Do postmen get a choice about being moved?

LuckyLyn · Post by **LuckyLyn** » 02 Jun 2018, 20:56

We had a lovely postman for a few years, and then he just vanished. When we asked the new postman what had happened to him and he said he'd been moved on. Do postmen get a say in this? Or are they just moved on to a new route whether they like it or not?

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 02 Jun 2018, 23:22

LuckyLyn wrote:We had a lovely postman for a few years, and then he just vanished. When we asked the new postman what had happened to him and he said he'd been moved on. Do postmen get a say in this? Or are they just moved on to a new route whether they like it or not?

Yes and No.

The No part of the answer is that the "rounds" we call them walks or duties, are changed every few years as houses are built or demolished. This is to ensure that the workload is shared out equally (in theory) and fairly. The rebalances to duties are carried out in various ways but when they have been decided by Royal Mail, and agreed by the Union then we enter a "Revision". This is when the duties are changed.

Now usually duties have some streets added and some streets removed (the rebalancing part) so it will be rare that after a revision a Postie will be delivering to all the same addresses as they were before.

Now at the most basic level the job is just knocking on doors and posting mail through letterboxes it's difficult to find a system that is both fair to the business and the employee when selecting who works where.

This brings me on to the Yes part.

After a revision is decided and is implemented all Posties in descending order of how long they have worked for Royal Mail chose in turn which round they want. So if a posties previous round is free they can select it, although it won't be the exact same round as it was before.