Social distancing... Possible changes?

[themailman]

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[A2B]

I think you'll find that most of the world is winging it at the moment. I would hope that being a large scale employer RM have close contact with government officials and are privy to future plans but I don't envy anyone trying to sort out this mess.

Non RM but a friend of mine works in an office block which usual has 100 people, she's been told to expect to work from home till January!

I would be worried in her shoes. If her job can be done effectively from home for months on end then it can just as easily be done by someone else in India or Bangladesh for far less money.

Thankfully her job isn't one that can be outsourced

[A2B]

Those full timers working from home were asked to work their day off for no extra ended up coming back to the office. Those doing the delivery alone were tasked with prepping everything in the morning but they weren't paid any extra to get it done,same as all those extra parcels to be delivered

Surely they were only being asked to work their 38 hours?

So you would be happy to give up for example 5 x 7.6hrs to work 6 x 6.3hrs?

Why would the delivery alone person be paid any extra? (unless it was overtime) the days of being paid ghost overtime need to go

Full time person working from home - i.e meeting on the street isn't doing 7.6 hours a day on delivery though, or am I missing something?
Changing of attendance patterns to safely get as close to paid hours is something that RM are going to be looking at, that is a given. Nobody, myself included is going to be happy with changing things, but it will be business led. They are losing millions between this and 1 person 1 van.

But at the moment nobody should be forced to change their attendance pattern? RM dangled the carrot for those people who gratefully took it, RM took away the carrot so back to square one.

[themailman]

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[Woody Guthrie]

I'm not sure what either of your points are, if members are asked if they want to start on the street in order for the business to manage social distancing it's up to them whether they agree , if they are then told that the business wants them to repay those hours by working 6 days a week again they're entitled to tell management to stick it and turn up at their normal start time.

My second point was equally simple, why should members be forced to replace indoor hours with outdoor hours and work six days into the bargain just to facilitate a business plan?

Bearing in mind all of the changes were supposed to be made with the full cooperation of the staff who in their right mind would agree to that?

What we seem to have is not a desperation by the business to recover those hours (senior management accept that due to the social distancing rules we're going to lose indoor hours) but a combination of weak managers and whining posties moaning because in their eyes someone's grass is greener than theirs.

Why else in the midst of a global pandemic is there a sudden fascination by certain staff with the business recovering all the hours it loses? It doesn't seem to bother them when they're finishing early.

[themailman]

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[Woody Guthrie]

Not my motivation in the slightest, and frankly that's a low blow.
I'm out.

It wasn't aimed at you, it was based on my personal experience in a delivery office.
This is just a discussion, no offence meant.

[weary_posty]

My personal take on what I think will happen with delivery.

1. Letter delivery will recommence on Saturdays

2. Government advice is to use masks where social distancing can’t be met. Masks will be used in delivery offices for indoor work and split shifts will be scrapped for van share duties.

3. Perspex screens in vans with masks used between loops.

[postslippete]

Full time person working from home - i.e meeting on the street isn't doing 7.6 hours a day on delivery though, or am I missing something?
Changing of attendance patterns to safely get as close to paid hours is something that RM are going to be looking at, that is a given. Nobody, myself included is going to be happy with changing things, but it will be business led. They are losing millions between this and 1 person 1 van.

They will have lost millions when Rico eventually leaves. I don't doubt the business has to make some compromises to make everything work but all our managers have succeeded in doing is force more posties to return to the depot to work at the same time.

This has happened because managers have not thought this through properly at the start (when do they ever?)

As for the case of it being a business,yes it is,but dont forget that we have been constantly working through this pandemic and at the very least the most important thing that we should be doing right now is working safely. So if a round is getting delivered because pat is working from home,what's the issue?? Me personally,I still go in the office and prep but some of it is done for me when I walk in now

[A2B]

Full time person working from home - i.e meeting on the street isn't doing 7.6 hours a day on delivery though, or am I missing something?
Changing of attendance patterns to safely get as close to paid hours is something that RM are going to be looking at, that is a given. Nobody, myself included is going to be happy with changing things, but it will be business led. They are losing millions between this and 1 person 1 van.

