90 mins later from April

[qwerty2]

From the Sunday telegraph
“Posties are also on the promise of an £500 Christmas bonus for “hitting local and national quality targets”, perhaps as a softener to the introduction of new working hours in April when many will be asked to start up to 90 minutes later. Royal Mail has said the move will allow it to halve the number of chartered mail flights a day to 18, cutting costs and carbon emissions.”

Full article
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... christmas/

[eastie]

Carbon emmisions my arse, less flights save money for shareholders

[guardianangel]

We knew it was coming before the ink was dry on the deal,the union will not be able to stop the steam train that is coming. Its the end of saturday football,picking your kids up and the ones on the new contracts ,the union and 70% caved and now we will see the consequences of giving corporate companies a free rein.

[SpacePhoenix]

They'll also have to change the start and finish times in MCs otherwise we'll simply fail the mail that gets rerouted

[Aardvark]

If Royal Mail really gave a damn about being green they could start with the D2Ds which nobody wants.

Just think how many tons of recycling we deliver annualy

[SMS1969]

Our manager is trying to limit this to 30 minutes, good in theory but whether this is possible in practice we’ll see.

[dazzler123]

this is all a knock on effect being stuck in school traffic getting back to the office. Likely less will be delivered if people get fed up

[Clappedoutpostie]

Xmas time next year anybody who has in previous years done an extra hour to complete won’t bother as daylight will already be gone.

[Wullie10]

Reducing carbon emissions by getting half the work force to join the rush hour traffic you couldn't make this s**t up

[Basildon Bond]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... christmas/

Complete article for reference...

‘The threat from Amazon is very serious’: embattled Royal Mail’s nightmare becomes a reality

American giant closes in on an outdated institution struggling to reinvent itself

The company’s new “super-hub” in Daventry, Northamptonshire opened in June, spanning 53-acres and boasting machines that can process 850,000 parcels a day, making it the country’s largest automated parcel facility.

To ensure a smooth festive season, the company has also hired 16,000 temporary workers to help 110,000 posties sort and deliver packages in an attempt to avoid a repeat of last year’s strike action, which cost £200m in lost turnover. An extra 6,800 vehicles and 1,000 large vans have also been deployed, and customers are being lured with Amazon-like promises of guaranteed next-day deliveries on Saturday orders, same-price Sunday deliveries, and better rates on heavier tracked parcels.

Posties are also on the promise of an £500 Christmas bonus for “hitting local and national quality targets”, perhaps as a softener to the introduction of new working hours in April when many will be asked to start up to 90 minutes later. Royal Mail has said the move will allow it to halve the number of chartered mail flights a day to 18, cutting costs and carbon emissions.

And while Royal Mail focuses on trying to win back the many customers that have flocked to competitors, Ofcom’s review of the USO is likely to prove pivotal.

The regulator will begin gathering evidence in January to establish how services “might need to evolve to better reflect the changing needs of postal users”. It has previously found that consumers were “largely indifferent” to the idea of dropping Saturday deliveries.

Alastair Macpherson, a consultant, says there are many ways the USO could be modified. “The number of deliveries a week is one dimension. You could even have different levels of service for different geographies. So it might be that it’s still sensible to deliver seven days of the week in certain areas of London but only four days in more rural areas.”

Landon, Royal Mail’s chief commercial officer, is adamant that what the company is asking for “is not a reduction in service”. “It’s a reflection of what our posting customers and customers say they want, and it’s a rebalancing of our network, between parcels and letters,” he says.

Trouble in paradise
At times, Amazon’s rise has seemed just as inevitable as Royal Mail’s decline.

The American company, which boasts annual sales of about $243bn (£194bn), has expanded from ecommerce over the years to cloud computing, video streaming, advertising, bricks and mortar retail and even prescription drugs.

Yet there are signs today that the technology giant’s momentum is slowing.

The company posted a loss of $2.7bn in 2022 following over-expansion during the pandemic, forcing it to lay off thousands of surplus workers. It also paused work on flashy initiatives like the checkout-free Amazon Go shops and even launched a jobs cull at the division responsible for Alexa, the voice assistant that was long said to have been a favourite of company founder Jeff Bezos.

Under chief executive Andy Jassy, who took over from Bezos in 2021, Amazon also faces new regulatory danger in the US, where the Federal Trade Commission accuses it of anti-competitive practices.

And there are reasons for executives to be concerned about the UK as well.

While the delivery partner model has allowed Amazon to ramp up the number of parcels it delivers itself, it has also ensnared the company in a legal battle over the rights of the drivers who wear its logo.

Should these people actually get the same rights as employees? This is the question at the heart of a lawsuit being brought on behalf of more than 1,000 drivers by solicitors at Leigh Day, which says they could be owed as much as £10,000 each in back-pay, holiday entitlements and other benefits.

The case has echoes of legal disputes that have hampered the likes of transport app Uber and food delivery company Deliveroo, around the rights so-called gig economy workers should have.

Kate Robinson, a senior associate solicitor at Leigh Day, argues that Amazon’s drivers, who work for the delivery partner businesses, cannot just be seen only as contractors because they enjoy none of the freedoms that would come with that role.

They cannot negotiate pay, are paid the same fees regardless of their workload and are constantly monitored by the company’s systems for efficiency. They also cannot let someone else do their tasks.

“Amazon classifies these drivers as self-employed, but we say that they are actually employees and therefore entitled to the various benefits that come with employee status,” Robinson adds.

Amazon rejects suggestions that the drivers are effectively its employees.

“We are committed to ensuring these drivers are fairly compensated by the delivery companies they work with and are treated with respect, and this is reflected by the positive feedback we hear from drivers every day,” a spokesman says.

And despite these troubles at its rival, Royal Mail can hardly celebrate itself.

[HarrySutton]

Xmas time next year anybody who has in previous years done an extra hour to complete won’t bother as daylight will already be gone.

Yep couldn't agree more pal, and be less folk working days off

[Nickvilla20]

We knew it was coming before the ink was dry on the deal,the union will not be able to stop the steam train that is coming. Its the end of saturday football,picking your kids up and the ones on the new contracts ,the union and 70% caved and now we will see the consequences of giving corporate companies a free rein.

What was the alternative then to accepting the mediocre deal? More strikes which would have potentially put us all out of a job?

The company has free reign anyway and has done for years voting no wouldn’t have stopped that or anything else the company has planned the only way to avoid the inevitable is to sadly move on to pastures new and I think with the later start times many will.

[HarrySutton]

Yep I will be, I voted no,

[Mr Rush]

the only way to avoid the inevitable is to sadly move on to pastures new and I think with the later start times many will.

That, along with intentionally generating duties that cannot be completed, should be prima facie evidence the company is deliberately reneging its legal obligation. If they go through with this then it should be evident the company feels emboldened by the near absence of regulation to crater quality of service further to get to a position where new contracts outnumber legacy ones. Failure is an option.

[LouBarlow]

It wouldn’t surprise me if these later starts are ‘delayed’ when March rolls around. RM are beginning to realise that they actually need staff to do the job, and making said job less appealing to long term posties, as well as further punishing those poor folks on the shite new contracts, is going to result in a lot of people leaving.