Royal Mail “making it easier than ever to send parcels”

[Smoothbackground]

We agree more than disagree here. The attrition rate varies wildly from office to office, even section to section. I have to say, our WPCs (with the exception of one) and managers do a great job of nurturing and mentoring our new recruits, and I think that may be why people haven’t left in such droves at our office. That isn’t to say we haven’t had quite a few decide it isn’t for them, often with no notice, during even the short amount of time I’ve been there. A young lad who lives on our patch was telling me how he lasted three weeks at a neighbouring office, where he had zero interaction/training/anything other than a day of shadowing a supposedly experienced agency postman, before walking out without notice as he felt he was drowning with the indoor work as no kone had shown him what to do yet they were expecting him to fully prep two walks (a pairing) in his second week when he had only done lapsing on one of the walks once before. Varies wildly.

I just think you need to be more measured in what you post. There is freedom of speech still on the forum mostly so I am not going to dictate to you what you can post and you do provoke plenty of discussion and debate which might be a good thing. My main problem with Royal Mail is that they are a huge employer in the UK with a vast amount of wealth. Having a two tier work force is just simply wrong. They may justify it by saying due to expenses they can't afford current salaries but I think the problem is the UK economy and society as a whole. There are many part time Royal Mail employees who need Universal Credit to survive, and also full time people at Royal Mail throughout the UK. Having the government topping up wages because businesses won't pay a decent living wage is dysfunctional and wrong. It also means the tax we pay go towards these top ups in income instead of vital services etc.
It is also a case of us being classified as unskilled so the new wages and terms are justified. Most of the managers in Royal Mail were not trained, they became managers over night without qualifications or skills. Yet they are classified as skilled workers. Just hanging around the office to climb the greasy pole does not make you qualified.
You seem an optimistic person and one that is grateful for their circumstances which to an extent can be admired but the workforce as a whole needs to challenge Royal Mail or our terms and conditions will get worse. I don't know of anyone on a legacy contract in my depot that mocks or sees new starters as different. Most have sympathy and feel it is wrong. The odd few say well they decided to work here, which is normally very selfish people who are the type you complain about that have little to no work ethic and have been stealing a living.

I agree with pretty much all you say. Unfortunately, there are no solutions, and it is almost as if the two tiers of the workforce are pitted against one another from the off, causing suspicion and perhaps resentment from the off, which is then compounded by the attitudes of, and comments made by, that small minority of staff we can both identify.

And I do hear you re wages generally not keeping pace, and it is a stain on our society that people are living like this, relying on foodbanks and UC, but cost of living is just crazy all round. The local chippy is closing down because, to pay his bills and make a modest profit, he’d have to charge £22 for fish and chips (already £13) which nobody can afford to pay in our neck of the woods. He is losing money keeping the doors open.

As for managers, aren’t they a necessary evil in every industry? You do sometimes get nice people doing the horrible job of manager, just as, equally, you get nasty people doing the horrible job. New joiners should see some sort of career path for themselves that somehow climbs the ranks. If I hadn’t already served my sentence behind a desk, and if I was 10 years younger and without the personal life experiences I’ve had over the past 10 years, I probably would have jumped at the prospect of being an extremely officious RM manager, bonus and all! Def not anymore though — I can’t stand being in one place for any length of time. My point is that I think there is no harm in young new joiners aspiring to progress up the ranks.

The "two tiers" aren't pitted against each other in my eyes, you see this is the problem people stirring up resentment that doesn't exist to begin with. Yes there is two different pay structures within RMs OPG workforce, but people know exactly what they are signing up too, the suspicion and resentment can only be coming from the newbies and the idiots within the "legacy" contracts, what possible threat are the newbies? New starters filling out the vacancies take the pressure off the rest of the workforce. They don't affect o/t as this firm has always, from day one of me starting 18yrs ago, run on o/t and always will.
As i have said before, do you not think a better place to put your energy is trying to get this company to honour its statement to bring new contract starters up to legacy contracts, i think it was over 5 years they said, and then perhaps there's a goal to aim for, even better try to get parity from the start and then there's no two tiers to begin with.
Managers are probably the poorest bunch i have had the joy of working with, of course there's the odd good one, in fact ours at the moment is great but he's retiring in a few weeks and our new one could be anything. Poachers turned gamekeeper managers usually are a poor bunch as the laziest and biggest suck ups always got the promotion, and suddenly they become the biggest tyrants who could do twice as much as you do in a day. I think RM have started to attempt to move away from this way of promoting so i would hope there's a improvement, but who knows.

