LTB 167/18 - GET OUT THE VOTE

Celgar · Post by **Celgar** » 26 Mar 2018, 16:30

dingo wrote:
ROSSCO wrote:Dingo, what is the PDA actuals and what can/will R Mail be doing with them?
Since last October the PDA’s have had the soft ware inplace to send a ping every 9 seconds showing the latitude and longitude of every PDA the route it goes , the places it stops and the time every PDA finishes.

It is currently being trialled in the Cheshire and Mersey area and subject to agreement will be rolled out to every area.

Quite simply the PDA actual records real time of every delivery , Royal Mail want to offer a new service to customers that they can track the post man or woman whilst on delivery with their parcel within an agreed delivery window.

It is a game changer ! Royal Mail wanted to roll it out from 9th April this will be delayed , however the hour reduction inThe working week in October will be based on the PDA actuals. I have recently attended a full presentation from Anton Hardings Royal Mail Delivery Team to Divisional Reps and Senior Managers the level of detail which a PDA is huge and Royal Mail want to use it for resourcing , revisions and paying for hours actually worked including overtime.

The PDA shows what time we are finishing which is what RM is primarily concerned with but ONLY if we finish earlier than the duty time. The signing in/out sheets, if filled out correctly & honestly, provide a more accurate & informative report of how long each walk takes to complete. We generally don't log on the PDA until either when we collect our SDs before pulling out or just before we leave the DO to start actually delivering the mail.

Celgar · Post by **Celgar** » 26 Mar 2018, 16:37

dingo wrote:Having done over 50 seperate meetings on the agreement in different offices than I can make a judgement on whether it will be a yes vote or not. Additionally I am not aware of a single CWU Branch who is not recommending members to vote yes to the agreement.

I stand corrected Fish , it will be a big yes vote from those who bother to vote and I predict 90% of those who vote will vote yes ! I reckon less than 50% of the Members will vote.

I was part of the last big campaign which defeated the PEC yes recommendation back in 2000 on the Way Forward and we have 5 CWU Divisions against the deal than and what helped was the pay restructuring and ways of working was so unacceptable that it united a large part of the membership to vote no.

Believe me this agreement is not perfect as I think we have sold the PDA actuals to cheaply but what we have stopped and what we have achieved is a fair and balanced agreement which providing the progress which is being achieved with the government on introducing the CDC scheme than it is the right decision to say yes.

However there is no doubt that next years new Delivery Agreement is going to be a challenge and Royal Mail want AHDC and the non use of prep frames.

In terms of bullying , expect a big announcement in the next 72 hours and if the agreement comes in than an independent appointed person in the same way as Lord Sawyer was introduced in the 1990s will visit offices around the uk to speak with employees over their concerns and also see if the full terms of the agreement is being deployed. If anyone expected the company to put in a National Agreement there is wide spread bullying and this is what has been agreed to resolve it and what that would have done to the share price than your simply not being realistic. That is not to say that bullying is not being addressed .

The best advert so far to give a NO vote to the proposal/agreement. In particular the 'non use of prep frames' idea is a crackpot delusion and totally unrealistic.

fishtank · Post by **fishtank** » 26 Mar 2018, 17:22

PDA actuals will give complete visibility outdoors. It is a game changer.

Only if you or your members have something to hide. Otherwise it's just confirmation of what they already know. What would be a game changer is combining the PDA actuals with outdoor performance standards but surely the union isn't that stupid...or is it?

Martin Walsh · Post by **Martin Walsh** » 27 Mar 2018, 09:49

Fish as you well know traffic varies on the days of the week and across the course of the year whilst offices contracted hours remain at 39 or whatever a part time contract is. PDA actuals and it’s results will bring forward the proposal on seasonal variation of hours or annualised hours.

When Royal Mail switched the GPS software on last October for the first time it recorded 48% of walks finishing more than 30 minutes early. This increase to 60% for finishing early by 15 minutes. Now October is normally a heavy traffic period with Autumn pressure.

It would be great to believe everyone on every single day across the year finishes bang on time , but we know this is not the case. The DOM will get on their dashboard computer link the offices PDA results for the day before. Now I believe that will be game changing and personally I believe the union gave it away to cheaply and I have said as much to the CWU negotiators. If you don’t think this is significant than fair enough.

fishtank · Post by **fishtank** » 27 Mar 2018, 10:04

When Royal Mail switched the GPS software on last October for the first time it recorded 48% of walks finishing more than 30 minutes early.

