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Isle
Them days you had it easy…you now have to work a little…and hopefully a little more…talk about Stone Age.
@ DerekRocholl
When you had to deliver the first letter by 7am, you were responsible for your own delivery. Not two like it is now.
The sorting was flooded with staff. Not now.
You had dedicated night staff who would do the bulk of the manual sorting. Not now.
You didn't have part time staff whose duties have to be prepped. You do now.
Staff used to go in early to finish early. Not many now because they can't finish early
And while the letters have dropped off and a high percentage is sequenced. the amount of staff to manually sort these items, you can count on one hand.
Then factor in the unknown. Sickness for example.
I think the delivery director assumed we went in prepped a bit, and we're out of the door.
I'm still waiting to hear if he has responded.
Oli. Sounds like he has things worked out. Good luck to him.
Redceo,yes he is a decent lad of twenty four doing a decent days work. Previously he worked for the Highways Agency but the hours meant that he didn't get to see his young son as much as he would have liked. He has also said that he wouldn't consider working for RM as he wants to be self employed and control his own future.
Oli, He's obviously doing a decent day's work. Sadly losing out on the holidays and sick pay. I'm at a loss to understand the comparison made with RMG. Obviously their situation is more lucrative than the guy you mention.
Assuming we are talking about letter delivery preparation and that at least 60% is arriving sequence sorted why would it take 2.5 hours to prep a delivery ? When we had to deliver the first letter by 7am and had to prep all items using short letter fittings it didn’t take 2.5 hours to prep a walk.
So you didn't do foot delivery Tygra?
Tygra - you make some salient points 'the robots are coming to monitor your every move soon too.'
Royal mail has always had the highest 'security' and its own police force (REAL spies) to protect the public and it's property from the likes of Dick Turpin and Ronnie Biggs. Rest assured staff are monitored. Has anyone ever noticed the logo is a cruciform?
teslo, honkey, regarding the Evri delivery driver, I'm not sure exactly how his accountant has him registered for tax purposes but I do know that he keeps every receipt going. Presumably he gets tax relief on fuel and can offset running costs such as servicing and maintenance plus depreciation on his vehicle?
The down side is as pointed out earlier in that there is no annual leave or sick pay and I'm unclear on the arrangement for this eventuality.
His round is quite good and includes several large blocks of retirement flats which have staffed entrances and it is common for him to have several deliveries for the same block of retirement flats which are taken in at the entrance which saves him time plus if he has ten parcels then that's £10 for effectively one drop point.
Redceo, yes he does tend to work six days a week and usually eight hours a day. He leaves the house at 7am and is normally home by 4pm.
Tygra, Thanks for the detail and all summed up in this one statement "You posties will look over the same fence and see a prison you'd rather stay out of"
@honkey
If he's not a LTD company then he should fire his accountant, find a new one, register for PAYE, pay himself a salary up to the tax and NI personal allowance threshold and then there would likely be ZERO tax to pay.
But hey ho what do I know.
There's a reason a lot of the 'couriers' be they Yodel, Evri, DPD etc 'appear' to be able to pay little tax, it's mainly as has been stated below. They have considerable expenses and are out from very early until very late 6 days per week, and as self-employed drivers, if they are actually sick (notice the term actually), they either pay a severe financial penalty or have to get someone else to drive their van and deliver their contracted amount of parcels.
There's also a reason the owner drivers on the whole seem to look different after a few months of delivering to your door, particularly in winter, they are destroying themselves and ageing right in front of your eyes. If they have a family they won't be seeing them and when they do they will be too tired to have any form of quality of life. Naturally, some people can operate like this (the Yodel driver who delivers to mine frequently is one of these, it doesn't bother him as he's doing it for 5 years to earn as much as possible before going back home and buying a house for cash), but most can't, that's why they don't last very long.
The part time drivers who use their own scrappy cars (Evri have this model) are more than happy as they can jump in and out on certain terms once they are on the books, so they are basically zero hours and aren't contracted to pay Evri if they are off sick etc. On the whole, I know all of my posties as they are the same today as they were 15 years ago. The owner drivers who I've used from different couriers don't seem to last very long (apart from the main Yodel bloke explained above).
Have a look at one of the DPD forums, at one point they cut their drop rate and added more workload and they had to follow the Saturn system exactly to ensure they arrived in a 30 minute slot (regardless of traffic). They literally had to break the law and speed to have any chance of delivering on time without penalties. It's slave labour regardless of how much cash they 'appear' to be left with at the end of the year.
RMG is run by people who look over the DPD and Amazon fence and like what they see. You posties will look over the same fence and see a prison you'd rather stay out of. And if you don't see that, you'll soon know what it feels like because the robots are coming to monitor your every move soon too.