But it is entirely predictable, sadly, that despite all the noise, there is never going to be parity between the tiers, as RM clearly views the legacy OPG Ts and Cs as unsustainable and unviable. The sole opportunity for parity was in 2023, prior to sealing the last deal, but the CWU (and its members) pushed it off the table, adopting a “Save Ourselves” approach that played right into RM’s gameplan.

I think that little nugget of info plays a key part in the resentment and mistrust between the two tiers of staff. Also, I knew about the two tiers of pay etc before joining permanently, so made an informed decision, whereas other new-starters were happy to sign up on the rates, Ts and Cs advertised in the job advert but were upset to hear from legacy staff soon after joining that they (legacy staff) earned more than them, then having the CWU local rep try to make them still £14 more worse off by flogging them snake oil and rewriting history so far as the CWU’s role in green-lighting the two-tier workforce.

[Pidleypoo]

Smooth it's obvious your goal in life is to annoy as many "legacy" (I hate the word) post people as humanly possible, in as short a time as possible, while singing the praises of Amazon/yourself and all your fellow newbies.
How to integrate yourself..... not! Do you see yourself as some sort of poster person for the newbies?
Or maybe deep down you detest us and our contracts so much it consumes you?
Our weekly wages, paid breaks, delivery supplement or any of our hard won workers rights.
You forget one thing, RM imposed these changes for new starters, not us.
You signed the contract, again nothing to do with us.
I suggest you stick to that knowledge and stop blaming those on better terms, how about joining the fight to get your terms up to ours rather than fighting against us at every turn.

No, the reverse is true: a small but very vocal minority of long-time posties, both here on the forum but also in real life in the DO, exclude us and ostracise all of us new-entrant posties as not being real posties, not being part of their team, not the real deal, an inferior version of what they think a postie is. They think they’re rubbing our nose in it when going on about their paid breaks, D2D supplements, etc, etc. We therefore laugh among ourselves when we hear them moaning about their “overtime ban” — while we’re raking in £180 in OT at £18.78 ph for working a long day off and filling our boots with as much OT as we want. They think we’re mugs, we think they are. It results in there being a dividing line between us and them. We are united on our side and generally happy with our lot and what we willingly signed up for.

There are no d2d supplements.

One of the most often repeated myths that newer contracts get told about. It was legacy payments rolled into one payment when d2d’s became part of the normal workload.

[Pidleypoo]

Smooth it's obvious your goal in life is to annoy as many "legacy" (I hate the word) post people as humanly possible, in as short a time as possible, while singing the praises of Amazon/yourself and all your fellow newbies.
How to integrate yourself..... not! Do you see yourself as some sort of poster person for the newbies?
Or maybe deep down you detest us and our contracts so much it consumes you?
Our weekly wages, paid breaks, delivery supplement or any of our hard won workers rights.
You forget one thing, RM imposed these changes for new starters, not us.
You signed the contract, again nothing to do with us.
I suggest you stick to that knowledge and stop blaming those on better terms, how about joining the fight to get your terms up to ours rather than fighting against us at every turn.

No, the reverse is true: a small but very vocal minority of long-time posties, both here on the forum but also in real life in the DO, exclude us and ostracise all of us new-entrant posties as not being real posties, not being part of their team, not the real deal, an inferior version of what they think a postie is. They think they’re rubbing our nose in it when going on about their paid breaks, D2D supplements, etc, etc. We therefore laugh among ourselves when we hear them moaning about their “overtime ban” — while we’re raking in £180 in OT at £18.78 ph for working a long day off and filling our boots with as much OT as we want. They think we’re mugs, we think they are. It results in there being a dividing line between us and them. We are united on our side and generally happy with our lot and what we willingly signed up for.

Smooth i hate to tell you this, that 17,000 is a rapidly rotating workforce with no continuity. We are starting to slow down with people leaving.
Unlike you with your greater London legacy payment, and it is extra to the rest of your so called comrades, the rest of the newbies have to scrape by on the lowest wage in the business. So you don't have that in common with your fellow newbies around the country.
Working 6 day weeks and 60hrs is a young mans game that will catch up with you quickly, i did it for probably the first 6-7 yrs of working here but had to stop as my body was packing in.
You will learn if you hang around long enough.
I cannot condone any older posties who treat you like 2nd class citizens, but then that's human beings for you, idiots come in all forms without exception. All i can say is i haven't nor ever would be anything but cordial, we all had to start somewhere and don't judge us all like them.

