Unaddressed Admail – How Will The New Time Values Impact Your Route?

Last fall we ratified our program of demands which included demand #45 – “Obtain appropriate time values for unaddressed admail”. This is a fairly generalized demand and there were multiple resolutions from the regions that ranged from full time values instead of per piece payments to some time values and an increase in per piece payments. The National Executive Board and the negotiating committee had to determine how we would approach this complicated and complex demand.

Time Allowance

The changes to the time allowance will benefit many letter carrier routes. The current time allowance triggers after 3 complete sets per week. Under the new proposal the time allowance will trigger after 1.5 complete sets per week. A complete set is calculated by taking your total number of pieces of unaddressed admail delivered in a week and dividing it by the number of points of call on your route that receive admail.

For example: if you delivered 4750 pieces of admail in a week and you have 750 points of call on your route that receive admail, you would have 6.3 complete sets of unaddressed admail. Your daily householder preparation allowance is calculated using your points of call that receive householders. This route would receive a householder preparation allowance of 5 minutes per set per day, based on the LCRMS.

The first 1.5 sets are deducted from your total weekly sets. (6.3 sets – 1.5 sets X 5 minutes = 24.0 minutes per day).

Under the previous trigger this route would have received 16.5 minutes of prep time per day (6.3sets - 3 sets X 5 minutes = 16.5 minutes).

This is a gain of 7.5 minutes of inside prep time per day.

There are many routes that do not average over 3 complete sets of unaddressed admail per week, but do get more than 1.5 sets per week. These routes will now get a householder preparation allowance.

There is also an existing additional handling allowance for all householders exceeding 6 inches in width. We cannot predict the volumes of product over 6 inches in width but based on the market that Canada Post is targeting, we anticipate an increase. With the new dimensions, more routes will get this additional time allowance and routes that currently get this time allowance will see an increase.

We will see these time allowances increase as the new dimensions begin to be inducted into the delivery network after January 15, 2018. These time allowances will be updated every 6 months.

Per Piece Payments

To enable us to get additional preparation time allowances for unaddressed admail it was necessary to convert some of the per piece payments into time. While there is a reduction in the payment per piece, the overall impact will be reduced with the introduction of the new dimensions. The payment for 12” X 6” product will decrease from 2.3 cents to 1.5 cents per piece. The current 12” X  9” dimension will increase to 12” X 11” and the payment changes from 3.0 cents to 2.5 cents per piece. Currently, approximately 98% of the unaddressed admail that we deliver is in the 6” X 12” category. We anticipate that there will be a shift in this percentage and that there will be a greater percentage of product delivered that falls into the 12” X 11” category.

This shift in volumes to the larger dimensions will offset the change in the per piece payment. For example you may be delivering a retail store flyer today that is folded to meet the 12” X 6” dimension category and you are getting 2.3 cents per piece to deliver this flyer. Under the new system you will possibly receive this flyer unfolded and it will fall into the 12” X 11” category and you will receive 2.5 cents per piece to deliver this flyer. We cannot currently predict the volumes that will shift to the larger dimension category but we do know that it is the large retail stores that are the target market for these new dimensions.

Why New Dimensions?

Why did we agree to increase the dimensions and weights for unaddressed admail? In order to maintain our current wages, benefits and number of positions there needs to be growth opportunities for Canada Post. The two current markets that have growth opportunities are unaddressed admail and parcels. The new admail dimensions will increase time allowances for the preparation of unaddressed admail. The increased time allowances will shorten letter carrier routes by increasing inside time and reducing the number of points of call on a route. This will protect letter carrier positions. The new per piece payments, increased time allowance and larger dimensions will not be effective until January 15, 2018.