Member Info for OliGarch

200iq, we have seen a big change in that staff are now moved to manual parcels as a priority over manual letters etc. None of our staff have been offered medical retirement thought. I'm not up on the current medical retirement process or protocol as I can't recall a case for quite a while but it used to be something like "six months basic pay and goodbye, if you're over 55 you get to take your due pension without penalty"?

Fruitster, the ratio of LBC to DSA can vary from as high as 25% on a Monday going down to around 10% on a Friday and as low as 5% on a Saturday.

Charlie, letter box collection mail (not DSA) is down by about 9% compared with the first seven weeks of 2019.
DerekR, we are still sequencing wave 1 but now walk sort wave 2 due to lack of volume as some of the wave 2 plans only have 300 to 500 items!

200iq, any chance of divulging what the changes are? My office have been trialling not using a CSS machine with a view to scrapping one.
Letter box collection mail was dire last week, although the weather didn't really help plus February is usually a low volume month.

Teslo, your thoughts may be correct with regard to compromise (on both sides) but nonetheless these are the issues that the CWU membership will be looking at when the ballot papers are issued.
I don't work in deliveries but I do speak to drivers who visit both delivery offices and mail centres and they have told me that the level of toxicity between the managers and posties in certain delivery offices is palpable.

Teslo, I posted the following yesterday afternoon.
As I have said before, I don't want to turn this into a CWU forum but there are times when they come into play. The following extract is taken from the Four Pillars Agreement between RM and CWU.
"I think that it's the following statement which is causing the CWU to call foul;
"Given the commitment demonstrated by this agreement it is agreed that both parties will enter into a joint review during 2019 which is overseen by a jointly agreed independent chair and is based on the approach for the review set out in the Agenda for Growth . Any adjustments agreed as necessary coming out of the review will not be implemented until October 2020. It would then be the intention to refresh the Legally Binding Agreement with any agreed amendments to 2022, with scheduled reviews thereafter".
It would appear that this fall's within the boundary of the legally binding agreement as stated in the Four Pillars Agreement?
Reading it again, it looks as though RB may have deliberately created a situation that caused any legally binding agreement to fail?

Teslo, you can't blame investors for taking advantage of what's on offer.
I will see what I can find on the £1.8bn. I suspect that DerekR may have the answer.
It is interesting to note that RM has issued £1.35bn in dividend payments since July 2014 which is close to three quarters of the £1.8bn and what has it gained?

Continued.....
"Culture – an end to the unacceptable toxic daily battle our members face at work
• Lapsing and absorption – equal duties, properly
resourced that will end this curse, ensuring fair and manageable workloads
• Design of the future mails pipeline to serve the final mile, with parcels delivered from all delivery offices.
• The maintenance of a six-day USO that protects many thousands of good quality jobs, whilst also maintaining our members’ role in society.
• A delivery office estate that is fit for purpose and ourmembers are proud to work in, not run-down buildings with no space and without adequate equipment.
• Modern innovative working arrangements and duty patterns that deal with the increasing outdoor element of the job.
• Real support. Proper breaks and time away from
work befitting a valued group of employees who
deserve better.
• The company need to honour the Shorter Working Week Flight Path to 35 hours a week, that willsafeguard future full-time jobs and enable the
good working practices and duty patterns that our
members deserve.
• To jointly and honestly evaluate the benefits and
purpose of the Automated Hours Data Capture and Resource Scheduler, along with all technology systems and not a dogmatic insistence that it will work simply because millions of pounds have been spent on it.
• To use technology as an aid and to grow products and services, not as a stick to beat our members with – in a dishonest way that only records what the company want to record, not the actual time that our members plough into the job on a daily basis.
• It is not acceptable that many of our members feel forced to have to work in their own time day after day in order to avoid confrontation with their manager.
• Jointly develop methods of doing the job that really help our members and not dogmatic attempts to make something work that clearly benefits nobody
• Promote and enhance the letter product, not simply abandon it – diversification, innovation and growth are the clear ways forward for a company that reaches every address in the UK, every day. We can do so much more if there is a genuine will from Royal Mail to do so.
It is the company who is once again walking away from genuine growth opportunities.
• We want to see, and need to see, our members
delivering out on the street from 7am to 7pm (outside of the core USO), in line with our agreement, when people want to see us and want to receive their post!
• New products and services – outside of our normal comfort zones – real ambition, strategic thinking and building on Royal Mail’s heritage are what is needed.
This is what we want in delivery. It’s what we thought we had in 2018 with the Four Pillars agreement.
We are demanding that the employer honours our
national agreements".

CWU members in deliveries will be receiving this message today.
"Let’s be absolutely clear, this dispute is not about the CWU asking for more. This dispute is as a result of your employer’s actions and Royal Mail walking away from our 2018 Four Pillars national agreement.
The company is currently pushing ahead with unagreed and unacceptable changes and imposing these by taking ‘executive action’ in many locations across the country.
The approach taken by Royal Mail will have a dramatic and long-term damaging impact on your terms and conditions and working life.
Royal Mail’s position is that they have decided that they cannot wait to deploy these unagreed changes, this is despite the union offering the company a sensible period of calm in order to create the right environment for talks and to get into joint detailed discussions and to address all of the issues contained within the dispute.
Given that Royal Mail’s public position is that they want to work with the union, by pushing on with unagreed changes, their actions clearly demonstrate the plain fact of the matter that they do not.
There are many vital issues on which we need to reach agreement with the company and, despite their stage-managed and hollow rhetoric in messages delivered to you through videos with actors and ‘plastic’ senior managers, they are refusing to get around the table in any meaningful way.
In fact, this is something they have not been prepared to do now for over a year – Royal Mail’s position is a complete sham.
These are some of the issues that face us all in the
coming months and years ahead, issues that desperately need a joint solution – not a management-only plan that, in our view, is inept and short term.
Royal Mail’s current position is designed just to meet shareholder demands and profi t targets which will place the company into jeopardy both in the medium and longer term. We must therefore challenge Royal Mail’s plans if the UK-wide public service our members provide is to be protected and enhanced.
Royal Mail must also use the strength of the six-day USO, and its unique scale and reach, to capture the commercial and growth opportunities available, also with more locally developed products and services building on our members’ place and role within their communities".
Part2 to follow......

