Structural revision

[citypostie]

So it looks like my office is having a structural revision. Probably needed as the last one was over 10 years ago and all that's happened since is new builds being added on and a few duties got rid of and shared amongst the ones left behind.
My worry is that we have a very new rep who is a nice enough bloke and tries to help people but who is also very easy going and probably easily manipulated by management. With so much of this agreement being locally driven and reliant on reps knowing how to work the system in staffs favour I have concerns that we will end up with a managers dream of a revision and our nightmare.
Surely the cwu should ensure that all structural revisions have union people involved who really know their stuff even if that means bringing them in from other areas?

[Vwtouran]

We are all the union not just 1 person, you will get to see the new duties before it gets the go ahead.

[Woody Guthrie]

We are all the union not just 1 person, you will get to see the new duties before it gets the go ahead.

That's one of the least useful comments I've read on here.

[Martin Walsh]

To be fair for a lot of reps , understanding the structural revision process and indeed the table top revision will be challenging.

We are developing a joint local training package to assist and on the structural the lessons from the first 30 will assist for the future revisions.

There has to be full input from both the DOM and Local Rep and it is important that other members assist the local rep in this.

There is also a 3 year flight path within the structural revision process and whilst your out door will be optimised , your indoor, unmeasured and variable spend will be based on a 3 year flight path.

We believe that each Branch should have a technical expert in place to assist local reps on both structural and table top along the process.

[Cucumber]

Martin, is it safe to say that each office rep will now know what type of revision they are to have?

[Woody Guthrie]

Some of these structured revisions have implementation dates in early May.
To say that's optimistic under the current restrictive environment would be an understatement.
A rushed revision is in my experience a recipe for disaster.

It's clear from the latest trading statement that the company has been hiding its true financial position from the union and is making money hand over fist despite or in fact because of the pandemic...

So why the rush?
Especially from you guys Martin?

[Martin Walsh]

Cucumber the list was sent out on Monday so it may still not known by every local rep but all Area reps should know by now.

Woody you have to remember the agreement was made on the 18th December , later that day Boris Johnson cancelled Christmas and than in the new year we went into another lockdown.

So the dates were made before those events.

However Royal Mail are under extreme pressure from Of Com as they are giving a further 2.7% and by April a further 1% without any improvement in efficiency or productivity.

Hence why the timescales are being perused.

Lots of table top revisions may because of traffic growth mean that an office only has to reduce work hours by a few hours to get the SWW so would we want to stop them from doing so ? I don’t think so.

However on a structural revision that may be far more of a challenge as can you really implement a revision based on CDVs when you can only have one person in the van ?

Clearly we will have to keep everything under review , but the planning needs to start and than a decision will have to be made when we know each office revision and whether it makes sense to deploy !

[worktotime]

Cucumber the list was sent out on Monday so it may still not known by every local rep but all Area reps should know by now.

Woody you have to remember the agreement was made on the 18th December , later that day Boris Johnson cancelled Christmas and than in the new year we went into another lockdown.

So the dates were made before those events.

However Royal Mail are under extreme pressure from Of Com as they are giving a further 2.7% and by April a further 1% without any improvement in efficiency or productivity.

Hence why the timescales are being perused.

Lots of table top revisions may because of traffic growth mean that an office only has to reduce work hours by a few hours to get the SWW so would we want to stop them from doing so ? I don’t think so.

However on a structural revision that may be far more of a challenge as can you really implement a revision based on CDVs when you can only have one person in the van ?

Clearly we will have to keep everything under review , but the planning needs to start and than a decision will have to be made when we know each office revision and whether it makes sense to deploy !

so when do these structural revisions start ? as our rep doesnt have a clue and the manager seems to think that getting rid of 1 in 6 deliverys and just throwing the work on to other dutys so then that frees up a parcel duty ( ricos plan ) , is that how it works ? and do you think the members should actually know what actually goes in to these revisions and what to expect ? and are you also saying that those with table top revisions will probably get the 1 hour off in April but those with a bigger revision wont ? so is the hour off the working week based on saving hours in the office ?

[yubin282]

So what happens if extra hours are needed in a DO?

[worktotime]

its all gone very quite ? , but these are genuine worrys and questions that would i thought warrant an answer Martin as you must know more about the agreement than us .

[Martin Walsh]

Work to time your manager is wrong the Pathway to Change says quite clearly stated

The national guidelines will encourage local solutions, along with a positive approach and options for innovative duty arrangements, without imposing a standard one in six approach.

