The 24 things not agreed...

[gone postal]

Demand for RM to deliver customers parcels on a Sunday will remain nil to non existent whilst RM employees get overtime payments for working a Sunday. RM will plan to address this by making Sunday’s a normal part of your duty and not attracting o/t payments.Be it every Sunday, every other Sunday or whatever rota they want to implement. Customers won’t pay extra to RM to deliver on a Sunday so they will continue to use companies like Hermes,Yodal, DPD etc who just treat Sunday as a regular day and don’t pay their employees any extra.
To me it’s not just about working Sundays, it’s that we are dumbing down our pay, t&c’s to match our competitors.
Free enterprise, capitalism! Don’t you just love it??

[Woody Guthrie]

I can report at this point that the Outdoor Department have reached agreement with the business on the rebalancing of letters to parcels and tabletop revision guidelines for delivery. This will be debated and voted on at our Postal Executive meeting on Tuesday 2nd February. Branches and field officials will be notified of the outcome in due course.
Stay safe, wear a mask,
Bobby Weatherall
NEC / PEC Member

1st February 2021

[Woody Guthrie]

13 it commits the business to having 85% of the traffic to be delivered on the core delivery and 15% as potential for dedicated parcel duties.

Is the commitment 85% of parcels or is it 85% of everything including letters and D2D?

Obviously that's a huge difference.

What percentage of overall traffic are parcels Martin?

[Martin Walsh]

Woody it will be the majority on core but out of the 4 formatted parcels streams 85# will be done on core and 15% on dedicated parcel duties. This will be the larger parcels formatted 3 & 4 which was the work they wanted to be done by circa 300 delivery offices.

This agreement allows for all offices to introduce dedicated parcel duties. The hours from this can be taken from the drop in call rate from letters now and the fact you will be taken approximately 15% of the parcels from the core delivery.

[Martin Walsh]

Well i voted no!!

The Delivery table top guidelines have been agreed and clear by the Postal Executive and the processing guidelines have been agreed today and going to the postal Executive tomorrow.

There is a joint Divisional and PE meeting tomorrow and we are waiting for Royal Mail to produce the baseline weighted traffic and work hours which will form the starting point for WIPWH so each office know what they will have to do to introduce the shorter working week.

[Woody Guthrie]

The hours from this can be taken from the drop in call rate from letters now and the fact you will be taken approximately 15% of the parcels from the core delivery.

You say this so casually that it almost sounds like a good thing.

1. Are we talking about a covid related drop in call rate because that may be temporary.

2. Anyone who knows the job knows that going to 20% fewer calls does not mean a duty can be increased by 20% so how will this reduction in call rate be reflected in the real world?

3. The reduction in large parcels may reduce time on delivery but it's van work, if you simply replace that with walking you're making deliveries more physically demanding, is that really a union aim?

4. When is the union going to address the issue of the physical demands of the delivery role and the toll this takes on older members? It has shamefully allowed the employer to ignore both the long term study on fatigue and it's own survey on Musculoskeletal injuries. It's getting embarrassing now.

[RTP]

Martin, Woody makes some good points, especially no4.

If I remember rightly there was something that was supposedly being worked on a few years ago were those nearing retirement age would possibly be working less hours, but getting paid the same. Pie in the sky, but something needs addressing especially regarding older postmen and women, rather than the same size fits all.

Lets face it, how in the world can we be expected to do this job at the same pace as a 20 or 30yr old when in our 60's.

The retirement age keeps getting pushed back, but on delivery especially, we just get more work put on us and the job just gets harder and more physically demanding. As we reach older age the workload on a sliding scale should be going down, not up.

[mags999]

some excellent points being made there the union seem hell bent on full time jobs no matter what the increase means on the delivery side no mention of job share or proper creative working patterns for the older long serving workers who when I started retired at 60 and for good reason

[Jack1960]

RTP
Some great points there , especially the one about older staff.
Look forward to getting some replies from the top!!

[RTP]

It appears the top brass are too busy polishing their own trumpets at this moment in time..

[mjd24]

The hours from this can be taken from the drop in call rate from letters now and the fact you will be taken approximately 15% of the parcels from the core delivery.

You say this so casually that it almost sounds like a good thing.

1. Are we talking about a covid related drop in call rate because that may be temporary.

2. Anyone who knows the job knows that going to 20% fewer calls does not mean a duty can be increased by 20% so how will this reduction in call rate be reflected in the real world?

3. The reduction in large parcels may reduce time on delivery but it's van work, if you simply replace that with walking you're making deliveries more physically demanding, is that really a union aim?

4. When is the union going to address the issue of the physical demands of the delivery role and the toll this takes on older members? It has shamefully allowed the employer to ignore both the long term study on fatigue and it's own survey on Musculoskeletal injuries. It's getting embarrassing now.

Speaking as a 37 year old, in my 14th year as a postman, i seriously hope that someone with more gusto than i will start a campaign or just kick up a fuss regarding the unrelenting physical toil this job now takes on us each and everyday.

Another 9+ miles today, all steps and hills, my right foot in agony with corns, my neck pain as bad as ever, knees now starting to throb also. All this just adds to the exhaustion, some days i dont know how i manage to get through it.

How can this be normal?! Surely most jobs arent this hard? And im not even earning the national average wage!

[Neverwasadoor]

Martin,
Apparently the tabletop revision guidelines have been agreed, are us minions going to be able to see these before a revision gets agreed?
Are our attendance patterns protected? as our DOM is already saying ours will probably have to change to implement the SWW.
Thanks.

[hans solo]

he will let us know when rm tell them whats happening