Royal Mail Strikes

[RavenNight]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6926790.stm

<rant>
Is anyone else really annoyed by these Royal Mail strikes? They've just announced another two weeks of disruption! I've got several packages stuck in the system which were supposed to be with me last week!

I really don't understand why they're striking, what good does it do them? Their grievance appears to be that RM is modernising and needs new equipment to stay competitive. They object because they think this will mean job cuts. So they strike, which mean RM loses millions of pounds and annoys millions of customers and businesses who will go elsewhere, meaning they end up seriously damaging the company they work for and potentially losing jobs that way!

So if they don't strike, Royal Mail modernises, becomes more profitable, but some jobs go.

And if they do, Royal Mail can't be competitive and loses money, potentially killing the business and pushing customers onto alternative couriers.

</rant>

[YorkieBen]

i've got a mate who is a postie and he was saying there is more to it than that, apart from the crap pay offer they are trying to increase postman's workload, change working hours, pensions etc

posties dont exactly get paid the earth and imo the royal mail does a pretty good job. I dont mind strikes - yes it impacts on services but you should be getting pissed off at royal mail as well for taking the piss

[Dareos]

Ever worked for the Royal Mail? the conditions are hardly premium and the antisocial hours worked do not reflect the wages that the workers receive. As for the modernisation, noone likes to be told that they are losing their job to a machine, and the Royal Mail has one of the oldest and best organised uniions around, who look after their members well.

So you have a couple of parcels late? annoying I know, but this strike was announced well in advance and alternative arrangements could easily have been made by the sender of said parcels.

[chicken]

I've had the run down on this from a RM employee's girlfriend I work with. Apparently they have been selling off all the profitable parts of the company and are now using that as an excuse to claim the business isn't profitable enough so they want to put people on 30 hour weeks. Not being full time any more they stand to lose a lot, so they're striking in an effort to stop it going ahead.


Edit:

[DavidM]

Dareos: Yes, I did for a short while... the hours where a killer

[Dareos]

getting up at 4am doesnt agree with me David i worked there for a summer and while i enjoyed the banter (some of it left me unable to breathe for laughing) and the excersise, going to bed at 8pm when all my mates were at the pub or hanging out someplace killed me.

[DavidM]

Agreed

[redlight]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6926790.stm

<rant>
So if they don't strike, Royal Mail modernises, becomes more profitable, but some jobs go.
</rant>

Not some jobs. 40,000 is the figure and its not just about jobs its the loss of final salary pensions for all contributors not just new starts.
Its about imposed draconian work conditions,imposed under inflation pay rises tied to stupid new practices.
So before you start spouting off get your facts right they are defending Royal Mail.
Everybody is complaining about the mail service now. It will only get worse.
The workers were backed into a corner and left with no choice.
They have families to feed mortgages to pay just like everybody else.
Do you really think that they just went on strike for the hell of it?
So you are inconvienced by a delayed letter big deal they will be inconvienced by massive redundancies.
Same old argument a private company will take over.
No they wont they only want the profitable parts in large towns and cities not rural or outlying parts of the UK.
Typical Britain "I'm alright jack and sod anybody else"
We should be supporting them.

[redlight]

I've had the run down on this from a RM employee's girlfriend I work with. Apparently they have been selling off all the profitable parts of the company and are now using that as an excuse to claim the business isn't profitable enough so they want to put people on 30 hour weeks. Not being full time any more they stand to lose a lot, so they're striking in an effort to stop it going ahead.
]

That is correct and the reason they want a thirty hour week well conviently those are the hours you can claim maximum family tax credit so it will not have such an impact on a breadwinner.
So that should make it more palatable.

[RavenNight]

Thanks for filling me in, from reading the various reports in the media I didn't get the RM workers side of the story. I appreciate the plight of their workers, but is striking the best way to go about it? I think they'd garner more support by bundling fliers in with my mail etc.

[kalniel]

Agreed - I mean surely striking is only going to make things worse for them in the long run - more people going to competitors and so on?