DerekR and Teslo, it could also be argued that RM has gained very little or nothing from privatisation over the last 6 years and 4 months.

Teslo, RB has over 1.2m shares. He has already reduced the dividend by a third which will have cost him personally so I can't see him reducing it further.

DerekR, I agree with your last post. There are some members of this forum who are statisticians but in the main it's employees, ex employees and long term holders most of whom are attracted to the generous dividend payment which in many cases yeilds several times more than the banks are offering in interest.

This was and will continue to be a black mark in both the government's and the Post Office's book.
So much denial by both PO and government and so much compensation owed to those affected despite knowing that it was a flawed system since inception.

Fruitster, I think that it's the following statement which is causing the CWU to call foul;
"Given the commitment demonstrated by this agreement it is agreed that both parties will enter into a joint review during 2019 which is overseen by a jointly agreed independent chair and is based on the approach for the review set out in the Agenda for Growth . Any adjustments agreed as necessary coming out of the review will not be implemented until October 2020. It would then be the intention to refresh the Legally Binding Agreement with any agreed amendments to 2022, with scheduled reviews thereafter".
It would appear that this fall's within the boundary of the legally binding agreement as stated in the Four Pillars Agreement?
Reading it again, it looks as though RB may have deliberately created a situation that caused any legally binding agreement to fail in which case I would have thought that the CWU would have been all over it?

Fruitster, following on from yesterday's conversation. Section 20 of the Four Pillars Agreement states;
20. Legally Binding Agreements
In 2014 RMG and CWU made a new agreement, the Agenda for Growth. This agreement describes itself as:-
This is a ground breaking agreement which for the first time in the UK incorporates unique legal elements into a collective agreement demonstrating our joint commitment to delivering long term success in the interests of customers, employees and the company.
By entering into this CWU were seeking confidence in future job security for its members. In turn, by providing that security RMG were seeking to ensure it became possible to have conversations on every aspect of business and change to maximise on opportunities and not discount potential growth without first having a proper dialogue.
This remains vital to the agreement remaining live and relevant in an ever changing marketplace, where dynamic changes may force us to jointly re-evaluate our ways of working and customer offerings. It remains the aim of both parties to meet these two  objectives, giving confidence to our people and confidence to the business that considered and discussed change is at the heart of the relationship to support growth and protect the current business and jobs.
Given the commitment demonstrated by this agreement it is agreed that both parties will enter into a joint review during 2019 which is overseen by a jointly agreed independent chair and is based on the approach for the review set out in the Agenda for Growth . Any adjustments agreed as necessary coming out of the review will not be implemented until October 2020. It would then be the intention to refresh the Legally Binding Agreement with any agreed amendments to 2022, with scheduled reviews thereafter.

Scampthedog, with regard to your earlier 17:05 post, I can confirm that I am a member of the CWU and have been since 1979. Having said that, I do not necessarily agree that TP or DW handle some issues in a manner that befits their position, nor do I believe everything that the RM propaganda machine spouts but I prefer to listen to both sides and draw my own conclusions.

Fruitster, you are probably correct. In which case the whole document needs shredding and starting from the beginning as if one part is incorrect then the rest of the agreement will probably fail.
The main issue is that setting up a new agreement will be a long protracted affair. In the meantime the previous agreements will come back into force and Rico's new plans will automatically be opposed and go to disagreement as they will not align to the previous agreements.
RM and CWU have agreements going back many years. They have never been amalgamated into one comprehensive staff handbook and are notoriously difficult to follow at the best of times as operational grades and rules have seen merged or dissolved. In summary it's a mess and I suspect that the CWU like it that way as it plays nicely for them.

Fruitster, the SWW forum review team were sacked before they could get started.
I think that Moya Green signed off on the whole thing knowing that it was doomed to failure and that she was going to retire. It was her last hoorah and she didn't mind leaving the mess for RB to pick up. Obviously RB saw this coming as he had been a board member for many years (which is why I objected to his massive £6m "golden welcome") and decided to cut the ties.

My biggest complaint is that when RB took over as CEO he disposed of anyone in the senior management team that had worked on the Four Pillars Agreement so that "The shorter working week forum will review progress for plans to achieve the above objectives, ensuring they are on track and put corrective actions in place where not" could not be achieved as the management team was no longer in place to see this through.

Fruitster, I have just scanned through the Four Pillars Agreement document.
I can't see anything that says the second hour is legally binding but there are references such as;
"A further hour will be linked to the 2019 pay review as detailed in the pay section of this agreement".
The pay section states;
"A further reduction of 1 hour in the working week to be introduced from the 1st October 2019, the funding formula for the hour will include a joint evaluation of inflation as of the 1st April 2019, any implementation of changes from the trials, in sections 14 and 15 of this agreement, on-going efficiency, and other operational and technological changes). The shorter working week forum will review progress for plans to achieve the above objectives, ensuring they are on track and put corrective actions in place where not.
• The next pay review date will be 1st April 2020".
Sections 14 & 15 relate to changes to the operational pipeline.