- Paul* has labored for Royal Mail for 20 years however is rising annoyed
- He says a transfer to a three-day week would spell catastrophe for deliveries
- He claims posties are being directed to prioritise packages over letters
When Paul* grew to become a postman, he delivered letters twice a day by bike.
Twenty years later, he says he’s burned out and pressured, because the job he as soon as liked has remodeled within the face of fixing shopper habits.
Sweeping adjustments made to the way in which posties function has prompted frustration amongst Royal Mail workers, even resulting in a full strike within the winter of 2022.
Royal Mail’s administration has lengthy campaigned for a change to its common service obligation (USO), which requires the agency to ship letters six days per week to each handle within the UK.
Paul* has labored as a postman for 20 years however is rising annoyed with administration (Stock picture)
Fewer days delivering letters is sensible within the context of falling volumes and a rise within the variety of packages, they are saying.
Last month the regulator set out proposals for a 5, and even three day week. For posties, it will mark the most important shake-up to the system in years.
Paul thinks it will be a catastrophe. Here, he tells This is Money what he thinks is behind the delays to your letters and why reducing supply days would worsen the issue…
The altering face of Royal Mail
Paul, who requested for his identify to be modified, says when he began out his job was executed by 11am after two rounds of deliveries on his bike.
‘I’d are available in at 5am, prep the first-class mail, exit with it after which get again to the workplace. While I used to be out, the opposite guys would type out the second-class mail and then you definitely’d exit and ship it.’
Royal Mail scrapped the second supply of the day in 2003, leaving solely a single mid-morning supply. At the time it mentioned the second put up was not viable given it accounted for simply 4 per cent of mail and 20 per cent of supply prices.
Paul thinks it has contributed to worsening supply occasions, which has seen households complain of bundles of letters being delivered days, and even weeks late.
But Royal Mail has to modernise and a few argue it is unfair of posties to count on the corporate to disregard such big adjustments to consumption habits.
The peak for letter volumes was 20billion in 2004-05 earlier than using e mail actually took off. Now letter volumes are at round 7billion.
Meanwhile, within the final six years, the typical dimension of a parcel dealt with by Royal Mail has grown by practically 30 per cent.
In the identical interval, the variety of parcels classed as ‘massive parcels’ has greater than doubled.
Paul says: ‘Today I had 67 massive packets, or “bulks” that are over the scale of a shoebox, plus those in my bag. Around 100 in whole.’
Customers have additionally grown accustomed to next-day supply they usually merely aren’t posting letters in the identical quantity as 20 years in the past.
‘We’ve by no means been objected to modernisation…,’ Paul says.
‘But the angle is that we’re lazy and need a straightforward life. Rather than the truth that we all know the village or stroll as a result of we have been doing it years.’
Royal Mail has lengthy campaigned for adjustments to its common service obligation (USO)
Are posties being directed to prioritise packages?
While some posties may need a return to the great outdated days, they and Royal Mail cannot escape the truth that service has deteriorated lately.
Royal Mail has delivered 90.7 per cent of second-class mail inside three working days, and simply 73.7 per cent of first-class mail in a single working day.
It falls nicely wanting the regulator’s goal of 93 per cent for first-class and 98.5 per cent for second-class put up.
There has been some suspicion that posties are prioritising packages over letters in a bid to get by the mountains of packages.
Royal Mail has all the time strenuously denied this however Paul says posties are being directed to take action by administration.
‘We’ve been advised to disregard letters in favour of tracked. It comes from space administration and board stage[and] that is the only purpose that there are delays.
‘You have an workplace supervisor referred to as a DOM – supply workplace supervisor – and you have got somebody that sits above them who points directions to depart letters. If you assume you are able to do them, do them. If you may’t then don’t fret about it.
‘We are likely to ignore that and fish out those that we predict we would be p***ed off if we did not get – hospital letters, playing cards… Anything that appears official we’ll seize and take anyway as a result of we do not like not doing our job.’
‘They say depart the letters and take the tracked, however it means tomorrow we have got two days price of labor, the luggage are twice as heavy. So it means it’ll take longer to get round.
‘You’re continually a minimal of a day or two behind. It grinds on you, it destroys your will. You get to the tip of the week and also you’re drained and fed up.’
