Will the post be suspended soon?

iHateD2Ds · Post by **iHateD2Ds** » 17 Mar 2020, 06:58

Royal Mail have are in unique position, a massive workforce and fleet of delivery vans which could be utilised
if worst comes to worst and Mail does gets stopped why not start distributing goods and food to the elderly and the self isolating?

Post by **HTPostman** » 17 Mar 2020, 07:11

iHateD2Ds wrote:Royal Mail have are in unique position, a massive workforce and fleet of delivery vans which could be utilised
if worst comes to worst and Mail does gets stopped why not start distributing goods and food to the elderly and the self isolating?

I’ve been thinking the same. We need a strategy (now there’s an idea!) from management.

RM need to stop executive action.
Union need to put any strike talk on hold.
Both sides can agree to recommence all that in the future.

For a start I think the USO should go for now. I don’t think we should be working in pairs either. If you’ve got Joe and Bob who normally do a park and loop, can’t Joe go out on his own Mon, Weds, Sat and Bob go out Tues, Thurs (then swap the next week)?
In return we’ll bank hours, so if you’re only doing 24 hours instead of your usual 35 or whatever, when the worst is over and we have a backlog to deal with you work off the extra hours you’d already been paid.

I get the feeling those of us who are able to work, will soon be delivering medicine, good, supplies etc especially to the isolated and elderly.

I’ll take my tin foil hat off now!

frankieboy · Post by **frankieboy** » 17 Mar 2020, 08:02

I agree that all non essential mail should be suspended but all other should carry on, i.e. Hospital appointments. With more people staying at home there will be a massive upsurge in people ordering online so there will a lot more parcels to deliver. And for goodness sake stop giving us d2d,s to deliver.

mjd24 · Post by **mjd24** » 17 Mar 2020, 08:49

Ren Hoëk wrote:I honestly don't think it will be and or should be. BUT! Only if RM relaxes it's culture on management harassing staff to be present when sick. RM MUST create a culture where staff feel free to be absent if they have the slightest inkling they have this thing. Mild cough etc. Staff should feel able to ring up in the morning, utter the word coronavirus and be met with "Thankyou for telling me, Please stay home for 14 days and I hope you feel better soon/Don't have it".

It would help to stop the spread of the virus within the company and thus help keep the company operational. It will also help us not become the spreaders.

Im quite happy with the current procedures. Not allowing customers to touch PDA and distancing ourselves from customers.

But isnt it the case that you can have the virus and not have any symptoms? So its pointless relying on having symptoms to decide not to attend work.

mjd24 · Post by **mjd24** » 17 Mar 2020, 08:52

LouBarlow wrote:
Ren Hoëk wrote:I honestly don't think it will be and or should be. BUT! Only if RM relaxes it's culture on management harassing staff to be present when sick. RM MUST create a culture where staff feel free to be absent if they have the slightest inkling they have this thing. Mild cough etc. Staff should feel able to ring up in the morning, utter the word coronavirus and be met with "Thankyou for telling me, Please stay home for 14 days and I hope you feel better soon/Don't have it".

It would help to stop the spread of the virus within the company and thus help keep the company operational. It will also help us not become the spreaders.

Im quite happy with the current procedures. Not allowing customers to touch PDA and distancing ourselves from customers.
The problem with this tactic is you don't exhibit any symptoms for up to 5 days, so going into work you are unknowingly infecting everyone around you.

This ^^^

LaggyBand · Post by **LaggyBand** » 17 Mar 2020, 09:29

The government don’t want a utility like the post shutting up shop. And RM will keep going unless pressured otherwise by the government.

It’s not about stopping the virus. It’s about slowing it right down. You do that by cutting out all unnecessary contact, like entertainment/pleasure stuff. The post doesn’t fall within that category. It might all look like junk parcels to the postie, but having systems like this still running is supporting the plan to stay at home as much as possible.

FacesOfStone · Post by **FacesOfStone** » 17 Mar 2020, 09:51

LaggyBand wrote:The government don’t want a utility like the post shutting up shop. And RM will keep going unless pressured otherwise by the government.

It’s not about stopping the virus. It’s about slowing it right down. You do that by cutting out all unnecessary contact, like entertainment/pleasure stuff. The post doesn’t fall within that category. It might all look like junk parcels to the postie, but having systems like this still running is supporting the plan to stay at home as much as possible.

Agreed. A reduced / slower service is inevitable; illness and isolation notwithstanding, loads of us have school-age kids and won’t be able to do five days when the inevitable closures come, but I think our work is going to be vital to an awful lot of people over the coming weeks and months.

themailman · Post by **themailman** » 17 Mar 2020, 10:18

StevieSB · Post by **StevieSB** » 17 Mar 2020, 10:42

Personally I think we can sit and debate all this as much as we want but events outside our control will take over.

