FAO Martin Walsh / Dingo

[wallan]

Were Overtime Rates Not Reduced to Discourage Staff from doing it

[Vwtouran]

Where are we with the 5 day letter service Martin, are we just going to ignore it and hope it goes away? It's potentially to use one of your favourite phrases.. a game changer.

I was thinking the same. Didn't the CWU disagree with a 5 day USO as it would mean 10,000 or so job losses?? Are we expecting natural wastage with posties either retiring or leaving the business in 2 years time so that this proposition becomes commercially more viable?? The Royal Mail have positively welcomed this 5 day USO on letters that OfCom have suggested.

The Union clearly have not

I know the uso 6 days doesn’t expiry until 2022 but if ofgom are saying Royal Mail will be saving an estimate of £225 million a year
Maybe the government can give a decision to change to 5 days before 2022?

[gary1975]

Nobody’s mentioned later start times, will Royal Mail be insisting on this as part of the deal?

[toonshola]

Nobody’s mentioned later start times, will Royal Mail be insisting on this as part of the deal?

Moving to later starts and finish really would be a crushing blow, probably the only good thing left about this job is being finished before the rush hour to get home. It’s yet another issue the union have gave absolutely no information on whatsoever.

[freespeech]

1. Any pay deal has to be put to the membership it is within the CWU Rule Book. That has to be an individual member ballot ie postal ballot.

2. Pay cannot be separated from the overall agreement as clearly Royal Mail want certain issues to resolved so they can be confident in funding a pay agreement.

3. Anyone who has been in high level talks know that it is one thing agreeing issues , it is another getting a form of words which both parties are happy with. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Remember each issue is important.


4. On pay some have said they want more on the overtime rate , all I would say is that if there are 200 or 250 million on the table for the pay agreement , there is only so many ways you can cut it . If you want it backdated than clearly the percentage weekly increase would be lower if you did not back date it. If you only wanted it on base pay not overtime etc than it would be higher.

However you want an higher over time rate that clearly you would be moving some away from base pay. Only 20% of members work regular overtime that is worth considering .

If part timers work extra hours up to 38 hours they receive the hourly rate plus each hours share of the delivery supplement so they won’t benefit from increasing overtime. So it is always a judgement on pay.

The union policy is to get the base pensionable rate as high as possible and recognise that this should be backdated.

thanks for this but what i think some members are a bit pissed about is the company are quite prepared to pay and run the job on o/t without filling vacancies in offices as it is standard rate and not time and a half or double time like any other company , well the ones i have worked for anyway.

It's standard rate if you are PT up to FT hours. This would be the same in ANY company otherwise there would be legal challenges as a PT person on OT doing the same overall hours as an FT person would be paid more. That is illegal.

arent p/t and f/t paid the same rate then ? so you are p/t say 30 hrs and you work 35 hours o/t they should be paid a higher rate if the company had to pay time and a half or double time on o/t , and a f/t 38 hours works 43 hours and gets paid what they do , so why would that be illegal as i cant get my head round what you say ? as o/t is your choice and if you are willing to work over what has that got to do with if your f/t or p/t , unless this was an agreement which the company and the cwu have done many moons ago .

Overtime rates are the same......but you don't get OT rates until you pass FT hrs. Until then it's single rate or else the PT person would be paid more which would be illegal. If 40hrs is FT at £10 per hour thats £400 a week. If a PT is 30 hrs that would be £300 a week. If they did OT at x1.5 that 10 hrs would give them £150 making their weekly pay £450 against the same hrs FT paying £400. AFTER FT hrs the PT person and the FT person are paid the same rate so they earn exactly the same for the same hours.

[RTP]

Martin, thanks for replying to the overtime question, but I think on this one the union has missed an opportunity again.

Also...1. Any pay deal has to be put to the membership it is within the CWU Rule Book. That has to be an individual member ballot ie postal ballot.

So that answers others questions on wether or not any pay rise and back pay will be in pay before xmas.

How can it be when members will have to vote on it?? Unless you still believe in santa personally think if they ever get deal done we will be lucky to see any extra money before march..

Read it again . In otherwords all the talk of wanting to get any payrise and backpay into our wages before Christmas was a load of bullshit, because the timeframe was never there to do this when it was known full well that any agreement would have to go back to a membership vote.

