For what is worth !

[CatEnthusiast13]

Obviously I am public enemy number one on this site but sometimes you have to be unpopular and tell people what they don’t want to hear or just don’t want to believe.

I will try and answer some of the points people make.

1. This is better deal in USO than ODM as it uses the 4 in 3 differently.

2. The agreement also took 20% of duties out of the 4 in 3 model. It created an extra 3500 routes ( a lot of these were the routes which the executive action of 2023 took out ) and has 6000 more full time jobs.

3. The whole point of USO reform for Royal Mail and Ofcom was to reduce costs , their initial sums range from 420 million to 300. This has now been reduced to below 250 million. Even then this might come down further if units cannot achieve the quality targets and extra hours need to go back in.

4. Your unit will only recieve each day the work which has to be delivered. This means that 50% of your duties will not recieve DSA, second class etc. This will be kept in the mail centre.

5. On a Saturday only 1st class letters and parcels will be released to your unit.

6. The higher call rate on the heavy walls ( 50% ) of units enable more warm calling on D2D.

7. It works better for non drivers as they can stay on the CDV pairing and rotate the heavy and light model and can can share on a Saturday to enable an earlier finish.

8. There are less than 400 CWU members getting the bonus. They work alongside legal , HR and Finance management and therefore it was agreed that they should be that bonus scheme. The operational grade amounts to over 95 thousand so even a 3% pay rise costs over 250 million when you add pensions costs and national insurance costs.

9. Equalisation it is a first step and it will lead to the next step and full pathway. Equalisation is difficult because of the sheer costs to each of the measures which need equalisation and taking a first step and then after USO being in a better position to get more progress is better than no deal ever on equalisation.

10. The threat to the future of Royal Mail is very real. That is not a sign of weakness it is a fact. Fleet Street , the Dockyards did not see what was coming until it was too late. We cannot afford to make that mistake.

So I realise it is easy to shout things on here , what you would do and what we should do but when a company is not making money where do you think that money is going to come from ?

I appreciate you engaging with us and explaining stuff. Being kept in the dark about the everlooming proposed changes for the last year or so has been causing me and my colleagues alot of undue stress.

Admittedly we are all feeling pretty hopeless about these new methods as to my understanding we are gonna be doing more work in the same hours with no compensation or bonus to make up for it.

I'd just like to check is there likely to be a ban on overtime once this new method is rolled out?
As much as I dislike overtime I know most rounds cant be completed without it, so I worry there will be increased pressure on us to work through are breaks and run round like crazy if this is the case?

[CatEnthusiast13]

Obviously I am public enemy number one on this site but sometimes you have to be unpopular and tell people what they don’t want to hear or just don’t want to believe.

I will try and answer some of the points people make.

1. This is better deal in USO than ODM as it uses the 4 in 3 differently.

2. The agreement also took 20% of duties out of the 4 in 3 model. It created an extra 3500 routes ( a lot of these were the routes which the executive action of 2023 took out ) and has 6000 more full time jobs.

3. The whole point of USO reform for Royal Mail and Ofcom was to reduce costs , their initial sums range from 420 million to 300. This has now been reduced to below 250 million. Even then this might come down further if units cannot achieve the quality targets and extra hours need to go back in.

4. Your unit will only recieve each day the work which has to be delivered. This means that 50% of your duties will not recieve DSA, second class etc. This will be kept in the mail centre.

5. On a Saturday only 1st class letters and parcels will be released to your unit.

6. The higher call rate on the heavy walls ( 50% ) of units enable more warm calling on D2D.

7. It works better for non drivers as they can stay on the CDV pairing and rotate the heavy and light model and can can share on a Saturday to enable an earlier finish.

8. There are less than 400 CWU members getting the bonus. They work alongside legal , HR and Finance management and therefore it was agreed that they should be that bonus scheme. The operational grade amounts to over 95 thousand so even a 3% pay rise costs over 250 million when you add pensions costs and national insurance costs.

9. Equalisation it is a first step and it will lead to the next step and full pathway. Equalisation is difficult because of the sheer costs to each of the measures which need equalisation and taking a first step and then after USO being in a better position to get more progress is better than no deal ever on equalisation.

