Not quite such an early start

This morning I paid my annual pre-Christmas visit to sorting offices in Thornbury and in Yate in my constituency. I've always admired the folk who deliver our post for getting up so early in the morning and going out in all kinds of weather, so it's the least I can do to say thank you in person at this time of year. (Photo shows me with Phil Lear at the Yate sorting office this morning - people assume that all our post is sorted by machine, but the final sort is very much a manual process, as you can see!)

This year was a bit different, because the Royal Mail said there was no point going in until about 0715. Reason being that because the mail is not arriving at the major sorting offices until later it is not getting out to the local sorting offices until later in the morning. I imagined that people would be glad of an extra hour in bed (I know I would) but most people didn't like the new hours. Many said they had spent years getting up very early and preferred to rise early and finish early. They also pointed out that going out later in the day means more getting stuck in traffic and homes and businesses getting their post later.

Two other issues came up as I went round chatting. One was the real resentment about the way that competitors like TNT can handle bulk mail and get the profitable work, but then hand it back to the Royal Mail for the most expensive 'final mile' up to people's front doors. There was not much sympathy that it was allegedly TNT who lost the Government's child benefit data discs.

The other issue was the Royal Mail pension scheme. The story seems to be that in the good years the company took a contributions 'holiday' but now there is a huge hole in the scheme so money is being poured into the pension scheme which puts the business under even greater financial pressure. As a result there are plans to change pension benefits to the detriment of long-serving workers, which seems especially unfair. I recognise that pension scheme rules sometimes need to change, but it is never right to change them for those who are approaching retirement and have built their retirement planning on the basis of one set of rules.