Four Pillars delivers working week reduction at MDECs

Postal July 3 2018

Nearly 400 MDEC workers this week became the first Royal Mail Group workers in the country to benefit from the shorter working week clause that the union won in the Four Pillars national agreement

Staff at Royal Mail’s three MDEC sites – Farnworth, Plymouth and Stoke – are in Week One of a 40-minute reduction to their weekly duty rosters without loss of pay, a change equivalent to an hourly rate increase of approximately 1.9 per cent.

CWU assistant secretary Andy Furey said that he was “delighted” that these members would be the first to benefit from this aspect of the new national agreement.

“It’s great that this group of hard-working members are benefitting from this reduction, with full-time MDEC keyers getting a 40-minute reduction in the working week, while their part-time colleagues are receiving the commensurate increase in their pay packets due to the enhanced hourly pay.”

The reason that the MDEC workers are the first to receive a shorter working week reduction arises from a clause within the Four Pillars agreement, which explained it in terms of the pay differential between MDEC workers and other grades and also on the basis of achieving jointly agreed efficiency of 950 gross tasks per hour (GTPH).

Andy went on to say “I’m pleased to see that our MDEC members are benefiting from achieving the increase in greater efficiency. This demonstrates that further reductions in the shorter working week are also within our grasp”.

• Under the Four Pillars agreement, a full hour is scheduled to be shaved off in October, again without loss of pay, and this will apply right across the business – subject to the criteria as set out in the Four Pillars agreement – and this will represent a value of a 2.8 per cent hourly rate rise.