A Royal Mail spokesman mentioned: ‘We will all the time do our utmost to make sure each letters and parcels are delivered on time. The run as much as Christmas is our busiest time of yr, with greater than double the conventional variety of letters and parcels passing by our community.
‘Average parcel sizes have grown by round 30 per cent lately, and in any typical week parcels take up round 90 per cent of sorting area in our supply workplaces.
‘We have all the time been clear that at busy occasions corresponding to Christmas it could be logistically essential to clear parcels first to keep away from community points, hold the mail transferring and make sure the security of our colleagues, particularly in small supply workplaces.
‘These measures have been shared with Ofcom who haven’t recognized any suggestion that Royal Mail senior administration have directed the prioritisation of parcels over letters outdoors of recognised contingency plans.’
They additionally pointed to Ofcom’s latest report which discovered that there was no suggestion that administration had directed the prioritisiation of parcels over letters outdoors of contingency plans.
However the report additionally discovered that there was ‘inadequate management, visibility and oversight over native decision-making’ and has considerations over the operation of supply workplaces.
Posties say they can not full their routes and are advised to depart letters in favour of tracked gadgets (Stock picture)
Who desires to be a postman?
Most posties who spoke to This is Money say they perceive the character of the job has modified however that sources are diminishing.
In 2010, 130,000 postmen and girls labored for Royal Mail throughout 1,371 supply workplaces. Its most up-to-date annual report reveals the quantity fell to 90,000 staff throughout 1,200 workplaces.
Paul thinks retention is the larger problem: ‘People do not perceive what’s concerned and assume you may simply roll in, somebody will provide you with a bag of letters and off you go.’
‘Some of the DOMs was posties in order that they have an concept [of the workload]. The hassle is that they have been posties 10 years in the past when there was half the quantity of labor and also you have been executed at 11am.’
There has been a bitter dispute between Royal Mail and the unions over jobs, pay and dealing circumstances.
Under the settlement struck by the CWU, Royal Mail workers will obtain a ten per cent pay rise over the following three years and a one-off lump sum of £500.
However, it’s nicely under an annual enhance consistent with inflation, which the union had initially demanded.
Workers will even see adjustments to sick pay, attendance requirements and revised contracts for brand new starters.
‘If you supply individuals an honest contract, you would not have a retention problem. If you rent somebody part-time, you may get part-time effort,’ says Paul.
Royal Mail says its workers turnover is 11 per cent ‘which is nicely under the trade common.’
How will a 3 day week have an effect on deliveries?
Last month Ofcom mentioned Royal Mail might make financial savings of as much as £200million if it reduce its supply days from six to 5 days per week. It might save as a lot as £650million if it moved to 3 days.
Royal Mail boss Martin Seidenberg mentioned: ‘Ofcom’s report demonstrates that reform is urgently wanted to guard the way forward for the one-price-goes-anywhere USO.
‘We are doing the whole lot in our energy to remodel, however it’s not sustainable to keep up a community constructed for 20 billion letters after we at the moment are solely delivering seven billion.’
Any adjustments to Royal Mail’s USO shall be met with sturdy opposition from posties and their union. The CWU mentioned ‘the regulator is overtly pursuing the failed agenda of the previous Royal Mail Group senior management’.
Paul says: ‘It would make it an absolute nightmare. At the second we’re fighting six days per week. If we went to 3 days per week, what are we doing with the times we’re not delivering?
‘If I’m delivering Monday, Wednesday and Friday.. Come Monday I’ve obtained Saturday and Monday’s put up. I will not have time so what’s going to I’ve to do? Levae the letters and take the tracked.
‘But then the following supply is not till Wednesday, so I’ll have Saturday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday’s work.
‘The work is not going to die off. It will sit there and pile up till we do exit after which we can’t have sufficient time to ship all of it. It’s nonsensical.’
Despite his frustration, Paul nonetheless enjoys life as a postie: ‘If I did not take pleasure in it, I would not nonetheless be right here 20 years later.
‘It is heartbreaking and also you grow to be resentful. I do a rural route, I do know my prospects. I see children develop up and get married.
‘They know my identify, my household, I do know their household. I’ve obtained three individuals within the morning I choose the papers up for, one in every of them has a pint of milk on a regular basis.
‘People have such belief for Royal Mail. You do not bat an eyelid. I ship to some very personal homes however they do not look twice if I’m nipping around the again or up the driveway. They simply say “ah it’s only the postie”.’
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