Seniority is a Joke

mlw · Post by **mlw** » 20 Mar 2019, 09:39

aiden01 wrote:
twiddledumb wrote:Why did the union accept/propose the current seniority policy at Royal Mail? It is a complete and utter unfair pile of crap. There are many people in my office that basically take the p*** when it comes to taking time off for "sickness", it goes along the lines of they come in for 6 months, then they have 6 months on the sick (until their money drops). They do it every other year like clockwork and the union obviously protects them. Anyway, I and many others in my office have not had a day off in years, we work 5 days a week (sometimes 6) every week all year round, yet when it comes to seniority the people taking the p*** continue to get their sick time added to their time at Royal Mail, even though they aren't actually working at Royal Mail in that time.

The same goes for people who work one-two days (16-20 hours) a week completely unfair that as far as seniority is concerned a week at work for them is equivalent to a week at work for someone working 5-6 days (30+ hours) a week.

Why can't posties with good attendance records say 90% + a year be rewarded with an extra year seniority? Why can't seniority be based on the something fair like the amount of hours actually worked at Royal mail?

I remember that Royal mail tried to reward posites a while back with good attendance records by putting them into some stupid prize draw and that the Union complained it was punishing people on the sick, whereas most people would say it was rewarding people for the job they do. Nobody is saying punish people on the sick, all I am saying is reward people who actually come in and work. Why don't the union actually propose this to Royal mail? From my experience, they spend a lot of time and effort protecting lazy posties and do SFA to fight for posites that actually come in work their time and have great attendance records.
If you have more than 12months off in rolling 4yrs you dont get paid when off sick so that kind of defeats your point of working for 6 months then 6 months off sick...

what has seniority got to do with this if they sick as much as you say they wouldn’t stay in the job

arnold cheshire · Post by **arnold cheshire** » 20 Mar 2019, 15:16

antcpfc wrote:
arnold cheshire wrote:
Villadaft wrote:Some nasty jealous folk on here, I started at the bottom 31 years ago Im now around the top 30 in my office.There are loads of folk on jobs better than mine who started after me, but they just f**k about don't have time for the sorting, need loops off everyday and finish way before me, but that's up to them its got nothing to do with me, I go in do my job then go home, sometimes I'm early sometimes I'm late that's life. I'm done with this site now to many moaners and folk who think the grass is greener. BYE
well said
No mate apparently Royal Mail is the only firm firm in this country that gives any extra benefits to long term employees.

Don't police get extra pay the longer they have been employed?

Ren Hoëk · Post by **Ren Hoëk** » 20 Mar 2019, 15:23

arnold cheshire wrote:
antcpfc wrote:
arnold cheshire wrote:
Villadaft wrote:Some nasty jealous folk on here, I started at the bottom 31 years ago Im now around the top 30 in my office.There are loads of folk on jobs better than mine who started after me, but they just f**k about don't have time for the sorting, need loops off everyday and finish way before me, but that's up to them its got nothing to do with me, I go in do my job then go home, sometimes I'm early sometimes I'm late that's life. I'm done with this site now to many moaners and folk who think the grass is greener. BYE
well said
No mate apparently Royal Mail is the only firm firm in this country that gives any extra benefits to long term employees.
Don't police get extra pay the longer they have been employed?

Loads of companies will offer staggered pay increments. Usually these are limited within a set time period and have little effect on each others duties. Even RM have this but it only takes 1 year to catch up with everyone else. The argument that someone should have to do less work because they have been knocking about longer though is ludicrous. Do you think the police get promotions/more responsibility based on time served or merit and ability?

I will reiterate again that I don't really have issue with seniority being used the way it currently is. I Just have to point out a false equivalency.

Woody Guthrie · Post by **Woody Guthrie** » 20 Mar 2019, 16:58

The argument that someone should have to do less work because they have been knocking about longer though is ludicrous.

Nobody is making that argument though.

DGH · Post by **DGH** » 20 Mar 2019, 17:00

In fairness, RM does not use seniority where jobs involving certain skills are deemed necessary (go workplace coaches) - you need to apply for these and seniority has no bearing on the matter.

However it is certainly true that in no other job I can think of do senior staff get to choose what they'll do - they may express a preference, but management assign roles (so a policeman with 20 years in as constable doesn't get to choose his 'beat' (or whatever). He's just assigned as required and (hopefully) in a way that utilises his experience best.

RM do reward long service with extra holiday, but that's about it.

Woody Guthrie · Post by **Woody Guthrie** » 20 Mar 2019, 17:04

I must be missing something but why would management assign a postie to a particular delivery based on merit?

From a business point of view the jobs the same no matter what delivery you're on.

Ren Hoëk · Post by **Ren Hoëk** » 20 Mar 2019, 17:40

Woody Guthrie wrote:I must be missing something but why would management assign a postie to a particular delivery based on merit?

From a business point of view the jobs the same no matter what delivery you're on.