Scotchy, I think we will have to respectfully agree to disagree. It isn’t the lowest wage in the market — far from it. Also, RM working days are the shortest in the market - most places expect at least nine hours, in reality as long as is needed to complete the route. All without a pension contributing almost 20% to the fund, a sal-sac car, guaranteed hours, no vehicle expenses, holiday pay, occasional quiet days…

Also, as debated ad nauseam last year, I’m not in a London office, though I realise the hourly rates in our region (ours plus at least one neighbouring office anyway) are paid at what people are calling the London rate, so it is clear there are differing hourly rates and that different personal circumstances (ie my OT offsets the disparity between legacy and new-entrant pay) affect things differently. I’m also fortunate to be on a 40-hour contract — I realise many of 17,000 colleagues aren’t in that same boat. So I don’t claim to be a poster girl (middle-aged woman actually) for the 17,000 nor a spokesperson. When I was on about being united, I was merely speaking about the cohort of us at my DO. I couldn’t and wouldn’t speak beyond that as I have no knowledge there.

Could you tell us all the reason why rm has all of those “cushy” benefits?

[Smoothbackground]

Could you tell us all the reason why rm has all of those “cushy” benefits?

Reason? Or reasons? One might be that the business is stuck in a quasi 1970s time warp and has been much slower to dilute or remove extra perks that were removed from employees elsewhere in industry a long ago elsewhere. And yes, as I think you are trying to allude to, it must also be acknowledged that the CWU has also played a hand historically in maintaining the status quo, sometimes slightly improving it, for legacy employees — though that is now ancient history. Of course, the CwU is prevented now from representing all employees as there is a clear conflict of interest for them — it has one group of employees who have some allegiance with the union, despite being disenchanted etc, as the union has previously bettered their work package; you have another group of employees who were sacrificed by the CWU like lambs to the slaughter, yet whom they’re now beyond desperate to sign up as members, just to protect the very existence of the union. Beyond that I really wouldn’t know where to start. I’m happy to be enlightened by others, however…

[postslippete]

Could you tell us all the reason why rm has all of those “cushy” benefits?

Because RM actually has a Union which was a lot more effective years ago. Amazon on the other hand made it clear all along that it did not want to recognise a Union so that their workers remain on crap pay, terms and conditions. And despite many workers going on strike the truth is Amazon are determined to bust any Union involvement by recruiting even more non-unionised workers on lower pay and spend millions on anti-union consultants.

*And back to the original topic* I don't agree that it is a good thing to close callers offices and force staff to try and deliver parcels the "Amazon" way. There is currently zero incentive for us to do that regardless of having more parcels to deliver the following day. Those who obviously have plenty of time to deliver to dozens of neighbours in getting rid of their parcels, well done, but why would you then come back early to do even more work unpaid now that there is SISO and managers under pressure to ensure that staff work all the hours that they are being paid for? Unless you are getting paid extra to do the extra work this doesn't make any sense to me unless of course you are allowed to still finish early as an incentive. From my experience the days of 'job and finish' have almost gone.

[Barnacle]

Could you tell us all the reason why rm has all of those “cushy” benefits?

Because RM actually has a Union which was a lot more effective years ago. Amazon on the other hand made it clear all along that it did not want to recognise a Union so that their workers remain on crap pay, terms and conditions. And despite many workers going on strike the truth is Amazon are determined to bust any Union involvement by recruiting even more non-unionised workers on lower pay and spend millions on anti-union consultants.

[fb1969]

The phrase when I was at RM was "the race to the bottom". Amazon jumped in there and RM have forever tried to join them.

[Barnacle]

Could you tell us all the reason why rm has all of those “cushy” benefits?

Reason? Or reasons? One might be that the business is stuck in a quasi 1970s time warp and has been much slower to dilute or remove extra perks that were removed from employees elsewhere in industry a long ago elsewhere. And yes, as I think you are trying to allude to, it must also be acknowledged that the CWU has also played a hand historically in maintaining the status quo, sometimes slightly improving it, for legacy employees — though that is now ancient history. Of course, the CwU is prevented now from representing all employees as there is a clear conflict of interest for them — it has one group of employees who have some allegiance with the union, despite being disenchanted etc, as the union has previously bettered their work package; you have another group of employees who were sacrificed by the CWU like lambs to the slaughter, yet whom they’re now beyond desperate to sign up as members, just to protect the very existence of the union. Beyond that I really wouldn’t know where to start. I’m happy to be enlightened by others, however…

That group of employees you claim are unwilling to sign up to join the union because they are on different contracts? They still sign up to join the union because everyone needs back up at some point and you never know where it could come from, so they sign up.