They will have lost millions when Rico eventually leaves. I don't doubt the business has to make some compromises to make everything work but all our managers have succeeded in doing is force more posties to return to the depot to work at the same time.

This has happened because managers have not thought this through properly at the start (when do they ever?)

Got any solutions that will be agreed by the CWU and workforce?

[postslippete]

Got any solutions that will be agreed by the CWU and workforce?

For a start we clearly need more vans to work with and believe it or not many hire companies are doing business

We then need a better phase of staggered starts so that once postie's go out in the red vans first, the next wave of postie's come in at around 10am and go out in the hire vans. Lastly,those part-timers who cannot work from home or can drive should come in from 1pm onwards when the first wave of postie's come back and should deliver the large packets.

Those who cannot drive or are part time should really be working from home or work a duty close to the office.

Right...now that I've written out your workplan for tomorrow,I'm going to bed,I'm cream crackered

[A2B]

Got any solutions that will be agreed by the CWU and workforce?

For a start we clearly need more vans to work with and believe it or not many hire companies are doing business

We then need a better phase of staggered starts so that once postie's go out in the red vans first, the next wave of postie's come in at around 10am and go out in the hire vans. Lastly,those part-timers who cannot work from home or can drive should come in from 1pm onwards when the first wave of postie's come back and should deliver the large packets.

Those who cannot drive or are part time should really be working from home or work a duty close to the office.

Right...now that I've written out your workplan for tomorrow,I'm going to bed,I'm cream crackered

Not really any solutions that would be agreed by the CWU and the workforce are they? Your suggesting things which management would introduce in a heartbeat given the chance. Easy to criticize the current management situation but it's hard to come up with solutions while sticking to the same rules they have to abide by at the moment.

Hiring vans would help but where does the money come from? The vans we have sit unused for the majority of the day

[postslippete]

Well, Royal Mail does have a massive cash surplus. I can't remember exact figures from a few months ago but I believe it was around £800 million. Any company that is prepared to invest billions in a company usually does!! Our packets might not quite be at Xmas levels but they weren't shy in December to fill the yard up with hire vehicles,so why not now??

I don't understand why you said that you have vans unused for the majority of the day - Do you mean that you have spare vans sat in the yard idle? If that was the case they really should be loaning them out to other depots.

I don't really see how else you can work social distancing without having staggered starts. The Union would back that as these aren't really long term solutions, they are short term ones given that were are in a pandemic.

[postslippete]

And I would also add that the Union only kicked off when Royal Mail said that they were not delivering post on a Saturday.

They really should have involved them in discussions first, but I think that might have been down to Rico

[A2B]

Well, Royal Mail does have a massive cash surplus. I can't remember exact figures from a few months ago but I believe it was around £800 million. Any company that is prepared to invest billions in a company usually does!! Our packets might not quite be at Xmas levels but they weren't shy in December to fill the yard up with hire vehicles,so why not now??

I don't understand why you said that you have vans unused for the majority of the day - Do you mean that you have spare vans sat in the yard idle? If that was the case they really should be loaning them out to other depots.

I don't really see how else you can work social distancing without having staggered starts. The Union would back that as these aren't really long term solutions, they are short term ones given that were are in a pandemic.

If RM had this surplus they would have paid the dividend instead of sending the share price tumbling and leaving themselves open to takeover. I also remember the £800 million figure being mentioned but i thought it said they had secured funding from banks but i may be wrong.

Most of our vans are used for 5hrs a day while on delivery and then parked up for the day, obviously some are used for collections and overtime but it's not a good use of resources.

I'm not arguing that staggered starts isn't a way through this, what i'm saying is it isn't an option open to management at the moment and it will be very hard for the CWU to sell it to the workforce even as a temporary measure.