VISIT TO ROYAL MAIL LONDON ( STUDY TOUR OF UNION REPRESENTATIVES TO THE ROYAL MAIL)

Department of Posts has deputed a ten (10) member delegation led by Sri. A. K. Sharma, Dy. Director General (Establishment) to united kingdom to visit Royal Mail Groups Automated Mail/Parcel processing facilities for five days from 18th to 22nd October 2010. The following are the other nine members:
1. Shri Subhash Chander, Director (SR & Legal), Department of Posts, New Delhi
2. Com. M. Krishnan, Secretary General, NFPE
3. Com. K. V. Sridharan, General Secretary, AIPEU Group 'C' (NFPE)
4. Com. Giri Raj Singh, General Secretary, AIRMS & MMS EU Group – C (NFPE)
5. Com. Ishwar Singh Dabas, General Secretary, AIPEU Postmen & MSEs (NFPE)
6. Com. P. Suresh, General Secretary, AIRMS & MMS EU MG & MSEs (NFPE)
7. Shri. D. Kishan Rao, General Secretary, NAPE Group 'C' (FNPO)
8. Shri. T. N. Rahate, General Secretary, NUPE Postmen & MSE (FNPO)
9. Shri. A. H. Siddque, General Secretary, NURMS & MMS MG & Group 'D' (FNPO)

The Tour commenced from Delhi on 17.10.2010 and reached London 17.10.2010.
The main Agenda for the visit to Royal Mail from 18th to 22nd included the following:
1. Introduction to the week by Mr. Stan Kozlowski, the Head of British Postal Consultancy Services (BPCS).
2. Introduction to Royal Mail Group by Mr. Stan Kozlowski
3. Presentation on World Postal Environment by Mr. Stan Kozlowski.
4. Presentation on Post office counter Transformation by Mr. Stans Kozlowski
5. Visit to city of London Post office – Paul Gardner
6. Presentation on Journey of a letter – Mr. Stan Kozlowski & the Mail Centre Manager, Royal Mails.
7. Tour of Mail Centre.
8. Overview of ParcelForce World Wide – David Breez, Head of International operations, Royal Mails.
9. Tour of the International Hub and visit to National Hub.
10. Meeting with Communication Workers Union Representatives Mr. Peter Donaghy & Mr. Carl Madess.
11. Visit to West London Delivery office – Mr. Arrane Byne & Mr. Frances Conroy.
12. Presentation on Royal Mails operation Transformation – Mr. Dave Briggs, Packet Pipeline Design Manager, Royal Mails.
13. Tour to Princess Royal Delivery Centre (PRDC)
14. Presentation on UK Regulation Liberalisation – Mr. Stan Kozlowski.
15. Presentation on Revenue Protection – Mr. Stan Kozlowski
16. Presentation on Royal Mail Automation programme – Mr. Stan Kozlowski
17. Discussions on the week and Summary – Stan Kozlowski
On completion of the one week training programme individual certificate has been issued to all delegates by Royal Mail Group.
Royal Mail is the National Postal Service of United kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings Plc own Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the following brands:
(a) Royal Mail (UK Letters
(b) Parcel Force Worldwide (UK Parcels)
(c) General Logistic Systems
(d) "Post office Ltd" which provides counter services, is a wholly owned subsidiary.

Royal Mail Holdings is a public limited company. Royal Mail is responsible for universal collection and delivery in the UK. Royal Mail delivers 33 million items every working day, 71 million items handled daily, and had a network of 11905 post offices, 1, 1600 post boxes, 450000 collection centres, 37 million delivery points, 33000 vehicles & 29 Aircrafts & 27000 bi-cycles. Total number of workforce is 1,68000 which includes regular contracts and casual workers. 70% of the workforce is delivery staff. For the financial year 2008-2009 Royal Mail had an operating profit of 321 million pounds, with all four group businesses running on profit.
In UK, Postal Sector reforms and liberalization started in the year 2006 three years ahead of other Europeon countries. Royal Mail lost its monopoly and competitors are licenced to carry mail and pass it to Royal Mail for delivery. Delivery is exclusively done by Royal Mail. There are currently fifty (50) Licenced Mail operators including Royal Mail. Royal Mail claims a market share of 75%. There is only one delivery each day. Delivery of letters, Delivery of parcels and operating post offices are separately done in different places (centres). Universal service obligation (USO) is applicable to Royal Mail only. USO Loss for 2009-2010 is 100 million pounds. No subsidy is given by Government to meet USO obligation. Tarrif is fixed by the Postal Regulator called Post comm..All the centres – Post office, Parcel force and Letters – are fully computerized and automated. Fully automated mail/parcel processing facilities are provided for sorting of articles and also for Postmen beat sorting. The letter sorting machine has a maximum capacity of sorting 40000 letters per hour.
The Royal Mails motto is "a commercial business with a social purpose" and "Quality first and value for the money & security". It is told that the reforms & liberalization has resulted in more efficiency, better service standards, competition, stimulating innovation, reducing prices, quality raising, choice to the public and level playing field for all competitors (players). Royal Mails borrowed 1.2 billion pounds to invest on transforming their operations, which includes further induction of latest technologies in the automation programme.
The UK Government is proposing to further intensify the Postal reforms which includes the privatization of letter mail services, closure of 2500 Post offices in the name of network transformation.

The meeting with the Communication Workers Union (CWU) Representatives was most informative and cordial.
The CWU, the only one union in the Royal Mail, was formed on 26th January 1995 as the result of a merger between National Communications Union (NCU) and the Union of Communication Workers (UCW). The CWU is the sixth largest Union in Britain. The management and functioning of the union is in a most democratic manner. For calling an industrial action (strike) strike ballot is compulsory. 51% should vote for the strike. Annual conferences are held at all level. Election of office bearers are by secret ballot. CWU has 87 Postal branches & 73 Telecom Brnaches, Postal membership is 148597 and Telecom & Financial services membership is 74121. Total membership is 2,22718 (including Telecoms & Giro Bank). The last industrial action took place in the year of 2009. The CWU representatives made it clear that they strongly oppose any move of the Government to privatise the Royal Mail either by selling shares or by outright sale to other private Postal giants. Wage revision is done every year though negotiations.

The workers of the Royal Mail have full political freedom and the CWU leadership at present is joining hands with British Labour Party. Members can have their own political freedom to join any party of their choice.
It is worth mentioning here, that the Royal Mails pays maximum attention for customer satisfaction and is very much concerned with the quality and security of services. Premises of all the centres are kept neat and tidy and state of the art facilities are provided to the public. While discharging the corporate social responsibility in a most commendable manner, they are equally concerned with Revenue protection. Every safeguard is taken to prevent revenue leakage and they are updating the technology for preventing revenue leakage.
In short the visit to Royal Mail provided us an opportunity to understand the development that are taking place in the Postal Sector in a most advanced and developed nation like Britain and especially in London. While opposing the unbridled reforms and liberalization, there are of course, certain positive aspects which are to be deliberated upon, before putting it into practice in our country.

The delegation had an opportunity to visit some important tourist attractions of city of London like Tower of London, London Eye etc. The delegation left for in India on 23rd October and reached New Delhi on 24th October 2010. The guidance given by the Leader of Team Sri. A. K. Sharma, DDG (Estt.) and Sri. Subash Chander, Director (SR & Legal) is to be worth mentioned.