The majority in my office (large) are in the union and signing up new starts is not the problem you think it is.

[Barnacle]

We agree more than disagree here. The attrition rate varies wildly from office to office, even section to section. I have to say, our WPCs (with the exception of one) and managers do a great job of nurturing and mentoring our new recruits, and I think that may be why people haven’t left in such droves at our office. That isn’t to say we haven’t had quite a few decide it isn’t for them, often with no notice, during even the short amount of time I’ve been there. A young lad who lives on our patch was telling me how he lasted three weeks at a neighbouring office, where he had zero interaction/training/anything other than a day of shadowing a supposedly experienced agency postman, before walking out without notice as he felt he was drowning with the indoor work as no kone had shown him what to do yet they were expecting him to fully prep two walks (a pairing) in his second week when he had only done lapsing on one of the walks once before. Varies wildly.

I just think you need to be more measured in what you post. There is freedom of speech still on the forum mostly so I am not going to dictate to you what you can post and you do provoke plenty of discussion and debate which might be a good thing. My main problem with Royal Mail is that they are a huge employer in the UK with a vast amount of wealth. Having a two tier work force is just simply wrong. They may justify it by saying due to expenses they can't afford current salaries but I think the problem is the UK economy and society as a whole. There are many part time Royal Mail employees who need Universal Credit to survive, and also full time people at Royal Mail throughout the UK. Having the government topping up wages because businesses won't pay a decent living wage is dysfunctional and wrong. It also means the tax we pay go towards these top ups in income instead of vital services etc.
It is also a case of us being classified as unskilled so the new wages and terms are justified. Most of the managers in Royal Mail were not trained, they became managers over night without qualifications or skills. Yet they are classified as skilled workers. Just hanging around the office to climb the greasy pole does not make you qualified.
You seem an optimistic person and one that is grateful for their circumstances which to an extent can be admired but the workforce as a whole needs to challenge Royal Mail or our terms and conditions will get worse. I don't know of anyone on a legacy contract in my depot that mocks or sees new starters as different. Most have sympathy and feel it is wrong. The odd few say well they decided to work here, which is normally very selfish people who are the type you complain about that have little to no work ethic and have been stealing a living.

I agree with pretty much all you say. Unfortunately, there are no solutions, and it is almost as if the two tiers of the workforce are pitted against one another from the off, causing suspicion and perhaps resentment from the off, which is then compounded by the attitudes of, and comments made by, that small minority of staff we can both identify.

And I do hear you re wages generally not keeping pace, and it is a stain on our society that people are living like this, relying on foodbanks and UC, but cost of living is just crazy all round. The local chippy is closing down because, to pay his bills and make a modest profit, he’d have to charge £22 for fish and chips (already £13) which nobody can afford to pay in our neck of the woods. He is losing money keeping the doors open.

As for managers, aren’t they a necessary evil in every industry? You do sometimes get nice people doing the horrible job of manager, just as, equally, you get nasty people doing the horrible job. New joiners should see some sort of career path for themselves that somehow climbs the ranks. If I hadn’t already served my sentence behind a desk, and if I was 10 years younger and without the personal life experiences I’ve had over the past 10 years, I probably would have jumped at the prospect of being an extremely officious RM manager, bonus and all! Def not anymore though — I can’t stand being in one place for any length of time. My point is that I think there is no harm in young new joiners aspiring to progress up the ranks.

The "two tiers" aren't pitted against each other in my eyes, you see this is the problem people stirring up resentment that doesn't exist to begin with. Yes there is two different pay structures within RMs OPG workforce, but people know exactly what they are signing up too, the suspicion and resentment can only be coming from the newbies and the idiots within the "legacy" contracts, what possible threat are the newbies? New starters filling out the vacancies take the pressure off the rest of the workforce. They don't affect o/t as this firm has always, from day one of me starting 18yrs ago, run on o/t and always will.
As i have said before, do you not think a better place to put your energy is trying to get this company to honour its statement to bring new contract starters up to legacy contracts, i think it was over 5 years they said, and then perhaps there's a goal to aim for, even better try to get parity from the start and then there's no two tiers to begin with.
Managers are probably the poorest bunch i have had the joy of working with, of course there's the odd good one, in fact ours at the moment is great but he's retiring in a few weeks and our new one could be anything. Poachers turned gamekeeper managers usually are a poor bunch as the laziest and biggest suck ups always got the promotion, and suddenly they become the biggest tyrants who could do twice as much as you do in a day. I think RM have started to attempt to move away from this way of promoting so i would hope there's a improvement, but who knows.