[Woody Guthrie]

Where are we with the 5 day letter service Martin, are we just going to ignore it and hope it goes away? It's potentially to use one of your favourite phrases.. a game changer.

I was thinking the same. Didn't the CWU disagree with a 5 day USO as it would mean 10,000 or so job losses?? Are we expecting natural wastage with posties either retiring or leaving the business in 2 years time so that this proposition becomes commercially more viable?? The Royal Mail have positively welcomed this 5 day USO on letters that OfCom have suggested.

The Union clearly have not

It is absolutely crazy to ignore this danger until it's right on top of us but it appears that's what the union intends to do.

We're going to waste 2 years making noises and having silly campaigns to keep the 6 day USO which won't change the direction of the business in the slightest when we should be having pragmatic talks with Royal Mail to secure a transition to 5 days that protects as many jobs as possible and perhaps sees some reward for us in the way of a better work/life balance.

Still at least it gives them something to ask us to rise up against in two years time before turning the whole thing into another pay deal.

[RTP]

To be fair Woody, the union are obliged to bang the drum about the 6 day week USO, but at the end of the day it will be all chest thumping and pissing against the wind. I get your point though.

[Woody Guthrie]

To be fair Woody, the union are obliged to bang the drum about the 6 day week USO, but at the end of the day it will be all chest thumping and pissing against the wind. I get your point though.

It's the fundamental dishonesty of it that makes me sick, some time soon Terry and the CEO are going to be congratulating each other on a peace deal knowing that the business intends to reduce the letters delivery and bearing in mind the level of change involved likely render if not the whole agreement certainly large parts of it null and void. How can any agreement tackle job security if it completely ignores the biggest threat to job security on the horizon?

That takes a high degree of disrespect for your membership. It's borderline sociopathic. Do both parties think so little of us that they think we should spend the next two years worrying about our jobs?

[matthew68]

Martin, one thing that does need sorting and is quite frankly a disgrace that it has gone on for years and years is the overtime rate.

We keep hearing data hours capture, yearly revisions, work all the hours you are paid to work etc. That's fine, not a problem with that at all and it will come as a shock to some to actually have to work the hours they are paid to work, but actual hours worked for overtime should be paid at the going rate for overtime which should be at time and a half. If this was the case there would be more good will from the workers side to go the extra mile when it was needed and it would make managers and the business focus more on not throwing lapsing or at the drop of a hat and focus instead on levelling rounds out

We also keep hearing that Royal Mail are living in the past with hand written signing in and out. So lets get real. For years and years there has been back hand ghost overtime deals for some and on the over hand there has been what can only be described as enforced overtime and the breeding ground for these is the fact that overtime is paid at a rate that is barely above average hourly pay and then to top things off, it actually goes down after more than 10hrs overtime.

So can you tell us. Is this on the table this time around or are we still going to live in the past?

Well said, totally agree

[matthew68]

1. Any pay deal has to be put to the membership it is within the CWU Rule Book. That has to be an individual member ballot ie postal ballot.

2. Pay cannot be separated from the overall agreement as clearly Royal Mail want certain issues to resolved so they can be confident in funding a pay agreement.

3. Anyone who has been in high level talks know that it is one thing agreeing issues , it is another getting a form of words which both parties are happy with. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Remember each issue is important.


4. On pay some have said they want more on the overtime rate , all I would say is that if there are 200 or 250 million on the table for the pay agreement , there is only so many ways you can cut it . If you want it backdated than clearly the percentage weekly increase would be lower if you did not back date it. If you only wanted it on base pay not overtime etc than it would be higher.

However you want an higher over time rate that clearly you would be moving some away from base pay. Only 20% of members work regular overtime that is worth considering .

If part timers work extra hours up to 38 hours they receive the hourly rate plus each hours share of the delivery supplement so they won’t benefit from increasing overtime. So it is always a judgement on pay.

The union policy is to get the base pensionable rate as high as possible and recognise that this should be backdated.

thanks for this but what i think some members are a bit pissed about is the company are quite prepared to pay and run the job on o/t without filling vacancies in offices as it is standard rate and not time and a half or double time like any other company , well the ones i have worked for anyway.