10. The threat to the future of Royal Mail is very real. That is not a sign of weakness it is a fact. Fleet Street , the Dockyards did not see what was coming until it was too late. We cannot afford to make that mistake.

So I realise it is easy to shout things on here , what you would do and what we should do but when a company is not making money where do you think that money is going to come from ?

Also what is the plan for offices that can't stay fully staffed?
Will the changes be continuously delayed or just pushed through without the staff needed for it to have any chance of working?

My office for example has been understaffed for at least 2 years.
We are always hiring but no one stays for long.
By the time people are trained enough to start driving they move on to a new job.
This means we also never have enough drivers so older posties with rounds end up being treated like reserves

Im just struggling to understand how these problems will be managed/ resolved

[Thommo44]

Obviously I am public enemy number one on this site but sometimes you have to be unpopular and tell people what they don’t want to hear or just don’t want to believe.

I will try and answer some of the points people make.

1. This is better deal in USO than ODM as it uses the 4 in 3 differently.

2. The agreement also took 20% of duties out of the 4 in 3 model. It created an extra 3500 routes ( a lot of these were the routes which the executive action of 2023 took out ) and has 6000 more full time jobs.

3. The whole point of USO reform for Royal Mail and Ofcom was to reduce costs , their initial sums range from 420 million to 300. This has now been reduced to below 250 million. Even then this might come down further if units cannot achieve the quality targets and extra hours need to go back in.

4. Your unit will only recieve each day the work which has to be delivered. This means that 50% of your duties will not recieve DSA, second class etc. This will be kept in the mail centre.

5. On a Saturday only 1st class letters and parcels will be released to your unit.

6. The higher call rate on the heavy walls ( 50% ) of units enable more warm calling on D2D.

7. It works better for non drivers as they can stay on the CDV pairing and rotate the heavy and light model and can can share on a Saturday to enable an earlier finish.

8. There are less than 400 CWU members getting the bonus. They work alongside legal , HR and Finance management and therefore it was agreed that they should be that bonus scheme. The operational grade amounts to over 95 thousand so even a 3% pay rise costs over 250 million when you add pensions costs and national insurance costs.

9. Equalisation it is a first step and it will lead to the next step and full pathway. Equalisation is difficult because of the sheer costs to each of the measures which need equalisation and taking a first step and then after USO being in a better position to get more progress is better than no deal ever on equalisation.

10. The threat to the future of Royal Mail is very real. That is not a sign of weakness it is a fact. Fleet Street , the Dockyards did not see what was coming until it was too late. We cannot afford to make that mistake.

So I realise it is easy to shout things on here , what you would do and what we should do but when a company is not making money where do you think that money is going to come from ?

Apologies if I'm being thick, but can you clarify items 2 and 5 in that every item delivered to a delivery office on that day is to be delivered by the post person on that day. As in the expectation is for offices to be clear every day?

[60091]

Post

The ballot closes in a few days , my office still doesn’t know it’s duty pattern or start and finish times , you have hinted at earlier start times which I have been told is not happening in my office so that’s clearly a carrot to get a yes vote .I voted no because I genuinely do not know what I’m voting for and you have done nowhere near enough to level up new starts as well as nothing on the sick pay issue or this phantom office bonus scheme that will never happen.

No-one will know what duty patterns and start times are until they do the revision on each unit then your has vote on iti

[TopperGas]

Obviously I am public enemy number one on this site but sometimes you have to be unpopular and tell people what they don’t want to hear or just don’t want to believe.

I will try and answer some of the points people make.

1. This is better deal in USO than ODM as it uses the 4 in 3 differently.

2. The agreement also took 20% of duties out of the 4 in 3 model. It created an extra 3500 routes ( a lot of these were the routes which the executive action of 2023 took out ) and has 6000 more full time jobs.

3. The whole point of USO reform for Royal Mail and Ofcom was to reduce costs , their initial sums range from 420 million to 300. This has now been reduced to below 250 million. Even then this might come down further if units cannot achieve the quality targets and extra hours need to go back in.

4. Your unit will only recieve each day the work which has to be delivered. This means that 50% of your duties will not recieve DSA, second class etc. This will be kept in the mail centre.

