Royal Mail losing 400 postal workers a week, says union
The CWU says more posties are leaving since a new delivery system was brought in, that it claims is not working in hundreds of offices.
**Royal Mail losing 400 postal workers a week, says union**
Around 400 postmen and women are leaving Royal Mail each week, according to the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which says the figure has risen since the company brought in a new delivery system earlier this year.
The CWU says the company had been losing about 330 postal staff a week from a workforce of 83,000 before it introduced DM26, which reorganised routes to improve delivery performance.
The union says the new system is failing in hundreds of offices, and BBC Your Voice has heard from staff warning of a "nightmare" Christmas ahead as parcel volumes rise.
Royal Mail says the changes are part of its plan to provide a more "efficient and financially sustainable" service.
The system allows second class post to be delivered only every other weekday, and is meant to ensure first class mail and parcels are delivered daily by grouping workers into threes and altering the walking pattern of rounds.
But posties speaking anonymously to us say parcels are still being prioritised, letters are being left behind, and time is being wasted sorting and separating mail into first and second class.
"I didn't take any first class mail out on my last shift because I was on a road that's been behind for weeks," a worker in the West Midlands told me. "But I'm sure a manager would have ticked a box to say all first class mail went out."
A Royal Mail spokesperson said the company always worked to make sure all mail - both letters and parcels - was delivered on time.
Some postal workers we have spoken to say the new model is also adding to their workload.
We asked eight workers in different areas to record their average step counts. Since the changeover, all of them have increased by a quarter or even a third, often reaching around 25,000 steps a day.
Several fear this Christmas will be a "nightmare".
"We all think this Christmas will be the worst ever, for us and our customers," said one postman in the East Midlands.
Bryn Dymott delivered post in the village of Wootton in Bedfordshire for nine years. For the most part he loved the job. But he left the company in July, saying he could not face another "shambolic" Christmas.
"People put things in the post for them to be delivered, not for them to be delayed because Royal Mail hasn't got the systems in place and enough people to get them delivered."
Bryn says he wanted to speak out after leaving the company because he was sick of the fact that posties aren't able to say what's really happening.
He says the company is "proving it's impossible to have four people's work done by three people. It shouldn't really come as a surprise."
So far DM26 has been introduced in about 1,000 of Royal Mail's 1,200 delivery offices.
The CWU has now told its members to pause any further roll-out of the new system until a plan can be agreed with Royal Mail to deal with the problems.
The union says that while the system is working successfully in around 500 offices, it has encountered major problems in hundreds of others.
"Put simply, if a boat is already taking on water, adding more passengers is unlikely to solve the problem," says Martin Walsh of the CWU.
The union said most Royal Mail workers leaving the company were thought to be new starters on part-time contracts, but it also said there had been an increase in departures among staff on legacy contracts.
Royal Mail, meanwhile, says the new system is on course to be operating in all offices by Christmas.
It says the roll-out is 90% complete and that it is now delivering to "95% of addresses every day across the UK, up from 88% before the roll-out. The roll-out continues across our network and we expect quality of service to improve as deployment progresses."
The company says it is, as usual, hiring an extra 22,000 temporary workers over the Christmas period.
Royal Mail has faced growing competition and declining demand for letter deliveries in recent years, and last week announced plans to cut 2,500 head office and other support roles by the end of 2027.
The company has also faced years of criticism from politicians and the public over slow letter deliveries - an issue that has continued since the new system was introduced.
The regulator Ofcom has fined Royal Mail more than £37m over the past three years for missing delivery targets.
But some MPs believe a different approach is needed, and a group of them will meet the regulator later on Wednesday.
"We need to think outside the box," Dave Robertson, Labour MP for Lichfield, Burntwood and the Villages in Staffordshire.
"We need to bring as many people to the table on this to make sure we come up with a long-term solution because what's been tried up to now clearly isn't working."
An Ofcom spokesperson said that not only has it fined Royal Mail in recent years, but it has also required an improvement plan and changed the obligations placed on the company, adding: "We will continue to hold it to account using the full extent of the powers available to us."
Postal Services Minister Kate Dearden said Royal Mail's improvement plan was "a step in the right direction, but it must deliver tangible improvements for customers. We will continue to hold them to account on their performance."