Next reduction in Working week

[RobertT]

Further reductions in the working week aren't guaranteed to happen, they are linked to technological developments and operational efficiencies, amongst other things. Take a look at your CWU 4 pillars agreement booklet, available here.

The important bits being on page 12:

A further reduction of 1 hour in the working week to be introduced from the 1st October 2019, the funding formula for the hour will include a joint evaluation of inflation as of the 1st April 2019, any implementation of changes from the trials, in sections 14 and 15 of this agreement, on-going efficiency, and other operational and technological changes). The shorter working week forum will review progress for plans to achieve the above objectives, ensuring they are on track and put corrective actions in place where not.

And page 13:

The first hour is proposed as part of the current pay deal for October 2018 (outlined in pay section above with further detail in the functional sections below), based on achievement of the detailed enablers.

A further hour will be linked to the 2019 pay review as detailed in the pay section of this agreement.

The aim is to achieve the remainder through financial measures enabled by technological developments, operational efficiencies, methods changes and (where necessary) the annual pay review. We will jointly assess whether sufficient progress is being made and put all efforts towards ensuring the above measures enable a reduction in the working week to that timetable. The nature of the changes means that different parts of the business may achieve the changes necessary for working time reduction at different times. We recognise there are different start points with different grades within Royal Mail Group which may require alternative and imaginative solutions to determine how the value of the change in working hours will equally apply to all employees.

New full time employees from October 2018, recruited either from existing employees or new recruits in the core OPG grade, will be on a 35 hour week at the current hourly basic pay rate with pro-rata allowances aligned to the current full-time conditioned hours. Additional hours performed through overtime or scheduled attendance for those employees on this new contract will  be paid at single rate overtime until the total hours worked align to that of our current full time contracted employees. This will be adjusted as we progress through the SWW flightpath.