Royal Mail Asks To Stop Saturday Letter Deliveries

VXi said:
Don't posties only work 5 days a week anyway. 5 days over 6 (not incl Sundays)
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Depends what contract you are on. My contract (old one) I have to work 5 out of 6 but my duty is Monday to Friday so have weekends off. New contract you have to work 5 out of 7 and those duties you usually have to work Saturday and Sundays.
VXi said:
I know my mate can work 6 days and earn a week off every 6th week or do a rolling 5 days where he's off Monday week 1, Tuesday week 2 etc.
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All depends on your duty or what the DO needs you to do really
 


Fred said:
The lad who I work out the van with has been there almost 30 years and doesn't drive (you didn't need to back then supposedly) and he thinks the writing is absolutely on the wall for his job.
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You didn't even need to 10 years ago. RM put me through my test 30 years ago (I volunteered to go driving for them if they did). There was no external recruitment of drivers until about 15-20 years ago.
max wartbug said:
They'll probably do what they've been trying to do for a good few years and that is split the company in two. The loss making letter business and the profitable parcels business.

Possibly then look to hand the letter side back to the government/public ownership.

It'd be interesting to see how RM (Parcels) would then perform against DPd etc, once they aren't dealing with letters.
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They already have a separate parcel business (Parcelfarce).
 
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Fred said:
The writing looks like it is on the wall in regards to change for us. I can't deny that the business needs a major revamp and that it will lead to a massive amount of job losses in the near future.

We can tell they have already started it because anything that the business views as important mail, including hospital appointments and a couple of other things are coming in with special deliveries and we are being told that we have to make sure that they definitely go out on the day. That just started yesterday. The lad who I work out the van with has been there almost 30 years and doesn't drive (you didn't need to back then supposedly) and he thinks the writing is absolutely on the wall for his job. I think he's just hoping for a nice big redundancy pay off in the near future.

As for myself, I'm reasonably new with me only working there for 4 1/2 years now, so I'm down near the bottom of the seniority pole, so if redundancies do happen, I wonder if they will get rid of the newer ones first or the ones who have been there the longest who will cost them more in holidays, pay and all the other benefits that come with being a longstanding member of staff. Also the fact that it is becoming a 2 tiered workforce, with newer employees coming in on lesser contracts and being told they are working 5 out of 7 instead of 6 with no idea of what day off they will have that week before the end of the week, all for less pay.

I'm just hoping they don't try and force us all on to these new contracts as one of the main reasons I took this job was so I knew well in advance when I could plan time to spend with my family and these new contracts will take that away for anyone who comes in.
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Are you a postie or one of the delivery drivers who does the LAT's? I've been on everything with royal mail. Started off in processing then went in the VOC. I then got transferred down south to be a driver and now I'm doing the post and all sorts.
 
max wartbug said:
They'll probably do what they've been trying to do for a good few years and that is split the company in two. The loss making letter business and the profitable parcels business.

Possibly then look to hand the letter side back to the government/public ownership.

It'd be interesting to see how RM (Parcels) would then perform against DPd etc, once they aren't dealing with letters.
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Wasn't that the idea when Parcelforce was setup?
 
Rollsyyy said:
Are you a postie or one of the delivery drivers who does the LAT's? I've been on everything with royal mail. Started off in processing then went in the VOC. I then got transferred down south to be a driver and now I'm doing the post and all sorts.
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Postie in Durham mate
Paddy O'Dors said:
You didn't even need to 10 years ago. RM put me through my test 30 years ago (I volunteered to go driving for them if they did). There was no external recruitment of drivers until about 15-20 years ago.


They already have a separate parcel business (Parcelfarce).
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The lad who I'm on with told me something similar but I can't remember exactly when it became mandatory to be able to drive.
 
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Paddy O'Dors said:
They already have a separate parcel business (Parcelfarce).
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Darlo1973 said:
Wasn't that the idea when Parcelforce was setup?
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That's true paddy/Darlo, now whether the separated parcel business would be merged with Parcelforce is anybodies guess.

Parcelforce have historically dealt with larger parcels, so whether they're viewed as operating in a different market and therefore should stand alone, again, who knows.
 
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max wartbug said:
That's true paddy/Darlo, now whether the separated parcel business would be merged with Parcelforce is anybodies guess.

Parcelforce have historically dealt with larger parcels, so whether they're viewed as operating in a different market and therefore should stand alone, again, who knows.
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Royal Mail Parcels was rebranded as Parcel Force in 1990ish to deal with catalogue/mail order stuff mainly (they had this really cheap 'third class' service for returns). They had too many depots/not enough staff and got overwhelmed with the third class stuff. A few years later they streamlined and went to regional depots. We had to absorb a few of their drivers back into RM.
 
I raised a complaint on their website this week. I and a number of my neighbours are convinced that they only deliver one day a week where we are. You get nothing for ages and then we all get a pile of post on the same day.... The last straw was when I ordered a Valentine's Card for our lass on 8th Feb and it was delivered on Monday 20th Feb - postmarked 9th Feb... This has been going on for at least 6 months ...!
 

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