But it is entirely predictable, sadly, that despite all the noise, there is never going to be parity between the tiers, as RM clearly views the legacy OPG Ts and Cs as unsustainable and unviable. The sole opportunity for parity was in 2023, prior to sealing the last deal, but the CWU (and its members) pushed it off the table, adopting a “Save Ourselves” approach that played right into RM’s gameplan.

I think that little nugget of info plays a key part in the resentment and mistrust between the two tiers of staff. Also, I knew about the two tiers of pay etc before joining permanently, so made an informed decision, whereas other new-starters were happy to sign up on the rates, Ts and Cs advertised in the job advert but were upset to hear from legacy staff soon after joining that they (legacy staff) earned more than them, then having the CWU local rep try to make them still £14 more worse off by flogging them snake oil and rewriting history so far as the CWU’s role in green-lighting the two-tier workforce.

There’s not much you like about working at Royal Mail despite your claims to work in Narnia where you all hold hands and ferocious dogs are banned.

You seem very bitter.

[Smoothbackground]

We agree more than disagree here. The attrition rate varies wildly from office to office, even section to section. I have to say, our WPCs (with the exception of one) and managers do a great job of nurturing and mentoring our new recruits, and I think that may be why people haven’t left in such droves at our office. That isn’t to say we haven’t had quite a few decide it isn’t for them, often with no notice, during even the short amount of time I’ve been there. A young lad who lives on our patch was telling me how he lasted three weeks at a neighbouring office, where he had zero interaction/training/anything other than a day of shadowing a supposedly experienced agency postman, before walking out without notice as he felt he was drowning with the indoor work as no kone had shown him what to do yet they were expecting him to fully prep two walks (a pairing) in his second week when he had only done lapsing on one of the walks once before. Varies wildly.

I just think you need to be more measured in what you post. There is freedom of speech still on the forum mostly so I am not going to dictate to you what you can post and you do provoke plenty of discussion and debate which might be a good thing. My main problem with Royal Mail is that they are a huge employer in the UK with a vast amount of wealth. Having a two tier work force is just simply wrong. They may justify it by saying due to expenses they can't afford current salaries but I think the problem is the UK economy and society as a whole. There are many part time Royal Mail employees who need Universal Credit to survive, and also full time people at Royal Mail throughout the UK. Having the government topping up wages because businesses won't pay a decent living wage is dysfunctional and wrong. It also means the tax we pay go towards these top ups in income instead of vital services etc.
It is also a case of us being classified as unskilled so the new wages and terms are justified. Most of the managers in Royal Mail were not trained, they became managers over night without qualifications or skills. Yet they are classified as skilled workers. Just hanging around the office to climb the greasy pole does not make you qualified.
You seem an optimistic person and one that is grateful for their circumstances which to an extent can be admired but the workforce as a whole needs to challenge Royal Mail or our terms and conditions will get worse. I don't know of anyone on a legacy contract in my depot that mocks or sees new starters as different. Most have sympathy and feel it is wrong. The odd few say well they decided to work here, which is normally very selfish people who are the type you complain about that have little to no work ethic and have been stealing a living.

I agree with pretty much all you say. Unfortunately, there are no solutions, and it is almost as if the two tiers of the workforce are pitted against one another from the off, causing suspicion and perhaps resentment from the off, which is then compounded by the attitudes of, and comments made by, that small minority of staff we can both identify.

And I do hear you re wages generally not keeping pace, and it is a stain on our society that people are living like this, relying on foodbanks and UC, but cost of living is just crazy all round. The local chippy is closing down because, to pay his bills and make a modest profit, he’d have to charge £22 for fish and chips (already £13) which nobody can afford to pay in our neck of the woods. He is losing money keeping the doors open.

As for managers, aren’t they a necessary evil in every industry? You do sometimes get nice people doing the horrible job of manager, just as, equally, you get nasty people doing the horrible job. New joiners should see some sort of career path for themselves that somehow climbs the ranks. If I hadn’t already served my sentence behind a desk, and if I was 10 years younger and without the personal life experiences I’ve had over the past 10 years, I probably would have jumped at the prospect of being an extremely officious RM manager, bonus and all! Def not anymore though — I can’t stand being in one place for any length of time. My point is that I think there is no harm in young new joiners aspiring to progress up the ranks.

