Universal Service Comms

[smok3y666]

Keep paying those subs and suck it up.

[sweepster70]

Universal Service Obligation Update

Royal Mail and the CWU have agreed that 37 units will pilot the Optimised Delivery Model which is Royal Mail’s proposal for USO reform.

Every other major country is changing their USO.

Ofcom estimates that the USO costs Royal Mail £300 million per year.

Since 2005 Royal Mail has gone from 20 billion letters per year to 7 billion.

Since 2008 downstream access accounts for 70% of all letters Royal Mail deliver.

Remember, this is the product where the cherry pickers make money from processing and distribution and then ask Royal Mail to do the costliest part: delivering it.

Since 2021 Economy Mail, the product that stays on a sequencing machine until it has more than one item to an address or until day 5, now accounts for 40% of all letters.

First-class mail accounts for 700 million items out of that 7 billion figure.

Parcels, including large parcels, have grown over the last few years requiring a better solution.

This is especially true since Royal Mail's share of parcels has declined from 73% of the entire market to just under 36% since privatisation.

It should also be recognised that despite the above, our members in deliveries are working harder than ever before. This is down to a combination of past job losses, unachievable workload, parcel growth, new delivery points and more transactions on the doorstep.

Royal Mail argue that the USO's spilling costs prevent them from achieving the current quality of service targets.

The CWU however, believe that Royal Mail could do far more than they are currently doing to improve quality of service across Royal Mail, and we will continue to be critical of them in this area.

However, we do fully understand that there is a need for a more sustainable Universal Service Obligation.

There are only two options for changing the USO. Reduce the days of the week the USO is delivered, which is the frequency route. Belgium has gone to a three-day USO.
Reducing Saturdays is no longer an option as it would only save around £50 million, and there is still a demand to deliver priority items on Saturdays.

Or you can move to a speed delivery option which delays specific streams of mail. Germany recently changed and delayed 1st class mail by a day so they could cease using aeroplanes to fly mail across the country.

Royal Mail’s proposed solution is an alternative speed of delivery option which does the following:

First-class mail and all parcels will be delivered to every address 6 days per week, Monday through Saturday.

Non-priority items such as 2nd class and downstream access, unless they pay more, will be delivered to an address every other day, Monday through Friday. This means every address will get 5 deliveries of non-priority items over 10 days, but they will get a delivery every day of 1st class and parcels.

We have agreed a term of reference which states the pilots must:

1. ​Achieve the quality-of-service targets that Ofcom set, alongside commercial targets for other products.

2. ​⁠It must produce a fair and manageable workload.

3. ​⁠It must provide a solution for fatigue.

4. ⁠​It must improve attendance patterns, including working fewer Saturdays.

5. ​⁠Options on Saturdays off range from every other Saturday to one in every three, two in every five Saturdays, and two in every Saturday off. Each of the options will mean that there will be slightly longer working days to achieve further Saturday off work.

6. ​This model also increases the number of part-timers who will have the opportunity to go full-time. It will go further than ever before by providing a pathway for every full-time duty holder who leaves. There will be an opportunity to move to a full-time job in seniority order.

7. It must also provide a platform for sustainable growth.

8. It must also improve confidence, trust and morale in the workplace.

We are in close contact and working with the Divisional Reps and Branches of the pilot sites to ensure they are supported to achieve all the above principles before any deployment. The PE will also provide support to the pilot sites.

We have agreed to phase in the introduction of the USO sites, commencing in Scotland in February and ending in Anglia in May 2025.

At this stage we have not reached or supported a final agreement on USO reform. However, it would have been a mistake not to test the impact of this change on the USO in a number of pilot sites. This is, without doubt, the biggest change to deliveries in over 50 years, and we need to pilot the impact and benefits of this change entirely.

It is evident within the EP agreement that our support for any USO reform is conditional on resolving all the outstanding issues within section 5. This includes:

1. A new resourcing model that addresses quality of service, staff, retention of staff and employee motivation.

2. Equalising new entrants' pay, terms and conditions over an agreed period, including a first step within three months of the transaction.