It also states

The approach to table top or structural revisions in each local office that will allow the efficient implementation of the second hour of the shorter working week; all revisions to be signed off by the local manager and local rep and implemented by no later than the end of October 2021.

So nothing can be imposed and if your office wants an innovative duty structure or maintain one than they can.

In terms of communications each unit will have a start up meeting , the guidelines for the structural means full involvement. A training package. In terms of when does you Rep know , well the guidelines were sent out on Monday and there will be a presentation to SDLs ( Area Managers ) and Divisional Reps next Weds and than they will be similar meetings to each OM and Area Rep level.

With regards to the members the guidelines are out and were part of the other issues still to be agreed !

If you read the guidelines they are there to ensure that the Pathway to Change Agreement is deployed in line with what the members endorsed in a ballot.

If your doing a structural revision there is a process which includes a call rate calculator, as letter traffic has gone down your call rate will naturally go down. Whilst parcels have gone up , if you have 600 delivery points you don’t normally have 600 parcels for each delivery point.

With the economy Mail coming on stream and the impact expected from July that is anticipated to hit call rate by an average of 10%.

All of this information will be based on your local office information.

So if you may well lose walks due to the drop in call rate but you may move some of those walks to a dedicated parcel duty as the commitment is that 85 % of the traffic would remain on the core but your dedicated parcels potentially be removing 15% of your larger parcels from the core which will also have an impact on your attendance calls.


It is fundamentally different from Rico’s plan who wanted the larger parcels to be removed from the majority of delivery offices and give that work to just 300 offices , which would have meant every office losing 15% of their parcels. Instead every office are keeping the larger parcels and being allowed to introduce their own dedicated parcel duties to deliver the larger formated parcels. Some of these parcels won’t be able to fit in the CDVs when we come out of lockdown and eventually return to two in a van .


I suggest you read the guidelines they are very comprehensive for both the structural and table top , happy to answer questions as always , however there is no way you should allow you manager to try and take your attendance pattern as that will be in breach of the agreement.

Remember the SDLs , OPS and DOMs have not seen the guidelines until last Monday , the same as reps and they will need have the agreement explained to them after the joint SDL and Divisional Reps meeting next Wednesday

[SpacePhoenix]

With the economy Mail coming on stream and the impact expected from July that is anticipated to hit call rate by an average of 10%.

I can't see how the economy mail will work. I've heard talk of the machines sorting some to a "holding" stacker but how can it know which DPs have got mail? You'd have to run all the mech twice so that the DPs that have got mail can be logged. We don't have the time so that won't happen. It's going to have to all be sorted/sequenced as it is know and you'll still have to prep the walks as you do now. Apart from the indoor stuff in DOs taking longer, does it really save much time?

[Manboat]

I can’t see how it would only affect 10% call rate, if we’re told to stream mail and only take 1st class and other important looking stuff so we can clear tracked etc then I’d say about 70% of mail if not more gets left in, plenty of addresses don’t get anything 1st class or out essential to deliver all week too so surely the lack of mail coming into the delivery office will really show the job up on the delivery side if it gets kept at the mail centre for upto 4 days

[Martin Walsh]

Space


Through development of mail sorting technology we plan to re-profile the delivery of the new DSA Mailmark Economy product within service specification for each delivery point onto days when they are receiving other mail that is due for delivery

•This is effectively introducing a technically enabled warm calling approach to ensure letters are delivered to specification (the project to introduce the new product and it’s processes is internally known as Delivery to Specification)

•The technology will consolidate more items onto a call, maximising the cost-effectiveness of a visit up the garden-path, protecting the viability of the USO and the profit contribution from each visit to the front door

•This will be achieved by building an algorithm onto the CSS process that will defer the letter items if there are no other letters due that day

•The process will also defer other products, e.g. Retail Economy and 2nd Class letters using the same method. We need to defer some other product to meet regulation requirements

[Martin Walsh]

Impact in Processing:-

The product requires a window between the end of late shift processing 21:45 and the start of the Sequencing workplan at midnight to calculate items for deferral / delivery each day

•No items can be sequenced in MCs or MPUs until midnight (current workplan)

•Wave 1 Midnight – 06:00, Wave 2 06:00 – 08:30 (or aligned to current arrival pattern)

•Algorithm will start processing at 22:00 (aligns to failure point for processing DSA)

•Algorithm requires at least 90mins to run – target is to be complete by 23:30 ready for midnight workplan start

•Large machine sequencing will be transferred to the CSS operation (c5% of traffic), although large machines will continue to be used for Wave 2 walksort (all of Wave 2 will be walk-sorted only)