Royal Mail Fleet resourcing agreement – ‘will help us bring work back’

Postal June 4 2021

Friday 4th June 2021

Acting assistant secretary Carl Maden tells CWU News about a positive new deal on technical staffing levels…

“When we met with Fleet management to put in place our shorter working week and revision process – in accordance with the national Pathway to Change agreement – we found we didn’t have an accurate measure of the total Fleet workload,” Carl explains.

“This was of critical importance, as staffing/headcount, recruitment, training and our overall organisation are all geared towards improving the service Fleet provides to the core Royal Mail operation.

“And the shorter working week needs to be implemented and deployed with this aspiration front and centre.”

After some considerable work done jointly with Fleet management, Carl and his CWU negotiating team discovered the extent of outsourced work being carried out by third-party contractors was much higher than had initially been estimated and therefore, a considerable amount of work which can be brought back in house, which will sustain jobs.

There is also scope for significant cost savings and a better service – by performing this work back in-house.

“Through a detailed analysis of the data, it does seem the outsourcing of our work had become far too prevalent,” Carl continues, “and now we have agreed criteria and transparency in terms of workload and headcount data, we can accurately calculate the staffing numbers we need within Fleet.”

Carl Maden

The first conclusion which has been drawn from this is there is now clearly no need for a reduction in staffing numbers – as had been proposed last November.

“This on its own is very good news. However, even better, there is now the potential for recruitment,” points out the acting assistant secretary.

“We can now start working on the revisions which will have the benefit of the shorter working week and also include bringing work back in-house on a planned and logical basis, which will ensure we also improve our service to Royal Mail Group, as well as planning ahead for the extra training that will be required for the future ‘green agenda’ aspiration.”

A joint training session is to be held next week (June 9), at which Fleet territorial reps and their managerial counterparts will be trained in the jointly agreed resourcing methods, which will form the basis of the operational revision activity within Fleet.

Carl concludes: “It’s great to have been able to reach this agreement, which will help us bring work back in-house, and also fantastic to work together on mutual interest solutions for a brighter Fleet future.”