Any senior CWU reps on here?

[Happybunny87]

I have concerns about RM's complaints procedure that I believe needs addressing at a higher level ...I'm wondering who to speak to ...any advice is greatly recieved

My duty along with my P+L partners has unfortunately amassed a collection of complaints that my line manager says is the highest in the office ... Now my partner and myself are fairly efficient ...that's not to say we dont make the odd mistake ....we believe that a certain amount of complaints are down to the guys covering our days off during the week....

Around November time I had just short of 3 weeks off ...came backup a number of complaints that had been recieved and automatically gone down in my name as the walk holder....(managers self admission that the walkholders name gets attached to the complaint automatically when it comes into the office) some of these complaints were real petty ...postman has dropped bands on a main road (not witnessed by him btw) and he's concerned for the wildlife ...another was postman never knocked or rang the bell at a certain address ...that was me..and hand on heart I knocked and rang and despite there being a car on driveway nobody answered ... Wrote a p739 ...customer complained that I hadn't knocked and I got shafted...a black mark against my name...no matter how much I told the Lino I knocked and rang he didn't want to know ... Ironically customer replaced doorbell days later

I'm not the only postman to use this particular main road yet the bands dropped were attributed to myself and I got shafted again....

The best one was today ....my Lino rather rudely came to me this morning "OFFICE" he said ...a serious complaint recieved "AND IT WAS YOU THIS TIME,YOU WERE IN ..WASNT YOUR DAY OFF" ...a redirection failure ...a parcel had gone to old address ...new occupier refused to hand over and police are involved...
Lino says "I HAVENT A CLUE WHERE THIS ONE IS GOING,IM JUST MAKING YOU AWARE" I snapped that it wasn't me and I wouldn't miss the said parcel ...we were going around in circles till I said fine if you say I did it I must have ...

Anyway later I was fuming ...I approached him said that I was going to go to the womens house in question to retrieve the parcel and find out what's going on..

I spoke to her and she was distressed...she claimed she'd been the victim of harassment by the old occupier and indeed the police were involved ....she showed me the parcel in question....it had NO NAME on it just the ADDRESS....so I was correct...I had done nothing wrong ...she wouldn't part with the parcel but allowed me to take a picture to prove to the Lino it had no name on it

Old occupier had purposely sent this parcel to her old address then complained to police of theft ...old occupier then contacted RM to say there had been a Redirection failure

My issue is ...managers are not looking into complaints properly and finding out whether the walk holder is actually responsible...why should I have to go to the house in question to prove my innocence when this should be part of a managers investigation duty? It's took me to do what I've done to clear my own name

A Lino said to me that he was sure half the complaints were not down to me and were down to the day off guy yet management couldn't be bothered to delve into them

Now in a worse case scenario a blokes job could hinge on something like this if hd has amassed a complaints list as long as his arm...but half of them were not actually him
...

I know this is long winded but I feel it's a serious issue that needs addressing. ....managers are quite literally stitching employees up

Funny, I've had the exact same problem.

[royalmailslave]

This is obviously a trend happening in other DO's ...this is my opinion is as serious as it gets ...were talking staff losing jobs in worse case scenarios...and there's a good chance it may not be their fault

I'm still getting over the fact I had to take it upon myself to visit this address to get the full and proper story in order to clear my name...my lino had no intentions whatsoever of visiting the address (considering the severity and the fact the police are involved) and would quite happily of nailed me to a cross,this alone is a huge issue for me

[bogstandard]

the answer(s) is/are.

Mitigating circumstances coupled with contemporaneous evidence.

what does this mean to you i hear you cry.
As you've made clear you manager has failed to investigate at all, you however have. Now in future email your manager on the day referencing that days blame game and restating your stance. Do your investigation and email your findings to your manager, tell them that if they had performed even the most basic of investigations this would have proved your version of events correct.
Your manager will respond with the sorry about that slave however they may not respond in which case resend and resend (weekly i suggest up to a maximum of 2 weeks, assuming you manager is not on holiday) cc in your local rep, then forward to your managers manager, cc in your local rep and area rep (if you are a member)so on and so forth. Long winded i know but by the time you are emailing the DSM your area rep will want to know why you have not had a responce
If needs be repeat as above for the next two complaints, now what you have is a complaint or grievance with supporting documentation.
The mitigating circumstances are your investigation and the contemporaneous evidence is your emails which are timed and dated.

obviously fine tune it but the basic approach is there.

[the flying postman]

Also, you could take a selfie of you knocking at the door. I think other couriers take pictures of customers front doors to say they have been.