5. On a Saturday only 1st class letters and parcels will be released to your unit.

6. The higher call rate on the heavy walls ( 50% ) of units enable more warm calling on D2D.

7. It works better for non drivers as they can stay on the CDV pairing and rotate the heavy and light model and can can share on a Saturday to enable an earlier finish.

8. There are less than 400 CWU members getting the bonus. They work alongside legal , HR and Finance management and therefore it was agreed that they should be that bonus scheme. The operational grade amounts to over 95 thousand so even a 3% pay rise costs over 250 million when you add pensions costs and national insurance costs.

9. Equalisation it is a first step and it will lead to the next step and full pathway. Equalisation is difficult because of the sheer costs to each of the measures which need equalisation and taking a first step and then after USO being in a better position to get more progress is better than no deal ever on equalisation.

10. The threat to the future of Royal Mail is very real. That is not a sign of weakness it is a fact. Fleet Street , the Dockyards did not see what was coming until it was too late. We cannot afford to make that mistake.

So I realise it is easy to shout things on here , what you would do and what we should do but when a company is not making money where do you think that money is going to come from ?

Apologies if I'm being thick, but can you clarify items 2 and 5 in that every item delivered to a delivery office on that day is to be delivered by the post person on that day. As in the expectation is for offices to be clear every day?

The expectation is every office will be clear but 50% of 2c for each duty will apparently be held back at the MC, until they get over loaded with mail and just release it!

[TopperGas]

Post

The ballot closes in a few days , my office still doesn’t know it’s duty pattern or start and finish times , you have hinted at earlier start times which I have been told is not happening in my office so that’s clearly a carrot to get a yes vote .I voted no because I genuinely do not know what I’m voting for and you have done nowhere near enough to level up new starts as well as nothing on the sick pay issue or this phantom office bonus scheme that will never happen.

No-one will know what duty patterns and start times are until they do the revision on each unit then your has vote on iti

What revision when most offices will be keeping more or less the same duties?

There's nothing stopping each office having a vote now so we now what we're letting ourselves in for if we vote yes? Some staff may want more Saturdays off some want to keep Wally weeks etc but as things stand we've no idea what we're voting for.

[robriggs]

How I see the outcome down the line. Owner. One of the most ruthless,astute businessmen in the world.The Sphinx,is not going to take on a company the size of ours for the good of his health. Royal Mail has a property portfolio worth about £2 billion. Once he gets his feet under the table,he will start to sell off the juicy city centre sites.
ODM. This first step of changes is just the start. Again,The Sphinx won’t want us plodding about with worthless letters in the long run. Parcels are king. Eventually he will want to go down the Denmark route.
Government/Golden share. This sounds like a good thing. The total opposite I am afraid. For when The Sphinx has sucked the company dry he will want to walk away. The Government will be left to either let the company go under or have to shell out billions of tax payers money to prop it up. Do we trust governments in these situations? Look at the state of the water industry!!!! No we don’t.
Workforce. Owner drivers/gig economy…….no need to explain this scenario. We can see it happening now.
Union. I am afraid beaten after the last dispute. They will never be able to enact any industrial action again after that. The leadership needed a broom put through it,but it remains the same. Mr Ward voted back in by a small clique,sold his soul by accepting a CBE (I still can’t get over that). Self preservation now for them,as Rome burns.
The pointless ballot. It should have become a vote of confidence in the CWU really. Too late now. The result is not a given by any means. It’s just so vague. Nobody really knows what they are voting for. Offices with 20 staff,offices with 200 plus. Each office “all muck in together and sort yourselves out the best you can”. Anyway,the changes are coming in whatever,nothing we can do about it.