It's standard rate if you are PT up to FT hours. This would be the same in ANY company otherwise there would be legal challenges as a PT person on OT doing the same overall hours as an FT person would be paid more. That is illegal.

arent p/t and f/t paid the same rate then ? so you are p/t say 30 hrs and you work 35 hours o/t they should be paid a higher rate if the company had to pay time and a half or double time on o/t , and a f/t 38 hours works 43 hours and gets paid what they do , so why would that be illegal as i cant get my head round what you say ? as o/t is your choice and if you are willing to work over what has that got to do with if your f/t or p/t , unless this was an agreement which the company and the cwu have done many moons ago .

Overtime rates are the same......but you don't get OT rates until you pass FT hrs. Until then it's single rate or else the PT person would be paid more which would be illegal. If 40hrs is FT at £10 per hour thats £400 a week. If a PT is 30 hrs that would be £300 a week. If they did OT at x1.5 that 10 hrs would give them £150 making their weekly pay £450 against the same hrs FT paying £400. AFTER FT hrs the PT person and the FT person are paid the same rate so they earn exactly the same for the same hours.

Most people do over ft 38 hours and the overtime rate is crap which is why I don’t do i t unlesss absolutely have to go past my hours and manger actually pays for protracted, it’s actually the worst overtime rate up haxe ever known, I know it’s relied on but still very poor

[Martin Walsh]

Woody I think your see things which are not there.

In terms of the USO the unions policy remains we want to protect the USO 6 day service.

However it is not within the union or Royal Mail’s gift to guarantee it.

Remember only approximately 42% of what is delivered 6 days of the week actually comes under the USO and it is the declining part of the mail.

Let’s be clear we have had two announcements in the last month.

Royal Mail’s half year report which said the USO was loss making.

Of Coms 184 page report over their consultation process and their survey of consumers.

If you read the Of Com report you will see this is not just on the. USO , but also about possibly moving away from from 1st class and 2nd class mail to one universal product.

This will result in each of the interested parties including Royal Mail , CWU , DPD , Hermes , Yodel , Amazon and numerous others participating in the consultation process.

Of Com in 2022 will than produce their recommendations.

If the Government than decides to move forward on Of coms recommendations than they have to introduce a Bill to Parliament which would be subject to primary and secondary legislation.

So given this process there is not going to be a decision on the USO future. Letter traffic is down by 28% since March , some of that hopefully will recover post covid.

Additionally parcel and tracked has grown 3 years ahead of predictions and whilst some of the growth is not part of the USO , there is nothing stopping the union arguing for some of this product to come under the USO.

[Woody Guthrie]

In terms of the USO the unions policy remains we want to protect the USO 6 day service.

However it is not within the union or Royal Mail’s gift to guarantee it.

Are you honestly trying to tell me that it's not up to Royal Mail whether they continue to deliver letters 6 days a week because that's absolute nonsense.

The USO is a guaranteed minimum service level. It does not put upper limits on the level of service Royal Mail can provide.

Is that the true hidden cost of this deal?
A clandestine agreement not to give the business a hard time for reducing the service? Pretty disgusting..

[Martin Walsh]

Wood let me follow your logic.

Of Com are scoping whether the current USO is financially viable and offers an efficient cost effective service. This service means that they do extensive research of pricing of products and they consult with all impacted parties.

Than they will recommend to the Government what they believe is the best fit for the USO.

What your asking if I follow you is that you want the union to force Royal Mail to potentially deliver more that Of Com and the Government have licence Royal Mail to do.

The only way that would be possible is if it was financially viable to do so which would than mean that Of Coms report into the financial sustainability of the current USO was flawed.

The current talks have not factored in any potential change in the USO FACT. It would be madness at this stage to do so.

For example letter traffic is down since COVID by 28%. So if prior to March we were delivering 100% of letter split 16.6% per day Monday to Saturday , we have currently lost almost two days of letter traffic since March.

Hopefully some of this will come back when we return to some type of normality.

So to clear up your concern any financial package on pay , SWW has not come from giving the 6 day service up. FACT !

[2yearpostie]

The main concern Martin is are there going to be mandatory redundancies?