Rotherham postal workers call for overtime to help ‘clear’ parcels as Royal Mail halts Saturday deliveries to ‘ease burden’

The anonymous worker claims that Royal Mail staff in Rotherham had been starting work at 5am – two hours earlier than scheduled – for the past month in order, and staying later than usual, following an increase in workload.

He told how staff had initially been paid overtime but were informed by bosses yesterday that this would no longer happen.

The move is said to have frustrated some workers at the Rotherham site.

“Most people take pride in their job and want to help customers," the worker said. “I do the same rounds most of the time, you get to know people and they ask ‘where’s my parcel? I ordered it two weeks ago’ and you know there’s nothing you can do.

“Staff are offering to do more work to get parcels out but Royal Mail won’t let us.

“The parcel traffic is equivalent to how it is as Christmas, we’ve been coming in earlier than normal and staying later, doing overtime, to clear as much as we could.”

Royal Mail announced it would also temporarily halt Saturday deliveries claiming the measure was a response to feedback from postmen and postwomen, though the postal workers' union said it opposed the move.

The company said the decision was made to help reduce the burden on its staff during the current crisis.

The Rotherham worker added: “Just pay the overtime and the burden will ease. People were giving up annual leave and rota days off to ease the burden. All they are doing is kicking the problem down the road, we’ll have double the mail on Monday so won’t be any better off.

A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “We have significantly increased the amount we spend on overtime. One of the many reasons we are temporarily no longer delivering letters on a Saturday is to reduce the strain on our hard-working colleagues.

“It is not appropriate to run on high levels of overtime for an extended period. This places too high a burden on individual members of staff.”

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