6 day USO

[Seymour Buts]

France today have said they'll only be delivering letters three days a week. Germany are the only other six day letter service in Europe I believe, and they had plans to drop to that until the change of government there meant plans hit a snag. Might be time for the CWU to make this concession and agree to lobby to government with Royal Mail to make this happen, in the hope of concessions elsewhere.

[Jack1960]

France today have said they'll only be delivering letters three days a week. Germany are the only other six day letter service in Europe I believe, and they had plans to drop to that until the change of government there meant plans hit a snag. Might be time for the CWU to make this concession and agree to lobby to government with Royal Mail to make this happen, in the hope of concessions elsewhere.

Its only for their Next day guaranteed letters. They have a very innovative system in place for important stuff

[scoobydo79]

See What happens. The French love a good strike lol

[FilthyBloke]

I don’t think 6 day letter service is needed anymore.

[norris9]

I looked this up.... the only media reporting this is The Telegraph and I can't read the article because you need a subscription....

Found an article on La Poste's website.... doesn't say anything about a 3 day USO, it actually mentions about maintaining the current USO in France of 6 days. The only thing relating to 3 days was a type of delivery you can choose which takes 3 days, but they still offer a next day service so no idea how that means they can go to a 3 day service. I wouldn't be surprised if it's nonsense and seeing as it's the telegraph again - I would not be surprised if this is a paid for article by Royal Mail to encourage the government to reduce the service.


Anyhow - these days the world is heading for 4 day working week, but you get paid the equivalent to 5 days. So feel free to drop the service to 4 days, but pay us for 5.

[Jen1]

If we stop delivering letters on a Saturday and just deliver parcels Royal Mails carbon footprint will go up

At the moment (in our office at least) most rounds have 2 in a van and each postie walks about 10miles

So that’s an area of 20miles per van covered on foot with an average of driving just 6 miles

For companies that wish to say they have reduced their carbon footprint the easiest way to do that if they rely on a delivery service is to switch to the company with the lowest carbon emissions which I could be wrong but I think that currently it is us

Companies like Amazon have launched a huge advertising campaign showing how they are lowering their carbon footprint in an attempt to appeal to the younger generation who care more about environmental issues

And don’t forget we deliver a lot of Amazon products, if they find a cheaper greener alternative that’s a lot of business lost

Also if they get rid of the Saturday mail delivery then Saturdays will be parcel only and it will only be a matter of time before all Saturday deliveries will be done by owner drivers

This sounds great not having to work weekends but if everyone is working Monday to Friday then cover duties will no longer be required

Which means redundancies or relocating some staff to the new parcel hubs

They want to reduce the USO to save money and the only way they can do that is by reducing staff costs (in other words redundancies)

So no I won’t be lobbying the government on behalf of Royal Mail to reduce the USO afraid I’ll be doing all I can to keep my job and my mates jobs

[walthmstowman]

I looked this up.... the only media reporting this is The Telegraph and I can't read the article because you need a subscription....

Found an article on La Poste's website.... doesn't say anything about a 3 day USO, it actually mentions about maintaining the current USO in France of 6 days. The only thing relating to 3 days was a type of delivery you can choose which takes 3 days, but they still offer a next day service so no idea how that means they can go to a 3 day service. I wouldn't be surprised if it's nonsense and seeing as it's the telegraph again - I would not be surprised if this is a paid for article by Royal Mail to encourage the government to reduce the service.


Anyhow - these days the world is heading for 4 day working week, but you get paid the equivalent to 5 days. So feel free to drop the service to 4 days, but pay us for 5.

Yet we had three different four day week shifts now all gone in our new resign .

[HTPostman]

This sounds great not having to work weekends but if everyone is working Monday to Friday then cover duties will no longer be required

Who would cover annual leave, sickness etc? I know it’s easy to say lapsing, not so easy if it’s a rural 20 miles away with the duty holder on long term sick.

[HTPostman]

Anyhow - these days the world is heading for 4 day working week, but you get paid the equivalent to 5 days. So feel free to drop the service to 4 days, but pay us for 5.