3. Reduce reliance on agency work to support maximising full-time employment.

4. Review of scheduled attendance and overtime rates.

5. Securing a pay rise from April 2025.

6. A new performance incentive scheme.

7. Improving sick pay arrangements.

8. A review of voluntary redundancy terms.

9. New, improved ways of working.

The agreement with EP states "That any final agreement with the CWU on USO reform is also conditional on progress and implementation within the agreed timelines of the issues set out in section 5 of this agreement” which is listed in points 1 to 9.

In addition, we have just agreed with Royal Mail a permanent contract for over ten thousand part-timers who were working on a variation of contract.

This includes over eight thousand part-timers who will become permanent full-time employees.

This is a significant achievement, as Royal Mail under the USO changes is looking to reduce jobs and could have simply withdrawn the contract variations, reverting them back to their original part-time contracts.

We will update all Branches and members on the pilots and produce a question-and-answer communication on the Optimised Delivery Model.

Martin Walsh
Deputy General Secretary Postal

Jesus,is this RM manager or cwu rep?

This isn't a RM manager or CWU rep........... It's the truth.
It really makes me laugh, how the so called majority on here predicted the last deal wouldn't happen. It did!
Dave Ward is the best we can have to lead us, and I'll be voting for him. Martin Walsh is doing an excellent job in Postal, so he will get my vote.

[Mr Rush]

"there is a need for a more sustainable Universal Service Obligation"

Emphasis mine. I keep hearing this exact phrasing. So it currently is sustainable but not enough? Is perhaps the subtext 'more profit-extracting'?

[Acca Dacca]

Whats the plan for surplus workers if VRs arent taken up within an office?

[Sean06]

Keep paying those subs and suck it up.

Will do an will you cancel any pay rises an suck it up?

[Smoothbackground]

Have Sundays been mentioned?

In the eyes of thr CWU, real posties don’t work Sundays, only new entrants do, and so the union is pushing Sundays into the long grass and not mentioning Sundays at all in any official or unofficial comms. Anyway, this is another feel good news story from your CWU — more Saturdays off — so please don’t ruin it!

But back to reality. Sunday working is here to stay — and will be ramped up quite a bit. Starting in a fortnight’s time, each and every new-entrant employee at my DO — a large proportion of which have escaped ever working Sundays, even though some have been there 18 months or longer — will be rostered to work four in six Sundays. We will have 20 staff in every Sunday (10 at present).

Bad news for some of the other new entrants, some of whom are deeply unhappy at the prospect of working Sundays (even though they signed up on those terms) but more positive for those of us who have been on permanent Sundays all this time. Speaking for myself, I was more than happy doing every Sunday, as that is what I signed up for, but most of tbe other existing Sunday people are very happy with the change.

[kazardaimenu]

Non-priority items such as 2nd class and downstream access, unless they pay more, will be delivered to an address every other day,

Apart from the mech they'll have to be held at the DO. There's no capacity for the outward MCs to sort double the amount of 2C every day

They will be left in trays under frames.

[claretandblue]

Non-priority items such as 2nd class and downstream access, unless they pay more, will be delivered to an address every other day,

Apart from the mech they'll have to be held at the DO. There's no capacity for the outward MCs to sort double the amount of 2C every day

They will be left in trays under frames.

Incorrect, the 2 or 3 days worth will be sequenced together.

[Londonsburning]

Where do you want to start Belgium , Germany , Australia, Sweden , Denmark to name just a few but only Malta and the UK now have a 6 day USO.

So are we heading for that way of mail/parcel/packet delivery then Martin?

Was five countries not enough to please carryinmgment?

Sean are you trying to bully me here or what? I don't understand

[SpacePhoenix]

Whats the plan for surplus workers if VRs arent taken up within an office?

They'll probably be declared to be supernumerary and compulsory transferred out to other offices

Non-priority items such as 2nd class and downstream access, unless they pay more, will be delivered to an address every other day,

Apart from the mech they'll have to be held at the DO. There's no capacity for the outward MCs to sort double the amount of 2C every day

They will be left in trays under frames.

Incorrect, the 2 or 3 days worth will be sequenced together.

Depends how much 2C there is. If there's too much we'll just have to send some as manual. With how it sounds, the 2C that gets deferred is going to quickly build up past the capacity to run it. About 24-26 trays is the limit of what we'll run in one hit, above that takes too long to run.

