Where we are!!

[norris9]

Exactly, Royal Mail want a 5 day letter service to save on employment costs among other costs....

There's plenty of mail to keep us busy for 6 days a week at our place. The past 2 weeks has been ridiculous, mail is through the roof.

Saturdays 3 years ago were easy, as were Tuesdays. Most of the time mail was light on these days. Now everyday is busy. Easy or light days don't exist anymore at our place.

[SpacePhoenix]

I think we could start by ditching the Down Stream Access agreement and start getting the full price for the letters that we have. Why we are still doing it i dont know. Some days 90% of my frame is DSA.

A good chunk of the DSA is stuff that could easily be sent electronically (emails, downloading PDFs from sites) so if we started to charge full price for DSA stuff, then the firms sending it would likely just stop sending it and RM would end up losing money

[Racingpostie]

Exactly, Royal Mail want a 5 day letter service to save on employment costs among other costs....

There's plenty of mail to keep us busy for 6 days a week at our place. The past 2 weeks has been ridiculous, mail is through the roof.

Saturdays 3 years ago were easy, as were Tuesdays. Most of the time mail was light on these days. Now everyday is busy. Easy or light days don't exist anymore at our place.

Nail on the head, I could count on one hand the amount of times I've completed on a Saturday this summer. Roll Saturdays volume into Mon/Tue and every day is much of a muchness .

[SMS1969]

Saturdays are a pain, less time to complete and lots to do. Left 4 loops in last week, much to the annoyance of the lino. Never mind.

[postieblueshirt]

Saturdays are a pain, less time to complete and lots to do. Left 4 loops in last week, much to the annoyance of the lino. Never mind.

I find Saturday a pain as most people are out and about and I bring back more parcels also streets are busy tourist's etc especially when the sun's out which is rare here.

[scotchy1962]

We are a small office with just 7 duties and 6 vans, one broke down last week and we have been trying to cope not too bad, apparently we have to get a reserve van as there's no hire vans allowed, not a reserve van to be had at the workshop. Move forward a week and the van still isn't fixed and now another van has decided to call it a day. Solution is just try to squeeze everything into what vans are still working, buddy up as much as you can and abandon mail if time is running out.
"This is where we are" apparently, to cheap to give us the tools to do the job asked of us. Things are starting to get a bit silly, but then again what do i care, work my designated hours as stipulated in my contract how they fill that time is up to them.

[pinstripe]

I think we could start by ditching the Down Stream Access agreement and start getting the full price for the letters that we have. Why we are still doing it i dont know. Some days 90% of my frame is DSA.

A good chunk of the DSA is stuff that could easily be sent electronically (emails, downloading PDFs from sites) so if we started to charge full price for DSA stuff, then the firms sending it would likely just stop sending it and RM would end up losing money

Yeah it’s weird that the only agreements that RM like to tear up are the ones with the CWU. Wonder if the reason is that they, or their mates are involved with the ‘competition’?

[rubberbond]

I think we can all see where RM intend to head in the direction of, a 5 day USO commitment, but again if you don't make the duties achievable it doesn't matter how many days the USO is you will still fail them.

I know what RM would like, a commit to deliver and annualised hours, but seeing as how that isn't going to happen i don't know where they go either.
Having a start and finish time is a fundamental right i could never give up, nor would i expect anyone too.

I

I can't see commit to deliver ever happening. How can it happen. If you come back from a weeks annual leave and your round hasn't gone out for the past 2 days because the office is understaffed, you cannot be expected to deliver 3 days of mail - that would be ridiculous. This is common in our office when people come back from their long weekends, their round hasn't been touched from sat to mon.

Just wait until the next round of pay talks. Union will initially resist and bluster as they always do , then give in when Royal Mail offer a bribe to the staff who in most cases can’t see beyond the initial bribe and vote to accept.

[miles_peters]

RM has lost complete control of the situation.

[neviboss]

on current form, the union would accept 2% for April 25!

[RTP]

To be honest I wouldn't stress about it.
What is happening is being driven by something that's outside our control, the fact that stuffing pieces of paper through people's doors is becoming as irrelevant as the landline telephone gathering dust in the corner of the room.

I got rid of my landline phone a couple of years ago because when it did ring it was someone trying to sell me s**t I didn't ask for, to be fair if it wasn't for small packets I would seal up my letterbox for the same reason. Maybe people will start to do that.

There is no future in letters so the USO will have to reflect that, we need to concentrate our fight on building a parcel business and protecting the jobs and terms we can, not chaining ourselves to the equivalent of VHS tapes.

Don't give up this easily Woody.

You are better than this.

[RTP]

Anyone who has been in an office that has been snowed under over the past 12 months with rounds not going out for weeks will recognise that mail will always be around.

I believe there is an alterative road to the one we are on and it needs to start at the root of everything that is rotten right now. The new starters contracts need scrapping and all future new starters need to be treated the same as everyone else.

Secondly its inevitable that we will soon be on a 5 day USO service for letters so that's on its way.

Thirdly DSA letters should be treated for what they are. That being a much cheaper alternative to 1st and 2nd class mail. At present DSA is part of the USO and its killing us all. Either it goes back to not being franchised out or we should be given up to a week to deliver it. Anything letter wise that doesn't have a 1 or a 2 stamped on it could be treated this way. Yes I know some will say its happening anyway and its called streaming, but it isn't everywhere.

[Mr Rush]

At present DSA is part of the USO and its killing us all.

I was wondering to myself the other day: are any of the myriad of DSA companies going out of business since letters are reportedly catastrophically collapsing? I saw a new one today called Postcom , so I'm going to guess there's still plenty of money in this sham delivery market.

No reform of the USO should be agreed without the concomitant abolition of DSA.