Felixstowe Docks in trouble?

Vinegartits

mewbie wrote: »

This is a quote from your dear leader...

Chief operating officer David Gledhill said: “The volume of cargo we expect to lose this year is equivalent to losing a fairly significant customer and that is something we cannot just take on the chin.

“What we are absolutely determined not to do is to have wholesale redundancies.

“What we are asking the troops today is to take some changes to their terms and conditions so we can avoid redundancies.”

“The message we are trying to convey is there is some short-term pain and we have not taken these decisions lightly.”

Mewbie, this is a front page article and I know the gentleman responsible, he is hardly some Fleet Street hack so in my opinion the article is correct and Pickles is, as usual, trying to talk down the negative and talk up the positive. Be kind and allow Pickles his fear and denial, it is after all the only thing he has to cling to; these are terrible times for our region and as we have been moving towards this point for some time, the pressure on the dock workers must be huge.

Further redundancies have not been ruled out and for the workers affected this alone must be terrifying so I am asking you to back off a little - I don't have the right to tell you to be nice and I would not presume to but I feel I can ask you to show some compassion.

mewbie_2

Vinegartits wrote: »

I don't have the right to tell you to be nice and I would not presume to but I feel I can ask you to show some compassion.

I hear where you are coming form and for 99% of people I would indeed feel compassion. But Pickles has misled me from day one with his stories ranging from "BTL is booming" through to the one subject he might have offered useful anecdotal on ie. the Port. I suggested months ago that surely business must be dropping, surely there were early warning signs - but no.

At the same time he was pumping up the property market he was also claiming that the Port was moving from strength to strength.

I am truly sorry for 2,499 of those 2,500 workers. I don't like being fed a load of bull.

Vinegartits

mewbie wrote: »

I hear where you are coming form and for 99% of people I would indeed feel compassion. But Pickles has misled me from day one with his stories ranging from "BTL is booming" through to the one subject he might have offered useful anecdotal on ie. the Port. I suggested months ago that surely business must be dropping, surely there were early warning signs - but no.

At the same time he was pumping up the property market he was also claiming that the Port was moving from strength to strength.

I am truly sorry for 2,499 of those 2,500 workers. I don't like being fed a load of bull.

Agreed, Pickles is a piece of work who takes delight in alienating half the board and infuriating the other half (I admit to having him on ignore, unfortunately people keep quoting him!) but he, and Jetski and others lest we forget, are undoubtedly suffering at the moment and I for one am trying to understand that perhaps the behaviour we are seeing on here is just one man's way of coping with unbearable pressure. He has admitted to huge debts and presumably counted on that full salary to service those debts; I am sure you can at least imagine how he must be feeling facing losing 10% or more of that salary, can you not find it within yourself to forgive and forget?

pickles110564

Vinegartits wrote: »

Mewbie, this is a front page article and I know the gentleman responsible, he is hardly some Fleet Street hack so in my opinion the article is correct and Pickles is, as usual, trying to talk down the negative and talk up the positive.
Yes you are right your opinion and as always you do not have the facts.
Be kind and allow Pickles his fear and denial, it is after all the only thing he has to cling to; these are terrible times for our region and as we have been moving towards this point for some time, the pressure on the dock workers must be huge.
Of course we will all at this moment in time miss the overtime and the other supplements. But like I have said before it is small change compared to people losing their jobs.
Further redundancies have not been ruled out and for the workers
WRONG, none for the hourly paid.
affected this alone must be terrifying so I am asking you to back off a little - I don't have the right to tell you to be nice and I would not presume to but I feel I can ask you to show some compassion.

Like all of the Port Workers we have a copy of the original letter and it states it once all these changes are implemented there will be no hourly paid redundencies.
Please get your facts straight and stop rummor mongering, that paper has always like you tried to make something out of nothing to sell its crappy rag.

mewbie_2

pickles110564 wrote: »

Like all of the Port Workers we have a copy of the original letter...

Not that I don't believe you but do you want to scan it like you did the Coventry BTL letter? Then we, the jury, can decide whether the article bears any relation to the truth.

pickles110564

mewbie wrote: »

But Pickles has misled me from day one with his stories ranging from "BTL is booming" through to the one subject he might have offered useful anecdotal on ie. the Port. I suggested months ago that surely business must be dropping, surely there were early warning signs - but no.

At the same time he was pumping up the property market he was also claiming that the Port was moving from strength to strength.

I am truly sorry for 2,499 of those 2,500 workers. I don't like being fed a load of bull.

1) you have not even got the right amount of people that work at the Port.
2) I was correct in saying that the Port is moving from strength to strengh and contracts were signed with major customers and that the PORT is still going ahead with the major expansion while every other Port in this country has stopped.
3) I have never said that BTL is booming but at the time I had never had any problems with Renting out any of my properties, However I was the first to admit at the begining of January that rental prices were being pushed downwards and gave you the %cuts I myself had been hit with.
4) I feel that the PORT has done far more than other company's in ensuring that they have not had to make any hourly paid redundencies. Unlike of course of Major Competitor Southampton Port who has shed over 120 jobs already.

pickles110564

fatpig wrote: »

What are you gonna do pickles if you get the sack? Become the UK's oldest rentboy?

I will try to find another job just like evryone else.

pickles110564

mewbie wrote: »

Not that I don't believe you but do you want to scan it like you did the Coventry BTL letter? Then we, the jury, can decide whether the article bears any relation to the truth.

Mewbie, for this once you know that I am not allowed to publish the letter as it is copyrighted.

pickles110564

mewbie wrote: »

Not that I don't believe you but do you want to scan it like you did the Coventry BTL letter?

Mewbie, thanx for this as Fungus does not believe that I did that.

Vinegartits

mewbie wrote: »

Not that I don't believe you but do you want to scan it like you did the Coventry BTL letter? Then we, the jury, can decide whether the article bears any relation to the truth.

So panic over! Pickles has a piece of paper saying there will be no further redundancies which of course will be honoured. We must try to forget that when the dockers were told before Christmas that there would be no redundancies, within weeks there were 200 of them.