[goldy2007]

How I see the outcome down the line. Owner. One of the most ruthless,astute businessmen in the world.The Sphinx,is not going to take on a company the size of ours for the good of his health. Royal Mail has a property portfolio worth about £2 billion. Once he gets his feet under the table,he will start to sell off the juicy city centre sites.
ODM. This first step of changes is just the start. Again,The Sphinx won’t want us plodding about with worthless letters in the long run. Parcels are king. Eventually he will want to go down the Denmark route.
Government/Golden share. This sounds like a good thing. The total opposite I am afraid. For when The Sphinx has sucked the company dry he will want to walk away. The Government will be left to either let the company go under or have to shell out billions of tax payers money to prop it up. Do we trust governments in these situations? Look at the state of the water industry!!!! No we don’t.
Workforce. Owner drivers/gig economy…….no need to explain this scenario. We can see it happening now.
Union. I am afraid beaten after the last dispute. They will never be able to enact any industrial action again after that. The leadership needed a broom put through it,but it remains the same. Mr Ward voted back in by a small clique,sold his soul by accepting a CBE (I still can’t get over that). Self preservation now for them,as Rome burns.
The pointless ballot. It should have become a vote of confidence in the CWU really. Too late now. The result is not a given by any means. It’s just so vague. Nobody really knows what they are voting for. Offices with 20 staff,offices with 200 plus. Each office “all muck in together and sort yourselves out the best you can”. Anyway,the changes are coming in whatever,nothing we can do about it.

Guess the question is the time frame for it all

They have struggled to get this odm across the line

Owner driver model doesn’t really work for large swathes of the rural country which is why Amazon get RM to deliver for them
Evri don’t pay enough ours change all the time and no one is going to buy a RM rural franchise they are loss makers as it is for RM

Redundancy would be costly

Asset selling and re renting seems a no brainer

Agreed cwu probably at best a fire break to make enough noise to slow things down

[chickenwittle]

Post

The ballot closes in a few days , my office still doesn’t know it’s duty pattern or start and finish times , you have hinted at earlier start times which I have been told is not happening in my office so that’s clearly a carrot to get a yes vote .I voted no because I genuinely do not know what I’m voting for and you have done nowhere near enough to level up new starts as well as nothing on the sick pay issue or this phantom office bonus scheme that will never happen.

No-one will know what duty patterns and start times are until they do the revision on each unit then your has vote on iti

What revision when most offices will be keeping more or less the same duties?

There's nothing stopping each office having a vote now so we now what we're letting ourselves in for if we vote yes? Some staff may want more Saturdays off some want to keep Wally weeks etc but as things stand we've no idea what we're voting for.

Exactly this , which is why I voted no .

[tramssirhc]

Obviously I am public enemy number one on this site but sometimes you have to be unpopular and tell people what they don’t want to hear or just don’t want to believe.

I will try and answer some of the points people make.

1. This is better deal in USO than ODM as it uses the 4 in 3 differently.

2. The agreement also took 20% of duties out of the 4 in 3 model. It created an extra 3500 routes ( a lot of these were the routes which the executive action of 2023 took out ) and has 6000 more full time jobs.

3. The whole point of USO reform for Royal Mail and Ofcom was to reduce costs , their initial sums range from 420 million to 300. This has now been reduced to below 250 million. Even then this might come down further if units cannot achieve the quality targets and extra hours need to go back in.

4. Your unit will only recieve each day the work which has to be delivered. This means that 50% of your duties will not recieve DSA, second class etc. This will be kept in the mail centre.

5. On a Saturday only 1st class letters and parcels will be released to your unit.

6. The higher call rate on the heavy walls ( 50% ) of units enable more warm calling on D2D.

7. It works better for non drivers as they can stay on the CDV pairing and rotate the heavy and light model and can can share on a Saturday to enable an earlier finish.

8. There are less than 400 CWU members getting the bonus. They work alongside legal , HR and Finance management and therefore it was agreed that they should be that bonus scheme. The operational grade amounts to over 95 thousand so even a 3% pay rise costs over 250 million when you add pensions costs and national insurance costs.

9. Equalisation it is a first step and it will lead to the next step and full pathway. Equalisation is difficult because of the sheer costs to each of the measures which need equalisation and taking a first step and then after USO being in a better position to get more progress is better than no deal ever on equalisation.

10. The threat to the future of Royal Mail is very real. That is not a sign of weakness it is a fact. Fleet Street , the Dockyards did not see what was coming until it was too late. We cannot afford to make that mistake.

So I realise it is easy to shout things on here , what you would do and what we should do but when a company is not making money where do you think that money is going to come from ?

