Update on the parcel strategy

Martin Walsh · Post by **Martin Walsh** » 13 Apr 2019, 10:02

It is important all members are aware that Royal Mail are very serious about removing larger parcels above shoe box size from the vast majority of delivery offices
In fact they have now appointed a senior Director to the appointment of Head of parcel separation his name is Matthew Lawlor to carry out this strategy.

Also Royal Mail have appointed a previous Head of DHL Parcels Achim Dunnwald to the position as chief transformation office who works directly to Reco Back in charge of changing the pipeline and parcel strategy!

Additionally Royal Mail senior managers such as Anton Harding are carrying out meetings in the way of Town Hall Events Across Offices engaging with our members .

Anton Harding who is one of the key Royal Mail Strategy Directors in charge of delivery’s visited Pensbury Place Delivery Office which houses SW1, SW3 & SW7 Delivery offices containing 300 members. He claimed that Royal Mail does indeed have a parcel strategy and that this has been discussed at National Level and it is based on removing the larger parcels from the majority of Delivery Offices , with only 302 delivery offices delivering these items as opposed to the current circa 1200 offices !

Anton. Harding suggested that smaller parcels would grow to replace the larger parcels but offered no timescales for this !

Today the London Divisional Committee endorsed the submission of the following emergency motion to the forthcoming annual Postal group conference which is to be held later this month. We believe the CWU should make an announcement on this Royal Mail strategy as soon as possible ! The silence is very concerning!

The emergency motion raises London branches opposition to RM parcel separation strategy, which is removing all parcels from shoe box size and above away from the core delivery network.

Coinbags · Post by **Coinbags** » 13 Apr 2019, 10:39

Hello Dingo,
What are your issues with this?
Thanks

Post by **SpacePhoenix** » 13 Apr 2019, 11:10

Will the large parcels also be bypassing MCs?

zz666 · Post by **zz666** » 13 Apr 2019, 11:46

Glad to know you are keeping us up to date on this important development, because the CWU certainly isn't.

Martin Walsh · Post by **Martin Walsh** » 13 Apr 2019, 11:47

Yes they will be bypassing the inward mail centre.

Royal Mail’s parcel strategy is to have three parcel hubs in the UK , one will be the new Warrington Hub and there will be one in the midlands and one in the South.

The plan is for each of these HUBs is to have new 400 selection parcel machines. The aim is for these machines to sort to parcels above shoebox size to the circa 302 LAT units and therefore these parcels will by pass the inward mail as it will only need to cross docked in the mail centre onto an area distribution vehicle onto the LAT unit.

My objection to this is based on the following :

1. Whilst all parcels are seeing growth , two streams of parcels are growing faster and they are the Jiffy bag parcels and above show box parcels why remove them from the all 36 Mail’s centres and over 800 delivery offices ? How is going to safeguard jobs in these offices ?

2. Royal Mail have for years suggested that Royal Mail only make money on parcels when letters and are parcels are delivered together. Yet now they want the normal postman/women to deliver letters , tracked , smaller parcels and d2d to the address and than someone else doing Larger parcels from another office and than LAT.

3. There is no evidence to suggest larger parcels will grow by pushing the delivery of these later in the day.

4.Royal Mail have suggested they can reduce from 60 thousand deliveries to circa 52 thousand by removing larger parcels from offices and putting them to be delivered later in the day from 302 LAT units

5. What will be the job impact from such a proposal ?

6. The legal protections are up for review in October what if they gave the larger parcels to an alternative cheaper workforce such as they employ on same day in the Royal Mail own subsidiary company.

7. The four pillars agreement spoke about Royal Mail and the CWU coming up with an agreed plan of what the pipeline should be over 3,5 and 7 years. Yet this has come from Reco Back who has employed McKinsey’s consultants who have come up with this plan to reduce costs not safeguard jobs

Post by **SpacePhoenix** » 13 Apr 2019, 12:34

RM will have to have all outward MCs be more careful when segging between the sleeves for smalls and yorks for large. It's not unusual (especially for Tracked) to get a load of large in a sleeve and a load of small in a york. Will all Tracked SDs also come under this?

lightningpostman · Post by **lightningpostman** » 13 Apr 2019, 14:02

so those this spell job cuts? condensing a office of 50 walks into 30 ? longer walks 20+miles?

leolion855 · Post by **leolion855** » 13 Apr 2019, 16:00

having transferred to a very small office recently im very worried about this and possibly being pushed backed to my old larger office ( that had no room for expansion)

Post by **wacko74** » 13 Apr 2019, 17:53

In terms of actually getting rid of parcels (delivered first time) I definitely don't think ''later in the day'' is the answer.

Whenever I do xmas parcel duties I find the best time for catching people in is between 7am and 11am... after that the later in the day it gets the less and less people are in.

Between 3pm and 6pm is probably the worst time, hardly get rid of any.

Deadly · Post by **Deadly** » 13 Apr 2019, 18:42

I find it bizarre that Royal Mail are going back to having separate parcel deliveries after all the moaning they did about having more than one van working in the same area.

Seymour Buts · Post by **Seymour Buts** » 13 Apr 2019, 18:54

Deadly wrote:I find it bizarre that Royal Mail are going back to having separate parcel deliveries after all the moaning they did about having more than one van working in the same area.

That was years ago, mail volumes meant it wasn't realistic to increase duty sizes by 20% like they want to do now. I suspect these lat duties will be hybrid type duties with collections built into them to save yet more money. We need to fight this.

glenfiddich · Post by **glenfiddich** » 13 Apr 2019, 20:13

I know lets call these lat duties parcelforce1

abuch1980 · Post by **abuch1980** » 13 Apr 2019, 22:29

I thought they already do this. In my DO I deliver oversized items between 1-4.30 for 5 or 6 walks. Then I start the final collections.

Phantom · Post by **Phantom** » 14 Apr 2019, 16:47

@Dingo, I'm not questioning your reasoning here at all but if the parcel strategy does happen then the CWU should push for a 35 hour week with meal relief, that way it would protect thousands of jobs, something has got to give if we are to achieve a 35 hour week and if this means shifting work sideways then we must do it, don't forget all delivery staff have just taken on 90% of collections, so collection staff have lost this work without argument. I'm all for it as long as we have a 35 hour week out of it.

Post by **97gaz** » 14 Apr 2019, 17:24