The "two tiers" aren't pitted against each other in my eyes, you see this is the problem people stirring up resentment that doesn't exist to begin with. Yes there is two different pay structures within RMs OPG workforce, but people know exactly what they are signing up too, the suspicion and resentment can only be coming from the newbies and the idiots within the "legacy" contracts, what possible threat are the newbies? New starters filling out the vacancies take the pressure off the rest of the workforce. They don't affect o/t as this firm has always, from day one of me starting 18yrs ago, run on o/t and always will.
As i have said before, do you not think a better place to put your energy is trying to get this company to honour its statement to bring new contract starters up to legacy contracts, i think it was over 5 years they said, and then perhaps there's a goal to aim for, even better try to get parity from the start and then there's no two tiers to begin with.
Managers are probably the poorest bunch i have had the joy of working with, of course there's the odd good one, in fact ours at the moment is great but he's retiring in a few weeks and our new one could be anything. Poachers turned gamekeeper managers usually are a poor bunch as the laziest and biggest suck ups always got the promotion, and suddenly they become the biggest tyrants who could do twice as much as you do in a day. I think RM have started to attempt to move away from this way of promoting so i would hope there's a improvement, but who knows.

But it is entirely predictable, sadly, that despite all the noise, there is never going to be parity between the tiers, as RM clearly views the legacy OPG Ts and Cs as unsustainable and unviable. The sole opportunity for parity was in 2023, prior to sealing the last deal, but the CWU (and its members) pushed it off the table, adopting a “Save Ourselves” approach that played right into RM’s gameplan.

I think that little nugget of info plays a key part in the resentment and mistrust between the two tiers of staff. Also, I knew about the two tiers of pay etc before joining permanently, so made an informed decision, whereas other new-starters were happy to sign up on the rates, Ts and Cs advertised in the job advert but were upset to hear from legacy staff soon after joining that they (legacy staff) earned more than them, then having the CWU local rep try to make them still £14 more worse off by flogging them snake oil and rewriting history so far as the CWU’s role in green-lighting the two-tier workforce.

There’s not much you like about working at Royal Mail despite your claims to work in Narnia where you all hold hands and ferocious dogs are banned.

You seem very bitter.

“Where the customers are angels and ferocious dogs are banned. And a postwoman’s life is full of fun in that fairy, dairy land.”

I am the fastest - and happiest - postwoman in the west!

[scotchy1962]

Smooth blaming the members for the unions capitulation is a cheap shot, even us members know that the union itself decided at a much higher level ,with very little to no input from members at the coalface, to cave in and try to sell us a piece of dog poo wrapped up like a xmas present, i could see it but as usual most people just got fed up, saw the money, and voted for it, that's democracy and we all have to live with it.
But i am pretty sure the company agreed, certainly in principal if not part of the agreement, to eventually bring the wages of the newbies up to the level of "Legacy" employees.
You really seem to have a bugbear with us and our t&c's which are clouding any sensible thought process, maybe get some help for that.
Maybe in the future parity will have to come back into fold, as contrary to what is happening in your office the newbies are mostly leaving first chance they get, admittedly at the moment they seem to be able to replace them, but we are back using agency and they cost more than us "Legacy" employees. Then again this is RM and they love to waste money like its confetti.

[Jb1969]

We agree more than disagree here. The attrition rate varies wildly from office to office, even section to section. I have to say, our WPCs (with the exception of one) and managers do a great job of nurturing and mentoring our new recruits, and I think that may be why people haven’t left in such droves at our office. That isn’t to say we haven’t had quite a few decide it isn’t for them, often with no notice, during even the short amount of time I’ve been there. A young lad who lives on our patch was telling me how he lasted three weeks at a neighbouring office, where he had zero interaction/training/anything other than a day of shadowing a supposedly experienced agency postman, before walking out without notice as he felt he was drowning with the indoor work as no kone had shown him what to do yet they were expecting him to fully prep two walks (a pairing) in his second week when he had only done lapsing on one of the walks once before. Varies wildly.