Martin, it's no good getting in this forum and portraying the injured party. We didn't make your bed, you did, so you can lie in it. The CWU insists on doing everything from the top down. Your pleading is even more galling when you know full well you wouldn't have put up with what the union is doing when you actually did our job.

The delivery method change is a cut in jobs and an increase in work, be it ODM or DM26. Selling our jobs is not the purpose of a trade union. Defending our jobs is. Your paternalistic posturing of knowing better and backing that up by withholding all the information is anti-working class, anti-collectivism and typical of the right wing of the trade union movement.

Saying the reintroduction of duties is simply putting right the imposed job cuts does not help many members. The work has increased without a proper revision process. Offices were put through the 2010 revisions and simply left to fend for themselves. The CWU did nothing to put right the 2010 failures and that's why we are where we are today. All you've done is helped us stand still.

The CWU acknowledges that OFCOM is not fit for purpose. OFCOM should have zero say in our jobs and what makes them efficient. In fact the regulatory regime makes no mention of value for money for the public being achieved on the back of postal workers. Attempting to gaslight us with tales about OFCOM and what they want is out of order.

As space Phoenix has pointed out time and time again you appear to not understand the traffic profile or what will be the workload on the day. As I have pointed out we don't just deliver first class letters. The work on the day will be whatever has to go.

The unaddressed mail and warm calling it does not make the work any easier. There needs to be a proper SOP for the unaddressed mail and how it is worked. Can you guarantee that there will be time in duties to write down the numbers on any unaddressed mail that reaches its limit?

If CDV's are going to be two in a van on a Saturday that's not the point of DM26. We all know the reality is there will be sufficient work for van pairings on a Saturday. But that's not what the CWU has agreed.

The postal industry is a multi-billion pound industry that pays some workers millions and thousands of workers enough money to put them in the highest tax bracket. Pleading poverty on behalf of an industry that charges nearly £2 for a stamp is an act of working class betrayal.

The threat to one company is a mixture of your fevered imagination, the CWU's collaborationist partnership born out of lazy trade unionism, propaganda to sell your tawdry deal and fear mongering. Just because the profit desired is not the profit gained does not mean it's curtains for one company. Just like the rest of us have to, the industry should lower it's expectations and the CWU should be telling it that.

[sindba]

Union. I am afraid beaten after the last dispute. They will never be able to enact any industrial action again after that.

Agree 100% with this.

It was the "no strike" clause in our legal agreement that killed the CWU.

After that, they've always just got two choices: agree to everything RM want, or sit back while RM do it anyway.

Whoever in the CWU agreed to that clause killed the CWU. It's just a matter of time.

[postslippete]

How I see the outcome down the line. Owner. One of the most ruthless,astute businessmen in the world.The Sphinx,is not going to take on a company the size of ours for the good of his health. Royal Mail has a property portfolio worth about £2 billion. Once he gets his feet under the table,he will start to sell off the juicy city centre sites.
ODM. This first step of changes is just the start. Again,The Sphinx won’t want us plodding about with worthless letters in the long run. Parcels are king. Eventually he will want to go down the Denmark route.
Government/Golden share. This sounds like a good thing. The total opposite I am afraid. For when The Sphinx has sucked the company dry he will want to walk away. The Government will be left to either let the company go under or have to shell out billions of tax payers money to prop it up. Do we trust governments in these situations? Look at the state of the water industry!!!! No we don’t.
Workforce. Owner drivers/gig economy…….no need to explain this scenario. We can see it happening now.
Union. I am afraid beaten after the last dispute. They will never be able to enact any industrial action again after that. The leadership needed a broom put through it,but it remains the same. Mr Ward voted back in by a small clique,sold his soul by accepting a CBE (I still can’t get over that). Self preservation now for them,as Rome burns.
The pointless ballot. It should have become a vote of confidence in the CWU really. Too late now. The result is not a given by any means. It’s just so vague. Nobody really knows what they are voting for. Offices with 20 staff,offices with 200 plus. Each office “all muck in together and sort yourselves out the best you can”. Anyway,the changes are coming in whatever,nothing we can do about it.

