About 400 postmen and women are leaving Royal Mail per week, according to the Communication Workers Union (CWU), who claims this number has gone up since the company introduced a new delivery system earlier this year. The CWU says the firm had been losing about 330 postal staff a week from a workforce of 83,000 before it rolled out DM26, which reorganised routes to improve delivery performance. The union claims the new system is not working in hundreds of offices, and BBC Your Voice has heard from staff warning of a "nightmare" Christmas ahead as the number of parcels increases.
Royal Mail says the reforms are part of its plan to deliver a more "efficient and financially sustainable" service. Over the last year we've been in touch with more than 30 postal staff in all four nations of the UK, as they have switched over to DM26. It allows for second class post to only be delivered every other weekday, and is supposed to guarantee first class mail and parcels are delivered every day, by putting workers into groups of three and changing the walking pattern of rounds.
But posties speaking to us anonymously say parcels are still being prioritised, letters left behind, and time wasted in sorting and dividing 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 ensure all mail - both letters and parcels - were delivered on time.
Only three-quarters of first class mail delivered on time Royal Mail letters sit undelivered 'for weeks' as parcels prioritised, staff say Some postal workers we've spoken to say the new model is also increasing their workload. We asked eight workers in different areas to track their average step counts. Since the switchover all their steps increased by a quarter or even a third, often up to 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 couldn't 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.
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