[directhex]

i live in oxfordshire - it's an event for us when the posties aren't on strike

generally though, there's a simple root cause for the problems - royal mail is grossly under-priced compared to postal services globally

[redlight]

Thanks for filling me in, from reading the various reports in the media I didn't get the RM workers side of the story. I appreciate the plight of their workers, but is striking the best way to go about it? I think they'd garner more support by bundling fliers in with my mail etc.

Thanks for that.
The workers are not allowed to deliver fliers with the mail.
Maybe the union should have payed for leaflets explaining the situation.
To many people it looks like this strike has come out of the blue.
This has been negotiated for over two years and strike action has been the last resort the union has bent over backwards to avoid a strike but the management refuse to negoiate and the workere decided enough was enough.
Remember this was the worker decision after a ballot not a decision taken by the union.
They would not strike and put their homes and families at risk unless they were desperate.

[DavidM]

I think they'd garner more support by bundling fliers in with my mail etc.

Not really - have you seen the amount of junk mail they're asked to deliver?

[redlight]

I am an ex-postie with a pension from Royal Mail.
When I was asked to take early retirement due to ill health 10 years ago I bit their hand off as the writng was on the wall back then.
Royal Mail took a pension holiday of 11 years iirc and left the pension fund with a huge deficit and the is more central to what is going on. They are ploughing money back into the fund but it has to come from somewhere and that means massive cutbacks to cover this or the pension fund will collapse.
Royal Mail is not under priced RM makes a substantial profit but a huge share of this goes to central government and into the pension fund(which was also very healthy until RM took a very long holiday from its contributions).

[SilentDeath]

I work part time in a mail centre, and everyone is noticing big changes. The strikes are not about pay, but conditions. that said Im looking for another job anyway so I don't really care tooo much about the strikes -free unpaid holiday when we have the best sunny weather...

However with pay, we are getting 2.5&#37; vs inflation is 5%. RM kept quoting the union as wanting 27.5% but I think thats just marketing.

In the mail centres, we never seem to be more than a day or two behind, but I expect in the much smaller delivery offices it will have much more effect. Use special delivery if your worried, that wont be affected since it goes seperatly for most of the way.

Firstly, royal mail does acctually want to have strikes - they want to kill the union first, so they can do what they like, then get the regulator to relax all of the restrictions (of which they have a lot more than the competition).

Since this started a lot of the managers are treating people differently.
We are doing different work - rather than sorting, we have been moved to more manual tasks like tipping bags of mail. I now refuse to work in certain areas, becuase it involves the constant tipping of overwieght bags, that are held in huge containers, making it very bad for your back, especially when constantly pressured to work faster.

Not related to the strikes (there is some crappy national agreement that allows them to do this) but I was also not allowed more than 5 days of holiday left unbooked - this was 2 months ago, and they decided to book 3 weeks for me (which happened to be when they expected the strikes. To be awkward I had mine changed (after MUCH complaining) to the last weeks of novemeber - when it starts to get very busy. Annoyingly Im not allowed to have any holiday in december...


Just thoguth id add that royal mail are the most pathetic in terms of organisation. Ive been working over a YEAR, and they still havent given me a door pass for it. I had 3 photos taken for it in the first week, then after more complaining, I got another last week, but doubt it will ever arrive. This means I have a good excuse for being late every day - I couldnt get in the door.


RM have also spent a huge amount of money on plasma tv's, that sit on the wall and dont really do anything. These were bought to show a film made by the chairman, about the strikes and are in every resting area.
RM are happy to throw money at this while the union cant compete.





I understand that in deliverys, the situation is a lot worse, with workers being asked to use their own cars, change of hours, reduced pay...

Not really - have you seen the amount of junk mail they're asked to deliver?

That + business mail is where most of their profits are coming from. When I say business mail, you know the mail about competitions you have won &#163;&#163;&#163;&#163;&#163;&#163;&#163;&#163;&#163;&#163;&#163;&#163;&#163;&#163;&#163;&#163;&#16 3;&#163;&#163;&#163;&#163;&#163; type things - all scams, that's what I mean. You would think any decent company would try to prevent people getting scammed, but those people are not the big customers.