I just think you need to be more measured in what you post. There is freedom of speech still on the forum mostly so I am not going to dictate to you what you can post and you do provoke plenty of discussion and debate which might be a good thing. My main problem with Royal Mail is that they are a huge employer in the UK with a vast amount of wealth. Having a two tier work force is just simply wrong. They may justify it by saying due to expenses they can't afford current salaries but I think the problem is the UK economy and society as a whole. There are many part time Royal Mail employees who need Universal Credit to survive, and also full time people at Royal Mail throughout the UK. Having the government topping up wages because businesses won't pay a decent living wage is dysfunctional and wrong. It also means the tax we pay go towards these top ups in income instead of vital services etc.
It is also a case of us being classified as unskilled so the new wages and terms are justified. Most of the managers in Royal Mail were not trained, they became managers over night without qualifications or skills. Yet they are classified as skilled workers. Just hanging around the office to climb the greasy pole does not make you qualified.
You seem an optimistic person and one that is grateful for their circumstances which to an extent can be admired but the workforce as a whole needs to challenge Royal Mail or our terms and conditions will get worse. I don't know of anyone on a legacy contract in my depot that mocks or sees new starters as different. Most have sympathy and feel it is wrong. The odd few say well they decided to work here, which is normally very selfish people who are the type you complain about that have little to no work ethic and have been stealing a living.

I agree with pretty much all you say. Unfortunately, there are no solutions, and it is almost as if the two tiers of the workforce are pitted against one another from the off, causing suspicion and perhaps resentment from the off, which is then compounded by the attitudes of, and comments made by, that small minority of staff we can both identify.

And I do hear you re wages generally not keeping pace, and it is a stain on our society that people are living like this, relying on foodbanks and UC, but cost of living is just crazy all round. The local chippy is closing down because, to pay his bills and make a modest profit, he’d have to charge £22 for fish and chips (already £13) which nobody can afford to pay in our neck of the woods. He is losing money keeping the doors open.

As for managers, aren’t they a necessary evil in every industry? You do sometimes get nice people doing the horrible job of manager, just as, equally, you get nasty people doing the horrible job. New joiners should see some sort of career path for themselves that somehow climbs the ranks. If I hadn’t already served my sentence behind a desk, and if I was 10 years younger and without the personal life experiences I’ve had over the past 10 years, I probably would have jumped at the prospect of being an extremely officious RM manager, bonus and all! Def not anymore though — I can’t stand being in one place for any length of time. My point is that I think there is no harm in young new joiners aspiring to progress up the ranks.

The "two tiers" aren't pitted against each other in my eyes, you see this is the problem people stirring up resentment that doesn't exist to begin with. Yes there is two different pay structures within RMs OPG workforce, but people know exactly what they are signing up too, the suspicion and resentment can only be coming from the newbies and the idiots within the "legacy" contracts, what possible threat are the newbies? New starters filling out the vacancies take the pressure off the rest of the workforce. They don't affect o/t as this firm has always, from day one of me starting 18yrs ago, run on o/t and always will.
As i have said before, do you not think a better place to put your energy is trying to get this company to honour its statement to bring new contract starters up to legacy contracts, i think it was over 5 years they said, and then perhaps there's a goal to aim for, even better try to get parity from the start and then there's no two tiers to begin with.
Managers are probably the poorest bunch i have had the joy of working with, of course there's the odd good one, in fact ours at the moment is great but he's retiring in a few weeks and our new one could be anything. Poachers turned gamekeeper managers usually are a poor bunch as the laziest and biggest suck ups always got the promotion, and suddenly they become the biggest tyrants who could do twice as much as you do in a day. I think RM have started to attempt to move away from this way of promoting so i would hope there's a improvement, but who knows.

But it is entirely predictable, sadly, that despite all the noise, there is never going to be parity between the tiers, as RM clearly views the legacy OPG Ts and Cs as unsustainable and unviable. The sole opportunity for parity was in 2023, prior to sealing the last deal, but the CWU (and its members) pushed it off the table, adopting a “Save Ourselves” approach that played right into RM’s gameplan.

I think that little nugget of info plays a key part in the resentment and mistrust between the two tiers of staff. Also, I knew about the two tiers of pay etc before joining permanently, so made an informed decision, whereas other new-starters were happy to sign up on the rates, Ts and Cs advertised in the job advert but were upset to hear from legacy staff soon after joining that they (legacy staff) earned more than them, then having the CWU local rep try to make them still £14 more worse off by flogging them snake oil and rewriting history so far as the CWU’s role in green-lighting the two-tier workforce.

There’s not much you like about working at Royal Mail despite your claims to work in Narnia where you all hold hands and ferocious dogs are banned.

You seem very bitter.

“Where the customers are angels and ferocious dogs are banned. And a postwoman’s life is full of fun in that fairy, dairy land.”

