IN MOST traditional workplaces, any new worker will usually hear those irrepressible words “this used to be a great job” — and nowhere is this truer than in Royal Mail.

When I first started in Royal Mail, the longest-serving worker in my delivery office was Willie Jackson. Jackson started as a postie in 1964 and retired in 2024, after nearly 60 years’ service. Jackson was a member of the CWU (and its predecessors) for the entirety of that time.

In workplaces with such a solid historical memory, you will always get a strong sense of perspective. This is inevitable for a number of reasons, nostalgia being one, but also in the case of Royal Mail, it has been driven by a very real sense that the job itself is no longer what it used to be.

One of the principal misconceptions out there is that the job is all “Postman Pat” riding round Greendale, drinking tea and having chats. A quaint, fulfilling and stress-free life.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The job of the modern postal worker is a punishing one. Before getting out onto the street, many work in buildings that are rapidly ageing, with less than adequate facilities. Kitchen and drying facilities have been massively reduced.

Gone are the early morning starts since Royal Mail ceased transporting mail by rail and air, meaning posties in geographically challenging areas (largely in Scotland) get their mail later than most.

You will have one day off in a six-day working week, meaning you will get one Saturday off every six weeks — and for new staff, you will also have to work Sundays; though, with inflation and a reduction in overtime opportunities, you will likely work your day off to make up the wage anyway.

Due to the nature of the universal service obligation, Royal Mail’s business concerns can override applications for days off and annual leave with very limited notice. There have been cases of workers applying for family weddings a year in advance and only getting final confirmation a week before.

This lack of flexibility is particularly chafing.

Previously, many posties in Scotland could fit in their work with the school run and with going to the football at the weekend or playing for a weekend sports team. Now, they have additional childcare costs during the week and struggle to finish on time for family or personal engagements.

At work, every minute of a postie’s day is subject to scrutiny and challenge.

As there is no exact formula for determining how much workload a postie can carry and the time it will take to deliver it, everything is subject to a battle of wills with the line manager — whose objective is to get you to carry as much as possible for as long as possible.

Needless to say, most people don’t want to turn up to work, day after day, to have a battle with their line manager, yet this is exactly what happens.

Once out on the street, the postie is monitored on their PDA to make sure they are working at 100 per cent efficiency, 100 per cent of the time. On the move constantly, outdoors, in all weathers, for four and five hours at a time, clocking up about 10 miles a day and carrying heavy loads — with no real guarantee of an exact finish time unless you want to argue further with your manager.

It is a constant physical and mental battle to push on to the finish. Any drop or deviation in efficiency, and you will be expected to make up any loss of time yourself. So, no time to chat with Mrs Goggins or get distracted. Many posties go home and simply collapse onto the couch, exhausted, which strips them of energy for leisure or family time, leaving only time for the brief recovery of doing it all again the next day.

Predictably, Royal Mail is facing a recruitment and retention crisis. An ageing workforce is being pushed to the brink, while a newer workforce, who face lower wages and lesser terms and conditions after Royal Mail unilaterally introduced a two-tier workforce in December 2022, do not find the job worth the pay or the hassle.

It does not have to be this way.

The CWU, in an ambitious, historic agreement with Royal Mail’s new owners EP Group, has achieved commitments to protect what is still a cherished public service by delivering a new delivery model, equalisation of terms and conditions between new employees and older ones, and future investment in the workforce and company, rather than the naked wealth extraction of the previous decade.

That being said, Royal Mail will still face an uphill battle when competing with non-union companies like Amazon, DPD, Evri and DHL, who still undercut services across the sector with a race to the bottom on jobs, wages and terms and conditions.

This is why it is more important than ever that the trade union movement is united in fighting for sectoral collective bargaining to level the playing field on the basis of wealth going into the pockets of workers, not multinational shareholders, and building the decent jobs and services of the future.

We need a world of work where workers no longer hear “this used to be a great job” but instead can proudly say “this job is great again.”