No.066/2017

2ndFebruary 2017

RM Uniform Talks Update – Conference Policies

Dear Colleague,

Further to previous updates to Branches regarding Uniform Talks and the pursuance of the following motions which have been endorsed as policies, in relation to Uniform provision via Annual Conference.

2015 – Motion 80 CATEGORY A:

This Conference may be aware that in Royal Mail the delivery walks are getting longer and the pressure on your feet becomes even more demanding in terms of wear and tear. It is not unusual to be on your feet for 5 hours at a time, maybe even longer both inside and outside.

Plantar fasciitis is common around 1 in 10 people will get plantar fasciitis at some time in their life.

This Conference believes that the footwear provided by Royal Mail is not up to standard and certainly does not take on board health issues linked to feet.

This Conference instructs the Postal Executive that the provision of suitable footwear of all sizes is considered to help alleviate foot health issues.

Disability Conference

2016 – Motion115 CATEGORY A: This Conference recognises the ever growing demands on members within deliveries and the prospect of longer delivery spans in the future from proposed business plans.

Conference recognises member’s footwear issues are causing problems such as plantar fasciitis, along with other feet problems which also cause both skeletal and muscular issues. Furthermore, there are also issues with replacing footwear.

The Postal Executive is therefore instructed to take the following action:

  • Liaise with Royal Mail to look at providing a range of correctly supportive footwear, and to seek professional advice from podiatrists taking into account the demands of the job our members do.
  • Seek an agreement with Royal Mail to make ordering replacement footwear an easier process based around conditions of footwear and less about predetermined timescales.

Gwent Amal

South West Wales Amal

2016 – Motion 124 CATEGORY A: This Conference instructs the Postal Executive to reach an agreement with Royal Mail to ensure new entrants who will be working outside are provided with access to waterproof/storm proof uniform at the start of their employment. Currently new employees are only provided with basic uniform, which offers no protection in poor weather conditions from the elements. The six week period new entrants need to wait for this protective clothing is putting them at risk, so alternative provisions must be made.

South Central Postal

As a resultmeetings have been taking place with Royal Mail in order to achieve and activate the above within the current Uniform provision.

However, in pursing the above Royal Mail have advised the Union that they would wish to change the entitlement/replenishment of certain products from the uniform range, which in essence is to change the criteria for Trousers, Shirts and Footwear of which an example is:

Provide an initial entitlement of 3 pairs of Bottoms (shorts or trousers) and 5 Tops (short/long sleeve shirt and polo shirt). After which, entitlement will change to 1 bottom and 2 Tops per year (please see attachment and example below).

Example - Trousers / Initial / Yr1 / Yr2 / Yr3 / Yr4 / Yr5 / Yr6
Current state / 3 / 0 / 3 / 0 / 3 / 0 / 3
Proposal / 3 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1

Footwear entitlement would change from 2 pairs every year, to 1 pair every 6 months.

In addition the proposal is to change the way uniform is ordered moving away from OPG ordering and the 2 or 3 year automatic entitlement, and introducing a “replace when worn or damaged only” ordering process instead.

As a result of the proposal the department has requested further information from Royal Mail linked to the previous data of uniform ordering for each item to enable the proposal to be considered in more detail and this will be subject to further meetings in due course.

Finally, discussions also took place regarding updating the current National Uniform Agreement which is several years old and given the length of time elapsed since it was agreed, requires a review and these talks will enable this to form part of the overall discussions in order to pursue our conference policies.

Any queries to the content of the above please contact the Outdoor Department reference 530

Email address:

Yours Sincerely,

Mark Baulch

CWU A/Assistant Secretary