Yet we had three different four day week shifts now all gone in our new resign .

I dropped from 5 days (with 5 days pay) down to 4 days (with 4 days pay) and I’m loving it. Yes it would be nice to be paid for 5 days but I know full well RM aren’t kind benevolent employers.

There are rumours they are getting rid of 4 days in our DO which will be a huge shame. I’d be willing to negotiate (I get the 2 busiest days of the week off) but again I know RM don’t like to negotiate.

So we have a silly situation whereby I (young employee, 100% attendance record, knows 70+ rounds spread over 2 DOs) will be forced to leave and find part time work elsewhere. Or my other option is insist if I’m put back on a 5 day week that I won’t have my contracted hours increased so I’ll do 5hr 45min a day, which will cause issues for management.

[Barnacle]

France today have said they'll only be delivering letters three days a week. Germany are the only other six day letter service in Europe I believe, and they had plans to drop to that until the change of government there meant plans hit a snag. Might be time for the CWU to make this concession and agree to lobby to government with Royal Mail to make this happen, in the hope of concessions elsewhere.

This is a charter for a massive reduction in the workforce.

Delivering parcels takes fewer staff because we deliver 6 billion fewer parcels than letters each year.

If the CWU started to lobby for a reduction in the USO, they would actually be lobbying for job losses.

[chrisj]

Probably it is not just the 5 day USO that is going, but the requirement to actually deliver within a 24 or 48 hour period; do you will have works left in, as it has been happening since the Pandemic.

And the public will not even notice or care - that is a fact for many many people. As long as the parcels are being delivered, the rest of the work will either be lapsed, delayed or they use agencies when stuck.

There will sadly still be weekend duties; Saturdays and Sundays.

As long as there is no Compulsory Redundancy, it is not for me to worry.

Royal Mail might also introduce more 3 or 4 day weeks and varieties of duty structure to solve family friendly issues; but hey ho, it is beyond my pay grade.

[Nickvilla20]

Wouldn’t surprise me if a Monday to Friday USO would mean turning guaranteed weekend delivery into a premium product. It’s already the case with Saturday guarantee specials.

[claretandblue]

France today have said they'll only be delivering letters three days a week. Germany are the only other six day letter service in Europe I believe, and they had plans to drop to that until the change of government there meant plans hit a snag. Might be time for the CWU to make this concession and agree to lobby to government with Royal Mail to make this happen, in the hope of concessions elsewhere.

Fake news, it's not true, France still delivers letters 6 days a week.

[guardianangel]

I looked this up.... the only media reporting this is The Telegraph and I can't read the article because you need a subscription....

Found an article on La Poste's website.... doesn't say anything about a 3 day USO, it actually mentions about maintaining the current USO in France of 6 days. The only thing relating to 3 days was a type of delivery you can choose which takes 3 days, but they still offer a next day service so no idea how that means they can go to a 3 day service. I wouldn't be surprised if it's nonsense and seeing as it's the telegraph again - I would not be surprised if this is a paid for article by Royal Mail to encourage the government to reduce the service.


Anyhow - these days the world is heading for 4 day working week, but you get paid the equivalent to 5 days. So feel free to drop the service to 4 days, but pay us for 5.

Totally agree with the 4 day working week,i've seen lots of companies adopting this lately and are getting more productivity,never understood why RM didn't go for the 3 on 4 off model 3 12hr shifts,do your mail 1st return to office for an hour break then deliver your parcels no need for any agency,going back 10 years ago i shared a duty with someone and we done 3 10 hr days 30 hrs a week and it worked really well after the revision they stopped it.

[SpacePhoenix]

Totally agree with the 4 day working week,i've seen lots of companies adopting this lately and are getting more productivity,never understood why RM didn't go for the 3 on 4 off model 3 12hr shifts,do your mail 1st return to office for an hour break then deliver your parcels no need for any agency,

Might be down to the average travel times between DOs and the start of walks. There must be loads of walks these days that are a long way from the location of the DO where DOs have been moved onto industrial estates