BBC PANORAMA DISCUSSION THREAD

[uprising95]

how long would royal mail last if tnt put posties on the street.

[mmax]

Hi all, as some of you know that I am a DOM before you shoot me down please read my posts and you will see what stance I take.

Well said mmax , what a refreshing change to hear a DOM with an opinion that isn't just repeated parrot fashion from the latest RM brief. But i feel that the majority of the DOM's are too scared to rock the boat or just like lemmings run towards their own destruction dragging the postal grades along with them. I was surprised to hear in the program that even at area level the management were querying the quantity of mail figures

certainly and issue regarding the "Figures" RM are portraying....

I carried out a year on year analysis in our office based on last years actual traffic versus this year actual and it came out the traffic calculated divided between the amount of walks in the office worked out at....remember this is based on the traffic that RM are feeding us with.....EACH POSTIE HAD 50 LETTERS LESS EACH!!....than last year........there's some food for thought.........

[k979aaa]

Hi all, as some of you know that I am a DOM before you shoot me down please read my posts and you will see what stance I take.

Well said mmax , what a refreshing change to hear a DOM with an opinion that isn't just repeated parrot fashion from the latest RM brief. But i feel that the majority of the DOM's are too scared to rock the boat or just like lemmings run towards their own destruction dragging the postal grades along with them. I was surprised to hear in the program that even at area level the management were querying the quantity of mail figures

certainly and issue regarding the "Figures" RM are portraying....

I carried out a year on year analysis in our office based on last years actual traffic versus this year actual and it came out the traffic calculated divided between the amount of walks in the office worked out at....remember this is based on the traffic that RM are feeding us with.....EACH POSTIE HAD 50 LETTERS LESS EACH!!....than last year........there's some food for thought.........

Yep and NAZI Germany was attacked by Poland on 31/8/1939 beginning the second world war but why should they treat you with anymore respect than us after all we all don't earn mega bucks!. :cfo :mfo

[Big Daz]

Now the fact is that Royal Mail are stating that every walk in a delivery office more than 1 mile from an office appox 15 miniutes will be a car derived van walk.

My D.O based on that criteria should just escape our bike based walks becoming car derived van walks.

[Godric]

At the end of the day Monkeyboy we have the final say!!!!

Hi all, as some of you know that I am a DOM before you shoot me down please read my posts and you will see what stance I take.

You are right you do have the final say ....after all you are Royal Mail, and to be quite honest ,I agree with you totally .

As far as I can see RM are still hell bent on pushing in change no matter what the consequences are, there is a lull at the moment and that’s because of Christmas period, but I can guarantee you as soon as Christmas is over then the intensity of the changes will pick up....here is a quote from a letter from Higson sent to all DOMS.

"The task is not over yet and we have a long way to go in some places in rebuilding the trust of our people, and in reaching the final agreement that will underpin the transformation of Royal Mail and so secure our future.....and it goes on to say.....
But with the management team we have, I have every confidence that we can succeed.

So where ever you are If things are not Fair, not right, not achievable, stand up as you have done so because RM will not stand down.

With regards for Panorama....about time something has come out with a posties views, Tolhurst...... well typical, here we have a stereotypical senior RM Management with his own agenda in mind ,brought in to do a job..... with no Experience of how the postal service works, as does crosier, I don't like his arrogant attitude, I think the bloke came over as a total PIG.

I think he needs to be a postie for a few years before he starts to tell posties of 30 years how to do theirs....but rather listen to them to what they have to say first. But we alL know that that’s not going to happen.

Like myself as per some other DOM'S I have been a postie.... a good one too for a few years, before I became a DOM I had to work my way up.

there are some good doms around like yourself, but they tend to have worked their way up the ladder like yourself, the problem DOMS tend to be the ones that had no previous history of working with royal mail ie they haven't done our job, i also agree that Dom's are being squeezed by their sector and clustor managers to the extent they have to do deliveries ... in the past that would have caused a walk out by postmen because management back then were not supposed to handle mail or do postmen's work.

[fishtank]

"Look the issue of spans are not going to be determind by a national agreement, that wll be down to local negotations as of course offices will want to determind the levels of full time jobs and earnings and work methods."


I don't know what to say to that dingo,I really don't.
This was the one thing the members needed protection from at NATIONAL LEVEL.
It is not just the delivery speed that is the issue it is the length of deliveries.
I'm delighted your health and safety enigneers have analyised and concluded that it is safer to walk 4 hours on a walk without a bag on the shoulder.
How many pens and pieces of paper did they wear out doing that.

We're 4hr walks when we're on a 4 day week,it's do-able but the extra day off helps,will it be ok for a 5 day week?,i would say it's so-so,but many on here already say they go well over 3-30hrs.
With regards to doing it without a bag on our shoulder,trials were held i believe with the HCT's,and the word as dingo said was that it was not as tiring as carrying a bag all the time.

But i would say HCT's slow you down,so a 3-30hr walk would imo go to 4hrs automatically,so i'm a bit confused.

What will your delivery span need to be to protect full time jobs POSTMAN?
On a 10 hour day,You have a higher proportion of indoor work than any of us.
If indoor work is under attack your will lose a higher proportion of your dailly workload and this will be reflected in your delivery span.
Would you be comfortable doing 5 or 5and a half hour spans?

