 2017, 15:48

dingo wrote:
would staff accept multi merging of bundles indoors without necessary the use of current prep frames ?

If the process is as you describe, then the second "bundle" doesn't really exist.
If you have to go through the first bundle for redirections/keepsafe then that mail could easily be merged indoors anyway.
That leaves a D2D bundle at the back of the bundle. It isn't difficult to merge that on the street. I always used to do it that way before they went into workload and if I only have 1 set then I still just deliver them from the back of the bundle rather than prep them.

I don't understand how the sequenced mail is going to be presented on the first wave. It is all different shapes and sizes. It can't come in trays unless it is lying flat?

Post by **Brandy** » 02 Oct 2017, 17:28

Oh dear Oh dear who comes up with these crazy ideas? Oh just remembered those that get paid a fortune and have to be seen to be doing something!

banner · Post by **banner** » 02 Oct 2017, 18:07

How can the quality of service be maintained if we no longer throw the mail out? I find mistakes in the sequence mail all the time. I find numbers out of sequence, mispelt addresses, streets and businesses all over and from other walks. Mail will definitely be coming back everyday, maybe a half a bundle or more. This is a reduction of service quality and can result in violations of the USO by any postie who wishes to miss out any bits they want.

lightningpostman · Post by **lightningpostman** » 02 Oct 2017, 19:38

have you doen a loop with 3 big bundles one in your hand 2 lugging around on your back with whatever parcels you can fit ??

how do you expect me to carry anything else?

wannabeek · Post by **wannabeek** » 02 Oct 2017, 19:46

There could be a remote point of logic to the OPs point.

Imagine stopping at No 1 and looking in your trolley at your 3 bundles... Ok. 3 letters from this bundle... 1 magazine from this one... one set of D2Ds from this one, off we go.

Stop at No 3... no letters today... 2 magazines... one set of D2Ds, off we go.

At no 5... etc etc it continues. All deliveries would take so long to complete that the staff required would be a massive increase.

To be honest though - most posties would probably just run around like headless chickens, pretending that it's all done properly just so they can get home a few minutes before time!

postslippete · Post by **postslippete** » 02 Oct 2017, 20:10

worktotime wrote:these ideas come from people who have never done the job and so don't know the impact of doing away with duty sorting frames and merging mail either indoor or outdoor would be a nightmare and outdoor would take a lot longer ,and how would you mark a letter for pkts and parcels ? and would the mail come in as the loops start and finish on your frame ? clueless

This is exactly what I first thought with this idea of multi-bundling. Letters will be always be important to our business, but RM have allegedly made a greater share of last year profits via packets. These packets need to be marked up somehow, otherwise we will be walking round with 3 different bundles, a PDA and a trolley full of unsorted parcels. With a duty frame, its easy to mark these packets up and put them in loop order, which is just as well as there are usually loads of them little Chinese ones.

Newbie001 · Post by **Newbie001** » 02 Oct 2017, 20:15

lightningpostman wrote:have you doen a loop with 3 big bundles one in your hand 2 lugging around on your back with whatever parcels you can fit ??

how do you expect me to carry anything else?

Because RM and the CWU are still under the illusion that all offices are using trolleys. Or in the case of most of Central Scotland (closes everywhere) all loops are small enough so there is no weight in the bags.
They really have no idea.

Phantom · Post by **Phantom** » 02 Oct 2017, 20:18

It's an unworkable work practice, you could not carry 2 or 3 bundles of mail and pull a trolley at the same time. If your bundles were all in the trolley and you were stopping at a house going in to the pouch pulling one piece of mail from one bundle and a piece from another etc. then it would take forever to get completed. It's a huge NO from me.