I spent late 2017 to 2018 in Amazon Warrington as an agency coach/shift manager when it opened. I also joined Angard and worked in Royal Mail Warrington across the road from Christmas 2018 until 2020 because I preferred hands on and not sacking people every 2 weeks (Amazon). Trust me, you've got it good. It might not be perfect, but it's not YET Amazon.
All the best
Depends if he is a ltd company...like being self employed you can write of many things through tax..
Unless he was registered for PAYE and paying himself a salary.
Outside of that and his accountant playing with the numbers a Postman is far better off, irrespective of gross turnover.
Oli - If the he paid £580 in income tax, his net profit for the year was only £3052
A Postman, even one that is paid minimum wage would have a considerably higher disposable income than that, and probably in excess of 40 %.
Ebit eur 8.5bn and mkt cap eur £50bn just fyi but several metrics they beat forecasts
He's actually working a six day week @ an average £150 per day. Out of that he has to pay possible vehicle lease charges, tax, insurance, fuel and servicing,
Doesn't sound very good to me. A posties better off.
Oli. Thanks for the detailed response.
The income comparison is not like for like though is it. Your comparing an owner driver with an employee.
On the one hand no financial investment. The other considerable financial risk.
How does the figure of 243 items compare to an average RMG posties daily load?
Sounds a lot to me. If he has taken a considerable financial risk and performs well he is entitled to a decent income.
A tax bill of £580 indicates a considerable expense incurred and the RMG worker is better off.
Ispy, "rumour has it that Evri is the courier that GLS is off-loading the parcels to?"
This could be likely? My daughter's boyfriend has worked as a courier for Evri for four years and has confirmed that his usual 150 items per day has been increasing recently. This week he has had over 200 items each day. Today he had 243 items of which he was unable to deliver 6 items.
In case anyone is wondering how much an Evri courier earns, he receives £1 per item. His accountant submitted an income of £47k and he paid £580 in income tax for the 2021/22 tax year. He has to pay for the running costs on his 2019 Mercedes crew cab (which will be written off as tax deductible in 2023), however this is all tax deductible as are his accountant fees. He also pays 18% into his private pension.
So, when Thompson says that RM posties are paid 40% more than our competitors, I tend to take that with a pinch of salt.
I'm not active on workplace, but this reaches me:
A poster on workplace has suggested that with a 9am start, deliveries would not be leaving the office until 11-11.30am.
Francis Williams, delivery director, and one of the people who champion later start times asked this question, in response:
Why does it take 2 1/2 hours to prep?
I nearly wet myself.
These are the people running this company, FFS.
If he doesn't actually know what happens in delivery, how can this person make a call on our start and finish times?
Another one, who's noose is tightening.
Apparently, he's also on the negotiating board for RMG. You know. The ones that do not negotiate and force things through by EA. Despite the pathway to change agreement.
@ honkey.
Interesting info there. I wonder if this will filter through to all amazon staff?
Now any items that need to be delivered and cannot be fulfilled by amazon, generally end up in the RMG network. Crimbo, for example.
Maybe Evri can pick up the slack?
Amazon Workers,in tilbury, withdrew their labour today asking for 2 pound an hour pay rise due to the cost of living ....
The working people have had enough of these bosses paying huge pay increases and bonuses while the workforce struggle to make ends meet with paltry pay offers of 10 and 20 pound a week.
@ Anger.
I mentioned this earlier.
What do you think happens to the undeliverable items? Are red cards left?
Will they go back to the CSP? Or will they just miraculously turn up in the parcels for delivery the following day?
"IF" the courier is bound by our rules there will be thousands of items undelivered. And they will "NOT" have our red cards to leave. So do the undelivered items stay with this courier until delivery is completed?
More questions than answers.
But IMO, GLS will be paying over the top for the other courier to handle these items.
@ Anger.
""""The odd thing is that if they need to "go over" that time, RMG will pay them excess. Yet they won't pay their own staff."""
Forgive me for the vagueness. There are many here who appear to know everything about how RMG work in these scenarios. And my post could have been worded much better.
For clarity:
Agency staff start at 1pm. 4 hours per day. Finish at 5pm. They are given 60 parcels to deliver but cannot do them in their allotted time. They say to management, do you want us to attempt all parcels? Management says yes, but we will pay according to your last scan. Agency staff last scan is 7pm. So they are paid 6 hours. 2 hours of excess (or pressure) overtime.
RMG staff who have 100 parcels plus 600 delivery points to deliver to, sort and prep all mail and parcels, say that they cannot complete their duty in their time. Management say, leave what you cannot deliver we can't pay you excess (or pressure) overtime.
Times and figures are fictional of course.
Very strange. Don't you agree
@ Anger.
We're not on strike. Unless you know something that i don't. GLS are paying the other courier to deliver now!
A very strange thing to do, as notice has to be given for strike action. And it hasn't!
As i said, eating into their profits.