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Old 10-18-2009, 04:38 AM
Mike
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: UK
Posts: 767
uk postal workers strike - an insider's view.
I joined Royal Mail 18 months ago as a postman, and i have enjoy the job - i would consider myself customer focused, organised and efficient. (although these are not skills measured by royal mail since its an industrial job, not a profession).

Im fed up with the newspapers, media and ignorant, ill-informed customers telling me what they believe to be true. I dont find it offensive if someone tells me that they think postmen are lazy people who want loads of money for doing no work, since thats what some of them are like. I just find it irritating that they don't read the WHOLE story before starting a discussion with me about my job.

At the moment if you send something 1st class, 93% of the time it WILL arrive the next day. If there is a local strike, it will arrive the day after. I sell loads on ebay and i am getting a reliable service. The pictures you see in the media of 'backlog' could be any typical day in a delivery centre, just a bit more messy. I wish that the media would just take things in context and proportion.

Royal Mail (some ignorant people refer to this as 'the post office' - it is not, that is a different business altogether) have had a tough time in the past 5 years:
  • Overall mail numbers are declining, because of the internet.
  • Personal mail is declining because people interact using social networks.
  • Business mail is declining because they can manage their businesses online, and they can customers can manage their accounts without the need for paper billing and invoices.
  • The deregulation of postal competition a few years ago meant that other postal operators (UK Mail, TNT, DHL, Northern Mail etc...) can operate their own postal services, which has subsequently lost Royal Mail money. You dont see these operators delivering to you letter boxes, but they do a small proprtion of the work for a tidy profit. For example, this means TNT can go to collect customer bills from Barclays Bank, charge what they want for collecting and sorting it, then pass it on to Royal Mail to deliver downstream to the customers - where Royal Mail is only ALLOWED to charge a very small fee for the privalege of it reaching your doors. 50% of the post your receive is like this, check where the stamp should be - there is usally a logo of another operator.
  • There is a huge (billions of pounds) pension defeceit, more people are spending their pensions than are paying into the pension fund (the governement are apparently 'taking care of it').
Some things have also worked in Royal Mail's favour:
  • Increase in home internet shopping = more parcels.
  • Marketing by post has been seen as the easiest way to advertise, at the lowest price - 75% of paper mail in the system is marketing of some form.
  • New technology means better efficiency with outward sorting - With a typical letter (smaller than A5) a letter passes through a machine and is 'phospher marked' with the address that the OCR has picked up, then the machine takes it to the right 'road' for outward sorting. When it reaches the network mail centres for inward sorting, it is passed through different machines to sort it into the ORDER of a walk/duty so that the delivery postman/woman just needs to slot it into the frame - much quicker than if it was mixed up. items larger than A5 are sorted manually.
The new efficiencies saw the removal of 95% of the 'travelling post office' services by rail, and now most post is transported by road to save money. A 56mph limit on the lorries also saves millions in fuel. This has lead to later processing times, since it takes longer to transport.

A lot of people will assume that a postman goes in at 5am, sorts mail and it finished before mid-day. However Because of the times that it reaches the mail centres now, a typical day for the 60% of full time staff starts at 6am.

Here is a typical day:
  • Full-Time staff start at 6am, inward sorting (taking manually processed post and sort it into the different 'walks') for 1 hour.
  • Semi Full-Time staff start at 7am - some start to prepare their own delivery frames, some prepare 'part-time' frames.
  • Part Time staff start at 8:45am, complete any prep work on their own delivery frames.
  • Most posties are ready packed up and ready to go by 9:30am
  • A mis-sort run takes place to the mail centre and arrives at 9:30 (this replaced 'second post' where later sorted items were re-delivered to avoid decline in quality of service)
  • 10am - most posties are out delivering for 3 - 4 hours. If you complete before your finish time (2:15), you can go home (still payed).
  • As im only part time, i then complete further overtime on absence, or deliver parcels - i am usually out delivering until 5pm, sometimes later.
So heres the crunch.

Royal Mail have spent the past 5 years 'modernising' the service. This has meant to a more efficient delivering system which has delivered massive savings and profit. For a typical postie, it has meant heavier (or more) bags (more parcels + magazines), longer working times and messy management of sickness and absence.

When posties complain of 'Unfair Workload' they refer to the fact that the workload is not spread evenly accross the delivery office. If i have a really bad day with lots of parcels and catlogues etc, its tough luck - other people can go home early but you still have to deliver you duty in full.

For a typical customer is has meant getting you post between 10am and 3pm (and not 7am - 11am as i remember in the old days), more red cards telling you that you were not in when we tried to deliver your parcel because for security and data protection we cannot leave ANYTHING on the doorstep (which i totally agree with) and more mistakes because part time staff do not get to prepare the duty they are delivering, which often leads to mis-sorted post.

The changes royal mail are proposing involve LATER start times for Full Time staff, absorbing overtime work into your work day for no payment (so if you complete early, you still have to work until finish time - i totall agree with this too). It means for cutomers an even later deliver time which will be unacceptable for some businesses (11am - 4pm).

Personally, i agree that there needs to be massive change however the union (CWU) and the 'management' have no cohesive dialogue, and Royal Mail WILL enforce the change they need to make a profit, with or without union engagement.

I don't like the thought of posties having to start delivery of 11am, because i would really love to see a much ealier start return to the system. But i have no business argument - only word of mouth from customers, and of course my own personal view that it would be better for morale. However, ultimately to make a profit this is the model they need to create. Its a sad time for the postal service in the UK, it will be destroyed as we know it if the changes are made - there needs to be some compromise somewhere.

For the time being, i will continue to do the best job i can do to keep customers happy. After all, its a service to be proud in - i am confident if you sent a letter with a 39p stamp from bristol to dundee, it would arrive the very next day.
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Last edited by Mike; 10-18-2009 at 04:42 AM.
  #2  
Old 10-18-2009, 06:48 PM
jOHN rODRIGUEZ
SystematicallyDisadsomthg
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: THE PLAsTIC VOORRTEEXXX!!!
Posts: 3,570
Re: uk postal workers strike - an insider's view.
If it makes any difference Michael, I love the USPS in America. Never had a problem with them mailing my stuff.
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