A 5 day or a 4 day week??

[postslippete]

MW talked about fatigue on deliveries. Every single delivery office is going to go through USO reform and the Union are fully on board with the adopted method change that RM are employing. Having watched the live broadcast it is all as clear as mud.

Many offices still have Wallington weeks which both Tony Bouch and MW have said that they will keep - but then MW goes on say "we can't be in the same place where 70% of people are just on a 1 in 6 standard attendance pattern" in reference to having a standard, uniform working attendance pattern across the business.

But what is the standard working attendance pattern? He talks about walking one week on the "all mail days" with Saturdays off, the following week a 1st class driving route where you're not walking and the third week delivering parcels Wednesdays to Saturdays. Never mind innovative and complicated duty structures, they are not trying to put men on the moon!! How late will the drivers be expected to finish on these 4 day weeks? Will these posties still be on the same routes? Will this trigger a revision and re-pick?

To make things a bit simpler, I've put forward a vote on what would people prefer.

[TopperGas]

Unless you are a parcel/1c driver I can't see how the Wally weeks can continue as there's no mail being delivered on a Saturday?

Likewise won't the 1c driver and parcel driver be combined into the one duty, if not then just driving around putting envelopes though doors without having to knock them and wait for customers to answer seems a dream job!!

[postslippete]

Maybe it's part of the Wallington plus that Martin mentioned, whatever that is?

It's all written on the back of a fag packet at the moment because offices won't know how many parcel drivers they will need on a Saturday. But I'm curious as to what the finish times on these 4 day parcels duties will be because no one really wants to be out delivering parcels at 5pm on a Saturday. Even the LAT guys who work Saturdays don't particularly like working them yet we see other couriers like Amazon regularly working past 8pm on the weekends.

[Wullie10]

They'll just scan it as inaccessible and leave it for the Monday bloke.

[Londonsburning]

They'll just scan it as inaccessible and leave it for the Monday bloke.

So just like the DPR drivers have done for the last 3 years then?

[menditsa]

They'll just scan it as inaccessible and leave it for the Monday bloke.

So just like the DPR drivers have done for the last 3 years then?

"DPR" drivers are "Postperson with Driving" employed with nothing in their contract to state they are "Packet only"

But these DPR drivers do what the line manager tells them do even tho it goes against every working practice we are expected to follow.

[norris9]

Didn't Martin say that they are aiming to alternate between a 5 day postie (letters + parcels) week followed by a 4 day parcel week.... which you mentioned in your post...

But that option isn't in the poll.

If I could choose to do a 4 day parcel duty week in week out, then I'd take that...but not sure that will be on offer.

[Woody84]

I voted for a wallington week because that week off sounds pretty good… but on further reflection I think they’re quite brutal on the body and that week off goes by pretty quickly.

[Perseus]

Didn't Martin say that they are aiming to alternate between a 5 day postie (letters + parcels) week followed by a 4 day parcel week.... which you mentioned in your post...

But that option isn't in the poll.

If I could choose to do a 4 day parcel duty week in week out, then I'd take that...but not sure that will be on offer.

yeah those are the only 2 fairly concrete options that have been proposed I think. Anything else on top of those would make it impossible to staff.
Although who knows if you did a 5 day week followed by a 4 day week, your 74 hours might be spread over those 9 days, instead of having to work 37 hours (if full time) over 4 days.
What's certain is that there will be a rough template, but I reckon offices will be tasked with working out the implementation themselves.

[abuch1980]

6day week for 5 weeks , would be madness. Especially with the size of the rounds nowadays. You'd certainly earn your week off !!

[Playmail]

you know the week your on a 4 day week your defo getting asked to work a 5th day

[TopperGas]

you know the week your on a 4 day week your defo getting asked to work a 5th day

That would still leave the Saturday 1c/Tracked not covered?

[postslippete]

Didn't Martin say that they are aiming to alternate between a 5 day postie (letters + parcels) week followed by a 4 day parcel week.... which you mentioned in your post...

But that option isn't in the poll.

If I could choose to do a 4 day parcel duty week in week out, then I'd take that...but not sure that will be on offer.

They are aiming to alternate between a 5 day postie followed by a 4 day parcel week but that won't apply to non-drivers who will be expected to work as a 5 day postie. So if they are expected to work as a 5 day postie every week, why wouldn't it be possible for someone to opt for delivering parcels 4 days a week?

You can also check two options because some posties probably don't mind alternating shift patterns to allow for weekends off. I don't think any of these proposals are set in stone, it will probably be left to individual offices to try and make it work as best as they can.

[Ozcabsmangan]

What's gunna happen to the 3 day cover staff??

[postslippete]

Although who knows if you did a 5 day week followed by a 4 day week, your 74 hours might be spread over those 9 days, instead of having to work 37 hours (if full time) over 4 days.

I doubt that would work especially on top of the seasonal variations that we have. You would have staff owing or being owed hours left, right and centre. Don't forget that we were initially promised more time off in summer to account for the shorter working weeks....

I'm sure MW said that the 4 days would be longer days otherwise how would that fit in with the full time non-drivers who have to work 5 days every week with the overall aim to reduce fatigue on outdoor deliveries?