[Lincox]

Where does the 8% fall in traffic come in then. If that is the case and 50 letters is 8%, this means that I only deal with 625 items per day, which equate to about 1.5 items per house.(400 drops rural area) What a load of b...cks. I would say that 50 letters on most rounds equates to between 3% and 4%. Thats assuming their figure of 50 is correct. This means they lose about £20 a day in income on letters per walk. More than paid for by the increase in postage costs and the amount of increase in packet income.

[jaylime]

I have a rural that takes 4.30 hours to do im going over every day by an hour(booking docket by the way,not doing it for nowt).I cut off on saturday as I had just had enough and wanted a bit of a weekend.The rural used to take 3.30 but now they are making us take all the specials in the vans(even letters for all the rounds,there are only six walks to be fair).But i had 21 spcials this morning and a rural to do.The reason for the specials is they hav'nt got PDA's for the walkmen and the MC wont scan them in off the phone.Its getting worse and I for one am getting pissed off with it,its as if the management are making it up as they go along and washing there hnds off any problems and hoping that we will sort in out which most times we do and why.BECAUSE WE KNOW WHAT WERE DOING.

[montriff]

how long would royal mail last if tnt put posties on the street.

that won't happen while they can make a profit off our backs

[POSTMAN]

"Look the issue of spans are not going to be determind by a national agreement, that wll be down to local negotations as of course offices will want to determind the levels of full time jobs and earnings and work methods."


I don't know what to say to that dingo,I really don't.
This was the one thing the members needed protection from at NATIONAL LEVEL.
It is not just the delivery speed that is the issue it is the length of deliveries.
I'm delighted your health and safety enigneers have analyised and concluded that it is safer to walk 4 hours on a walk without a bag on the shoulder.
How many pens and pieces of paper did they wear out doing that.

We're 4hr walks when we're on a 4 day week,it's do-able but the extra day off helps,will it be ok for a 5 day week?,i would say it's so-so,but many on here already say they go well over 3-30hrs.
With regards to doing it without a bag on our shoulder,trials were held i believe with the HCT's,and the word as dingo said was that it was not as tiring as carrying a bag all the time.

But i would say HCT's slow you down,so a 3-30hr walk would imo go to 4hrs automatically,so i'm a bit confused.

What will your delivery span need to be to protect full time jobs POSTMAN?
On a 10 hour day,You have a higher proportion of indoor work than any of us.
If indoor work is under attack your will lose a higher proportion of your dailly workload and this will be reflected in your delivery span.
Would you be comfortable doing 5 or 5and a half hour spans?

We will not do more than 4hrs end of!
We are at the moment with our proposal jumping through hoops to find more indoor work to cover us,with some part timers coming in we may just do it.
But i fear with the wsm's coming we may get thrown back in a year or 2 to a 5 day week,we'll have to wait and see.

[k979aaa]

Where does the 8% fall in traffic come in then. If that is the case and 50 letters is 8%, this means that I only deal with 625 items per day, which equate to about 1.5 items per house.(400 drops rural area) What a load of b...cks. I would say that 50 letters on most rounds equates to between 3% and 4%. Thats assuming their figure of 50 is correct. This means they lose about £20 a day in income on letters per walk. More than paid for by the increase in postage costs and the amount of increase in packet income.

Just take a look at the big picture it is all about saveings royalmail want 5% year on year more probably out of london with a computer you can input any value you want to come up with a figure you desire as an end product!. It is as as easy as useing a calculator and if 4x9=36 and they want 32 just change the second value to 8 IE 4x8=32 same with pegasus and the indoor work tool (it is not the manager)!.

[fishtank]

I'm running the risk of upsetting you POSTMAN but i can't see how the CWU can ask the rest of the membership to increase their delivery span to 4hrs to protect fulltime jobs and allow you to keep yours with the use of P/T staff.
I may be missing the point and feel free to correct me if i am.

[Member 34]

However if you want to stop and guard the 3.5 hour span fine , but tell me how you protect a full time job. Even if we take 30 mins off for travelling to and from the office , 40 mins for a break , that still leaves 3 hours 20 of work of which is going to be subjected to a different arrival pattern into delivery offiices and sequenced in the future. Even if we get 20 mins per day off the working week that leaves 3 hours of workload to be ulitised.

Sorry but IMHO you have that arse about face - The prime responsibility of the CWU should be H&S of their own members - they should only allow greater than 3.5 hour deliveries, locally, only within certain NATIONAL parameters. That is if the local arrangements don't meet the criteria then the plans should be revised or the 3.5 hour span should not be broken.

Also accepting longer delivery spans to protect full time jobs is again IMHO irresponsible. Yes protect Full Time posts within RM as far as possible but not at the risk to health for those same members. There is no point in keeping 40 hour full time posts if because of extended deliveries sickness goes through the roof, or there are more injuries caused by fatigue, or posties are sacked because they struggle to do the deliveries. I would much rather keep the deliveries as they are and reduce the hours at work, at least I would be able to enjoy life.

As my signature used to say on RMC "We work to live - Not Live to Work"

I agree totally.

I can only assume that any postie who advocates introducing walks greater than 3.5 hours, for any reason, must be on a driving job.
I am relatively young (34) and fit, and come home so knackered every day that I believe any more than 3.5 hours would be seriously detrimental to our health in the long term.

I for one will quit if longer walks are introduced. :cfo

[BELIAL]

Good first post member

[ExSG]

As this thread is getting so much excellent coverage I'm not sure if its been mentioned before but..

Did anyone notice the last link by Jeremy Vine? That they will be keeping an eye on Martin and his walk and report any developments in the future

So watch out RM, keep your mucky hands off the fella - EVERYONE is watching - and he's our hero