Bearing in mind we have an agreement to finish 20 minutes early and the PDA is not a clocking off machine the question the union should be asking is why are 52% of duties finishing late?

fishtank · Post by **fishtank** » 27 Mar 2018, 13:52

Let's look at this claim logically, In my office alone we have a different finish time every day, we also have multiple attendance patterns that mean duties finish at different times every day. In order to make sense of the PDA actuals in my office you would need to take the data and apply it to each duty individually with reference to duty pattern, day of the week, whether logging off the PDA was actually their final work task and whether the member still had 20 minutes of their break to take.

Sampling and collating this data over a month for my office alone would take another 3 months to analyse so are we really to believe that the business invested all that time, effort and money across the country before coming up with this magic 48% mark or is it not far more likely that they just took the 3pm last letter time and anything logged off before 2.30pm was "finished 30 minutes early".

What really worries me about this is that the union seems to parrot these kind of statistics without questioning the robustness of the data set or how it's collected and collated. There seems also to be a complete lack of understanding of the delivery role as it is now not how it was in 1986. As we move forward using these PDA outputs as well as more and more technology I'm worried the union is going to be left staring at numbers and nodding like idiots while the business just chucks any old statistics at us that makes their case and undermines ours.

awesomepenguin · Post by **awesomepenguin** » 27 Mar 2018, 14:46

fishtank wrote:Let's look at this claim logically, In my office alone we have a different finish time every day, we also have multiple attendance patterns that mean duties finish at different times every day. In order to make sense of the PDA actuals in my office you would need to take the data and apply it to each duty individually with reference to duty pattern, day of the week, whether logging off the PDA was actually their final work task and whether the member still had 20 minutes of their break to take.

Sampling and collating this data over a month for my office alone would take another 3 months to analyse so are we really to believe that the business invested all that time, effort and money across the country before coming up with this magic 48% mark or is it not far more likely that they just took the 3pm last letter time and anything logged off before 2.30pm was "finished 30 minutes early".

What really worries me about this is that the union seems to parrot these kind of statistics without questioning the robustness of the data set or how it's collected and collated. There seems also to be a complete lack of understanding of the delivery role as it is now not how it was in 1986. As we move forward using these PDA outputs as well as more and more technology I'm worried the union is going to be left staring at numbers and nodding like idiots while the business just chucks any old statistics at us that makes their case and undermines ours.

What worries me is the complete lack of understanding of the delivery role comes from the CWU as much as it does Royal Mail.

You would only need to spend 30 minutes at the CWU annual conference to realise that the people at the top table making the decisions really have no idea of what goes on in delivery offices up and down the land on a daily basis.

citypostie · Post by **citypostie** » 27 Mar 2018, 17:48

dingo wrote:Fish as you well know traffic varies on the days of the week and across the course of the year whilst offices contracted hours remain at 39 or whatever a part time contract is. PDA actuals and it’s results will bring forward the proposal on seasonal variation of hours or annualised hours.

When Royal Mail switched the GPS software on last October for the first time it recorded 48% of walks finishing more than 30 minutes early. This increase to 60% for finishing early by 15 minutes. Now October is normally a heavy traffic period with Autumn pressure.

It would be great to believe everyone on every single day across the year finishes bang on time , but we know this is not the case. The DOM will get on their dashboard computer link the offices PDA results for the day before. Now I believe that will be game changing and personally I believe the union gave it away to cheaply and I have said as much to the CWU negotiators. If you don’t think this is significant than fair enough.

Let's be honest as soon as people realise they are being monitored by the PDA everyday and could end up with more work to do they will slow down and make sure they finish at their time. So unless the plan is to have some outdoor performance standards that can be used to analyse the speed people are working at outdoors like fishtank suggested above, after a few weeks of PDA actuals everyone will be working slower to make sure they are working their full hours. A Dom has told me recently that he tested people and they where working very slowly but all he could do was tell them but couldn't actually make them speed up, now if there was set outdoor performance standards combined with PDA actuals, that would be a total game changer and probably kill half the workforce off!

Martin Walsh · Post by **Martin Walsh** » 27 Mar 2018, 21:38

Look I have seen the PDA observations and it record your stem time travelling back to the unit , it also has the detail of whether you was static long enough to have your meal relief. The 30 mins was recorded at the office boundary as the GPS works whilst turned off.

By all means be sceptical of it ! From someone who seen the level of detail I will remained concerned. We won’t have to long to wait to see which one of us is right.