What's the plan for if a shitload of 2C hits day 5 on a Friday night? Will the system roll it over potentially delaying some another couple of days or will it get sequenced and go out to the DOs. When it gets to the DOs will they then extract that 2C and hold it over or will they deliver it? I can't see there being any scope for anyone in DOs to have every Saturday off as fairly frequently there's going to be Saturdays where there's going to be loads of 2C to deliver

[Londonsburning]

Have Sundays been mentioned?

In the eyes of thr CWU, real posties don’t work Sundays, only new entrants do, and so the union is pushing Sundays into the long grass and not mentioning Sundays at all in any official or unofficial comms. Anyway, this is another feel good news story from your CWU — more Saturdays off — so please don’t ruin it!

But back to reality. Sunday working is here to stay — and will be ramped up quite a bit. Starting in a fortnight’s time, each and every new-entrant employee at my DO — a large proportion of which have escaped ever working Sundays, even though some have been there 18 months or longer — will be rostered to work four in six Sundays. We will have 20 staff in every Sunday (10 at present).

Bad news for some of the other new entrants, some of whom are deeply unhappy at the prospect of working Sundays (even though they signed up on those terms) but more positive for those of us who have been on permanent Sundays all this time. Speaking for myself, I was more than happy doing every Sunday, as that is what I signed up for, but most of tbe other existing Sunday people are very happy with the change.

I thought Sundays were a piss easy shift, or so I've read on here. Why on earth would your DO be doubling the staffing levels unless you work in a trial office?

[Londonsburning]

"there is a need for a more sustainable Universal Service Obligation"

Emphasis mine. I keep hearing this exact phrasing. So it currently is sustainable but not enough? Is perhaps the subtext 'more profit-extracting'?

"if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck.... it's probably a duck" quack quack

[Jefferson Starfish]

Whats the plan for surplus workers if VRs arent taken up within an office?

They'll probably be declared to be supernumerary and compulsory transferred out to other offices

Non-priority items such as 2nd class and downstream access, unless they pay more, will be delivered to an address every other day,

Apart from the mech they'll have to be held at the DO. There's no capacity for the outward MCs to sort double the amount of 2C every day

They will be left in trays under frames.

Incorrect, the 2 or 3 days worth will be sequenced together.

Depends how much 2C there is. If there's too much we'll just have to send some as manual. With how it sounds, the 2C that gets deferred is going to quickly build up past the capacity to run it. About 24-26 trays is the limit of what we'll run in one hit, above that takes too long to run.

What's the plan for if a shitload of 2C hits day 5 on a Friday night? Will the system roll it over potentially delaying some another couple of days or will it get sequenced and go out to the DOs. When it gets to the DOs will they then extract that 2C and hold it over or will they deliver it? I can't see there being any scope for anyone in DOs to have every Saturday off as fairly frequently there's going to be Saturdays where there's going to be loads of 2C to deliver

No 2C is going to be delivered on a Saturday

[hewittinspain]

Whats the plan for surplus workers if VRs arent taken up within an office?

They'll probably be declared to be supernumerary and compulsory transferred out to other offices

Non-priority items such as 2nd class and downstream access, unless they pay more, will be delivered to an address every other day,

Apart from the mech they'll have to be held at the DO. There's no capacity for the outward MCs to sort double the amount of 2C every day

They will be left in trays under frames.

Incorrect, the 2 or 3 days worth will be sequenced together.

Depends how much 2C there is. If there's too much we'll just have to send some as manual. With how it sounds, the 2C that gets deferred is going to quickly build up past the capacity to run it. About 24-26 trays is the limit of what we'll run in one hit, above that takes too long to run.

What's the plan for if a shitload of 2C hits day 5 on a Friday night? Will the system roll it over potentially delaying some another couple of days or will it get sequenced and go out to the DOs. When it gets to the DOs will they then extract that 2C and hold it over or will they deliver it? I can't see there being any scope for anyone in DOs to have every Saturday off as fairly frequently there's going to be Saturdays where there's going to be loads of 2C to deliver

Not the plan for Saturday

[antcpfc]

Whats the plan for surplus workers if VRs arent taken up within an office?

I can’t see that happening. We are an aging workforce and in my delivery office it would be oversubscribed.