I want to keep working as I'm sure most people do.
RM are busy making plans how to keep the whole thing running and managers are making sure they've got enough formal warning letters printed ready for when they drag us into their office to give us a b******ing for being late/sick/missing a scan etc.

But ultimately events are moving so fast, no one has any real idea whats gonna happen in the coming weeks/Months.

And my guess (and it is a guess) is, as the larger mail centres run short of available staff, not enough drivers and so on, the whole thing will grind to a halt.

The service will be suspeneded, not intentionally but because there will be no other choice.

Jeez, that sounds dark and pessimistic, hope I'm wrong

Post by **SpacePhoenix** » 17 Mar 2020, 11:27

StevieSB wrote:And my guess (and it is a guess) is, as the larger mail centres run short of available staff, not enough drivers and so on, the whole thing will grind to a halt.

The two sections that could potentially grind to a halt first would be the mech (which would result in either all walk sort instead of sequenced or all as manual) and the SD lockers. Both of them areas will have a limited % of staff members on a shift who'll be trained for them (more so for the mech)

Post by **POSTMAN** » 17 Mar 2020, 12:42

Obviously there will be mass disruptions from time to time and I genuinely and I'm sure we're all thinking the same but what realistically can Royal Mail do apart from and dare I say it but to keep calm (and clean as best) and carry on.

There are other workers that I think have it worse than us, emergency services, care home workers, chemists, teachers for the time being and not last but not least those supermarket guys and gals who are going through hell at the moment, and that will carry on till the end with this stockpiling and selfish bollox.

Ten of thousands of jobs will be lost in this country alone, and it could possibly take years for the world to get back to normal, sad times.
Worse is to come yet, recession part 2, which could be worse than the 2008 one.

We've got a good deal with Royal Mail.

exetererica · Post by **exetererica** » 17 Mar 2020, 13:16

andyman606 · Post by **andyman606** » 17 Mar 2020, 14:04

So go in today two guys come in coughing looking like sh##e throw a bit of their walk off then decide to go home and self isolate management response carry on everything is okay the virus doesn't stay on paper(experts now) we will only deep clean if the person is tested positive! No one is getting tested now so here lies the problem until someone from the office is admitted to hospital and tested no action will be taken.....methinks we are going to have to grin and bare this I'm afraid as there is no way to confirm the person really has the virus that decides to leave as testing has stopped so unless someone is taken seriously ill in the office there will no doubt be any actions taken higher up.
Look after your own hygiene and stop crowding around each other!!

Acca Dacca · Post by **Acca Dacca** » 17 Mar 2020, 14:23

The plan is and always will be for us to keep working until we get it

Forget trying to help us avoid it - oh no just keep going as normal until your ill

Williagea · Post by **Williagea** » 17 Mar 2020, 14:43

HTPostman wrote:
iHateD2Ds wrote:Royal Mail have are in unique position, a massive workforce and fleet of delivery vans which could be utilised
if worst comes to worst and Mail does gets stopped why not start distributing goods and food to the elderly and the self isolating?
I’ve been thinking the same. We need a strategy (now there’s an idea!) from management.

RM need to stop executive action.
Union need to put any strike talk on hold.
Both sides can agree to recommence all that in the future.

For a start I think the USO should go for now. I don’t think we should be working in pairs either. If you’ve got Joe and Bob who normally do a park and loop, can’t Joe go out on his own Mon, Weds, Sat and Bob go out Tues, Thurs (then swap the next week)?
In return we’ll bank hours, so if you’re only doing 24 hours instead of your usual 35 or whatever, when the worst is over and we have a backlog to deal with you work off the extra hours you’d already been paid.

I get the feeling those of us who are able to work, will soon be delivering medicine, good, supplies etc especially to the isolated and elderly.

I’ll take my tin foil hat off now!

You couldn't half the number of people in every office each day; mail would take twice as long to sort in the morning and for the shared van, what if one of them can't drive? How are they supposed to get around on their own? I'm a driver with a non driving partner, am I supposed to get screwed just because he never wanted to take the royal mail driver course? Overtime would be spent like crazy by managers if staffing was halved; they'd be desperate to get rid of as much mail as possible; that wouldn't come cheap. You can't force a contract change on someone even short term. I'm not working an extra ten hours a week once the virus is over, I have things to do other than giving people crappy door to doors. And if instead they tried to make me work only three days a week during the virus but longer hours each day to do two duties on my own they'd be told to do one as well.
Two people in my house have asthma and heart problems, as soon as I get the slightest cough I'm isolating and not coming to work. I'm not risking their lives for the sake of bits of paper and plastic