Celgar · Post by **Celgar** » 27 Mar 2018, 23:33

dingo wrote:Fish as you well know traffic varies on the days of the week and across the course of the year whilst offices contracted hours remain at 39 or whatever a part time contract is. PDA actuals and it’s results will bring forward the proposal on seasonal variation of hours or annualised hours.

When Royal Mail switched the GPS software on last October for the first time it recorded 48% of walks finishing more than 30 minutes early. This increase to 60% for finishing early by 15 minutes. Now October is normally a heavy traffic period with Autumn pressure.

It would be great to believe everyone on every single day across the year finishes bang on time , but we know this is not the case. The DOM will get on their dashboard computer link the offices PDA results for the day before. Now I believe that will be game changing and personally I believe the union gave it away to cheaply and I have said as much to the CWU negotiators. If you don’t think this is significant than fair enough.

Union reps have been trying to convince posties to do the job 'properly' for as long as I can remember and probably longer - in fact for decades. We all know for the most part posties have not & do not take any notice. They come in before their duty starts - often between 30 & 45 minutes before they are due to start. They invariably don't take any of their break time which means an additional up to 40 minutes work being completed.
If the CWU & RM wish to get accurate timings for how much work is being completed then data from PDAs just isn't going to deliver truly accurate data. What would deliver accurate readings is clocking in and out which our current 'signing in/out/in/out' forms in DOs could and should be used for. Alternatively add more time to the PDA data which could be up to 90 minutes plus the time between the official start time and leaving the DO to start delivery. Supervised or honest clocking on & off times written on current forms we use are the obvious better option.
The TUC recognise how much work is being done unpaid in this country. It's time for the CWU & RM to realise that a lot of work is being done unpaid within RM. The CEO of Amazon recently commented on the lack of infrastructure and capacity within RM. I don't like him or the way his company works but I think he has a point. What happened during Christmas 2018 showed that we are at breaking point and we can barely cope with the business we currently accept. We will have extreme difficulty coping in the future as more people switch from the high Street to the internet in terms of shopping methods. RM has been trying to run the business on a 'skeleton crew' for too long now. It's time to wake up and take a stand.

fishtank · Post by **fishtank** » 28 Mar 2018, 04:24

The 30 mins was recorded at the office boundary

Kind of says it all really.
There's a good 15 minutes worth of work still to be done after that and we still don't know whether they've factored in the final 20 minutes of my meal relief.
As I said it's only a game changer if you've something to hide or if when it comes to negotiate the delivery agreement the union isn't smart enough to challenge the raw data. Unfortunately given the mess the IWT has caused I don't have much faith in the latter.

Post by **IloveMYredTROLLEY!** » 28 Mar 2018, 05:25

This provisional agreement that could and probably will be voted in later is the deal of this century for RM, our union have given them the green light to screw us over. The PDA data capture, like virtually everything in this vote, is something that has not had the targets pinned down.

There's no stipulation of what trials and their results will be regarded as positive, enabling our future pay increases over the next few years and a shorter working week.

We're either going to get no benefits beyond the initial pay increase, or more OPGs are going to be ignoring how we are supposed to work, doing more work for free to jump through unrealistic hoops.

It's a game changing agreement all right, we've been sold down the river by a CWU leadership that are horribly out of touch with the modern day role of being an OPG.

Post by **General Mannerheim** » 04 Apr 2018, 22:07

In terms of bullying , expect a big announcement in the next 72 hours and if the agreement comes in than an independent appointed person in the same way as Lord Sawyer was introduced in the 1990s will visit offices around the uk to speak with employees over their concerns and also see if the full terms of the agreement is being deployed. If anyone expected the company to put in a National Agreement there is wide spread bullying and this is what has been agreed to resolve it and what that would have done to the share price than your simply not being realistic. That is not to say that bullying is not being addressed .

So where is this big announcement then on the bullying?

Don't tell me it's been shelved or swept under the carpet AGAIN.

Culture change my arse.

BELIAL · Post by **BELIAL** » 04 Apr 2018, 22:57

268 hrs and counting. Still abuse of process ,failure of protocol ,H&S out the window ,cavalier ,cowboy management rules the roost ;anything goes. uh oh.

Martin Walsh · Post by **Martin Walsh** » 05 Apr 2018, 13:46

My understanding is that over the next week the PEC will decide on whether they endorse the National Roll out of PDA outdoor actuals as a resourcing/planning tool. So Fish we won't have long to wait to see if I or you are right on the impact of PDA"s on delivery offices overtime , part time hours , rest day overtime , absorption or duty time.