I am the fastest - and happiest - postwoman in the west!

I have the opinion that when the Union were fully involved the mail NEVER failed.
But with this new improved Management it certainly never succeeds in the offices I go to.
As for Smooth & her perfect delivery office, don’t worry young lady, they will get to yours eventually.

[fb1969]

I left in mid-2022, voted for the strikes but my last day was just before the first one. I joined some posties on a picket line one morning on my way to my new job, to show solidarity.

In October 2022 RM removed 99% of all vacancies from their website, the only ones left were in the Scottish Islands.

In November 2022 they started advertising again, but on the new contracts that are still given today.

With an ongoing dispute the CWU were in a difficult position, the strike ballot could only be used to for the issues that were voted on in it. They couldn't add extra things like stopping the new contract.

With strikes in the run up to Christmas it was clear that RM didn't care about the strikes, and that massively hit anything the CWU then did. RM did not, and still do not, care about their workforce or their Quality of Service.

So there never really was a union capitulation, they were simply outplayed by RM. There would have been no point in new ballots and new strikes in 2023 as RM would carry on as they are. Thompson was no fool or idiot, he was put in to do a job and he did it - he was the figurehead that broke the union. People like Darren Jones sailed on the free ride of showing what Thompson was like, it was just a stepping stone on Jones' career path.

It was pure greed and the race to the bottom by RM and joining Amazon there that "broke" the CWU. Just because Amazon do everything on the cheap doesn't mean everyone else should. When I joined RM Quality of Service still counted for something - thanks to RM racing to the bottom, that has all gone.

[Smoothbackground]

Smooth blaming the members for the unions capitulation is a cheap shot, even us members know that the union itself decided at a much higher level ,with very little to no input from members at the coalface, to cave in and try to sell us a piece of dog poo wrapped up like a xmas present, i could see it but as usual most people just got fed up, saw the money, and voted for it, that's democracy and we all have to live with it.
But i am pretty sure the company agreed, certainly in principal if not part of the agreement, to eventually bring the wages of the newbies up to the level of "Legacy" employees.
You really seem to have a bugbear with us and our t&c's which are clouding any sensible thought process, maybe get some help for that.
Maybe in the future parity will have to come back into fold, as contrary to what is happening in your office the newbies are mostly leaving first chance they get, admittedly at the moment they seem to be able to replace them, but we are back using agency and they cost more than us "Legacy" employees. Then again this is RM and they love to waste money like its confetti.

No, the deal was ratified by members, though I will accept they were badly served by their union.

And as to the agreement in principle you refer to — the only commitment required to satisfy the CWU was a mealy-mouthed “RMG and CWU will jointly campaign to level up terms and conditions in the broader postal sector and ensure that RMG continues to set the benchmark across the post and logistics sector” - no more, no less. And before anyone refers to it, the next sentence only refers to a “shared vision” — no commitment, no measurable step etc. there is no agreement in principle.

[scotchy1962]

Smooth blaming the members for the unions capitulation is a cheap shot, even us members know that the union itself decided at a much higher level ,with very little to no input from members at the coalface, to cave in and try to sell us a piece of dog poo wrapped up like a xmas present, i could see it but as usual most people just got fed up, saw the money, and voted for it, that's democracy and we all have to live with it.
But i am pretty sure the company agreed, certainly in principal if not part of the agreement, to eventually bring the wages of the newbies up to the level of "Legacy" employees.
You really seem to have a bugbear with us and our t&c's which are clouding any sensible thought process, maybe get some help for that.
Maybe in the future parity will have to come back into fold, as contrary to what is happening in your office the newbies are mostly leaving first chance they get, admittedly at the moment they seem to be able to replace them, but we are back using agency and they cost more than us "Legacy" employees. Then again this is RM and they love to waste money like its confetti.

No, the deal was ratified by members, though I will accept they were badly served by their union.

And as to the agreement in principle you refer to — the only commitment required to satisfy the CWU was a mealy-mouthed “RMG and CWU will jointly campaign to level up terms and conditions in the broader postal sector and ensure that RMG continues to set the benchmark across the post and logistics sector” - no more, no less. And before anyone refers to it, the next sentence only refers to a “shared vision” — no commitment, no measurable step etc. there is no agreement in principle.

I can see you believe it's all our fault and that "Legacy" employees are all culpable for the two tiers, good for you. You will learn carrying that chip on your shoulder will eventually weigh you down, life is short enough so let it go and try to enjoy your working life here or wherever you end up.