Other than you are being facetious its just another way of saying its managements prerogative. Merit and ability. Merit could be that if there is a duty perceived to be easier and said posty would like that duty then the amount of OT, Sickness, job completion rate, Behaviour and a plethora of other indicators could be used. BUT Again and again, I DO NOT BELIEVE SENIORITY IS AN ISSUE WHEN IT COMES TO PICKING DUTIES. I wouldn't trust anyone in management to act fairly with the current management culture.

The argument that someone should have to do less work because they have been knocking about longer though is ludicrous.

Nobody is making that argument though.

Apart from they are. AntPFC wrote

apparently Royal Mail is the only firm firm in this country that gives any extra benefits to long term employees.

All throughout this thread people are arguing that the more senior guys should be allowed to pick the "easier" walks. Not that they should/Do exist. Right?

Once PDA actuals are being properly utilised and they can get people to stop starting early, working through breaks, running around etc it should eliminate any arguments about walks being easier as they should start to be levelled out.

Woody Guthrie · Post by **Woody Guthrie** » 20 Mar 2019, 18:35

All throughout this thread people are arguing that the more senior guys should be allowed to pick the "easier" walks.

No they're not.
"Easier" doesn't mean anything.

arnold cheshire · Post by **arnold cheshire** » 20 Mar 2019, 19:21

Woody Guthrie wrote:
The argument that someone should have to do less work because they have been knocking about longer though is ludicrous.
Nobody is making that argument though.

Senior postie's can have big walks . So that doesn't make sense

Acca Dacca · Post by **Acca Dacca** » 20 Mar 2019, 19:50

It could for example be a nicer area, not necessarily an easier walk.

Ren Hoëk · Post by **Ren Hoëk** » 20 Mar 2019, 22:29

Woody Guthrie wrote:
All throughout this thread people are arguing that the more senior guys should be allowed to pick the "easier" walks.
No they're not.
"Easier" doesn't mean anything.

OK

Woody Guthrie · Post by **Woody Guthrie** » 21 Mar 2019, 06:25

This is where the whole anti-seniority argument falls flat.

1. If you believe there are "easier" deliveries why the hell would management allocate these duties to their "best" posties? Surely the sensible business plan would be to put your best guys on the worst duties?

2. If you don't believe there are "easier" deliveries why the hell would you invent some convoluted, complex rotational system to allocate duties that are on paper identical.

vigilante · Post by **vigilante** » 21 Mar 2019, 16:44

I have been in the business 35 years.
I have never been on sick for more than 5 days.....ever...(touches wood)

When I joined, the old boys used to tell me, listen boy, you'll get your turn in the end of the best leave pick, give it a few years.

Now people who have just joined get the same pick as me or better.

Do you consider that fair?

Seniority was the best thing in place. You knew exactly where you stood....no arguments..

Sickness is sickness.
People will always take the p*ss. Whoever.

Celgar · Post by **Celgar** » 21 Mar 2019, 16:53

I wouldn't go as far as to say RM do their best to make all walks the same length but they do make some kind of attempt to do so. The current route planning system is known by everyone to not be an accurate system so RM is planning to use data from the emergency services to develop a new more accurate system. I have pointed out elsewhere that RM could collate their own perfect data from asking posties to take the PDA to every doorstep or delivery point for a day and mark that up as an average maximum duty span. RM probably don't trust us to do this though so they are trying to bodge it yet again.

Even if we did manage to get all walks or duties of the same length there would still be differences between them:
1) Town walks.
2) Rurals.
3) Duties using an HCT or a transport method over than a standard van.
4) Park and Loop duties where two posties share a van.
5) Walks with geographical differences such as steep hills and slopes, busy or dangerous roads, cities, water crossings etc.
6) Other possible differences are many and could include excessive flights of stairs, 'rough areas', blocks of flats, increased numbers of problem dogs. Will be more I cannot think of off the top of my head.

Posties who have decades of service in the same DO will know which are the more favourable walks and will choose those first. In our DO on the last full resign the P&L shared duties were the last to be signed for and I would guess that will be the same everywhere. Posties work at different speeds and shared duties generally cause aggro. Maybe if we ever get walk lengths more closely alligned there will be less disagreement on signing of walks but there will always be other variables & differences to consider.

Coinbags · Post by **Coinbags** » 21 Mar 2019, 17:17

vigilante wrote:I have been in the business 35 years.
I have never been on sick for more than 5 days.....ever...(touches wood)

When I joined, the old boys used to tell me, listen boy, you'll get your turn in the end of the best leave pick, give it a few years.

Now people who have just joined get the same pick as me or better.

Do you consider that fair?

Seniority was the best thing in place. You knew exactly where you stood....no arguments..

Sickness is sickness.
People will always take the p*ss. Whoever.

I consider it fair.
35 years service you should know every walk inside out - that's how most jobs work !

The word "seniority" annoys me.
Someone that's been in the job 35 years + is no senior than someone who's been in the job 35 months !