Hard to disagree when most posties have a loss of trust in the ownership, the management, the government, the CWU and the overall direction of the company which at times seems to be heading further south than Robert Scott expedition.

But while letters are declining, they aren't worthless. People don't realise that they still generate major revenue for RM and I can't see them disappearing overnight.

[TopperGas]

How I see the outcome down the line. Owner. One of the most ruthless,astute businessmen in the world.The Sphinx,is not going to take on a company the size of ours for the good of his health. Royal Mail has a property portfolio worth about £2 billion. Once he gets his feet under the table,he will start to sell off the juicy city centre sites.
ODM. This first step of changes is just the start. Again,The Sphinx won’t want us plodding about with worthless letters in the long run. Parcels are king. Eventually he will want to go down the Denmark route.
Government/Golden share. This sounds like a good thing. The total opposite I am afraid. For when The Sphinx has sucked the company dry he will want to walk away. The Government will be left to either let the company go under or have to shell out billions of tax payers money to prop it up. Do we trust governments in these situations? Look at the state of the water industry!!!! No we don’t.
Workforce. Owner drivers/gig economy…….no need to explain this scenario. We can see it happening now.
Union. I am afraid beaten after the last dispute. They will never be able to enact any industrial action again after that. The leadership needed a broom put through it,but it remains the same. Mr Ward voted back in by a small clique,sold his soul by accepting a CBE (I still can’t get over that). Self preservation now for them,as Rome burns.
The pointless ballot. It should have become a vote of confidence in the CWU really. Too late now. The result is not a given by any means. It’s just so vague. Nobody really knows what they are voting for. Offices with 20 staff,offices with 200 plus. Each office “all muck in together and sort yourselves out the best you can”. Anyway,the changes are coming in whatever,nothing we can do about it.

As posted numourous times already on here, DK has zero history of asset stripping, I doubt he even needs the £B's it would bring, what he does have is an history of turning failing businesses around and making them profitable, although he does seem to be struggling in the Netherlands, perhaps a move into postal services isn't his best move to date.

[TopperGas]

How I see the outcome down the line. Owner. One of the most ruthless,astute businessmen in the world.The Sphinx,is not going to take on a company the size of ours for the good of his health. Royal Mail has a property portfolio worth about £2 billion. Once he gets his feet under the table,he will start to sell off the juicy city centre sites.
ODM. This first step of changes is just the start. Again,The Sphinx won’t want us plodding about with worthless letters in the long run. Parcels are king. Eventually he will want to go down the Denmark route.
Government/Golden share. This sounds like a good thing. The total opposite I am afraid. For when The Sphinx has sucked the company dry he will want to walk away. The Government will be left to either let the company go under or have to shell out billions of tax payers money to prop it up. Do we trust governments in these situations? Look at the state of the water industry!!!! No we don’t.
Workforce. Owner drivers/gig economy…….no need to explain this scenario. We can see it happening now.
Union. I am afraid beaten after the last dispute. They will never be able to enact any industrial action again after that. The leadership needed a broom put through it,but it remains the same. Mr Ward voted back in by a small clique,sold his soul by accepting a CBE (I still can’t get over that). Self preservation now for them,as Rome burns.
The pointless ballot. It should have become a vote of confidence in the CWU really. Too late now. The result is not a given by any means. It’s just so vague. Nobody really knows what they are voting for. Offices with 20 staff,offices with 200 plus. Each office “all muck in together and sort yourselves out the best you can”. Anyway,the changes are coming in whatever,nothing we can do about it.

Hard to disagree when most posties have a loss of trust in the ownership, the management, the government, the CWU and the overall direction of the company which at times seems to be heading further south than Robert Scott expedition.

But while letters are declining, they aren't worthless. People don't realise that they still generate major revenue for RM and I can't see them disappearing overnight.

They also seem to generate plenty of complaints, surely that must have a knock effect when a customer is choosing who to use for their tracked items? I

t's like BT no longer worrying about their phone line service reliability as they feel broadband is the future.

[clashcityrocker]

... although he does seem to be struggling in the Netherlands, perhaps a move into postal services isn't his best move to date.

But still better than West Ham.