Postal workers vote for national strike

TurkishDelight

LeeSouthEast wrote: »

I SUPPORT MY POSTIES.

I do not support RM, or not getting my mail. Catch-22 for the public and the workers it seems.

I agree.

While I wish the posties luck, I don't think that strikes will make any difference to royal mails descisions, and the only people affected are the users and the posties themselves.

fiish

I hope the posties are successful in getting their point across.

RM are really pinned between a rock and a hard place though. A crippling pension liability, competitors who have taken away all the most profitable deliveries and the universal service obligation... I would not want to be the person running this outfit right now.

Hopefully the disruption won't be too long though - it would damage RM's reliability reputation significantly as it is.

Lakeuk

I'm not surprised the unions/possible strikers are not getting much support from the public when you get reports like on tonights ITV News at Ten that reported on the top 2 reasons for the strike.

1 Not being allowed to finish early if you complete your round. Don't see anything wrong in this, you get paid for a days work so do a days work.

2 Against RM bring in a software to workout best routes to fit in with shifts. Don't see anything wrong with this, it'll be a good aid, there will be situations where it won't be accurate because it can't take into account certain conditions and thats when management should step and adjustments but make sure the postmans time is fully occupide

custardy

Lakeuk wrote: »

I'm not surprised the unions/possible strikers are not getting much support from the public when you get reports like on tonights ITV News at Ten that reported on the top 2 reasons for the strike.

1 Not being allowed to finish early if you complete your round. Don't see anything wrong in this, you get paid for a days work so do a days work.

2 Against RM bring in a software to workout best routes to fit in with shifts. Don't see anything wrong with this, it'll be a good aid, there will be situations where it won't be accurate because it can't take into account certain conditions and thats when management should step and adjustments but make sure the postmans time is fully occupide

1 funny i watched the same thing and got a different view
managers brought in job & finish so now they talk about it like its an evil postie creation
the argument is how long a duty takes given the management are saying you can do X,y,z on top of your duty before you even leave the office
this is the crux
they are adding onto peoples dutys saying the will be finished early.quite a difference

2 lol this is fun.as someone who has had their whole office georouted
the walks are not even regardless of what they state of the software
already we have most duties unachievable on a day to day basis
many factors are not taken into account or not programmed in properly
a great starting point on my own duty is im allocated 5 minutes to get to my duty,it takes 20 minutes
software of this type is only as good as the data being inputted
according to RM (regardless of the above) I still have spare time for 'absorbtion' this is the mindset of RM

amcluesent

I can't be unique in that most of what would have once come by post (utility bills, bank/CC statements etc) now comes via e-mail. The fact is postal volumes are dropping 10% per year.

However, with the growth in Internet shopping, I am getting far more parcels and packets, and subscribing to Amazon Prime means I get these by CityLink. But the eBay stuff and other suppliers comes by Royal Mail.

Why can't the PO recognise this and have evening parcel deliveries? When I've got to the sorting office at 6pm there are queues of carded peeps quite literally out the door and the staff on the desk are run ragged. I've now have to fork out for Parcel Safe on the wall to stop the delivery people taking parcel back to the depot.

The reality is that a post service geared up for first class letters before 10am isn't what I want or need. The posties are trying to pretend we're still in the 1970s.

peter_the_piper

Having listened to reports on both sides of the dispute there seem to be right and wrong on each. The only known conclusion is that the Royal mail will suffer, more will be sent by other means and the governments aim of destroying thr Royal Mail (as a government business) will be acheived and they will flog it off to anyone who will offer them a fiver. The bosses and union bosses should be locked in a room and not allowed out until its sorted. You can bet the main losers will be a) the public and b) the posties. The executives and union heiracy will still get their high wages and any bonuses.

custardy

amcluesent wrote: »

I can't be unique in that most of what would have once come by post (utility bills, bank/CC statements etc) now comes via e-mail. The fact is postal volumes are dropping 10% per year.

However, with the growth in Internet shopping, I am getting far more parcels and packets, and subscribing to Amazon Prime means I get these by CityLink. But the eBay stuff and other suppliers comes by Royal Mail.

Why can't the PO recognise this and have evening parcel deliveries? When I've got to the sorting office at 6pm there are queues of carded peeps quite literally out the door and the staff on the desk are run ragged. I've now have to fork out for Parcel Safe on the wall to stop the delivery people taking parcel back to the depot.

The reality is that a post service geared up for first class letters before 10am isn't what I want or need. The posties are trying to pretend we're still in the 1970s.

and where does that figure come from?
evening parcel deliveries have been mooted however given RM are tied by the USO for thier delivery times with would require a whole seperate delivery set up.
people moan now at getting their post at 2pm

you see what suits you doesnt suit everyone

amcluesent

>and where does that figure come from?<

Posties’ choice: modernisation or privatisation

"This strike is a kamikaze action in a business where volumes are falling by 10 per cent a year."

Hintza

In all the coverage of a possible Labour revolt over Lord Mandelson’s plans to sell off a third of Royal Mail, everyone seems to have forgotten the report from his department last year explaining why our postal service is facing an unprecedented financial crisis. It is no accident that the likely bidders are a Dutch firm, TNT, and a German company, DHL.

The report made clear that the chief cause of Royal Mail’s huge losses was Britain’s keenness to comply with three EU postal services directives, designed to end national postal monopolies by 2010 and to promote “cross-border” integration of the EU’s postal services. As a result Royal Mail had to surrender the most profitable part of its operations, when bulk business mailing was opened up to rival firms. It still has to deliver business mail, for a knock-down price of 14p an item, while the 19 companies that bid successfully for the business of collecting and sorting them cream off all the profits.

This was a major factor turning Royal Mail’s profits into a £179 million annual loss. Driven into desperate cost-cutting exercises, it drastically reduced post-box collections and ended those on Sunday altogether, while making vain attempts to raise revenue, such as its mad “size and weight” pricing scheme. But then EU law kicked in a second time, when our Government was not allowed to make up the resulting deficit under EU state-aid rules.

This was why Nigel Stapleton, head of Postcomm, suggested last year that the only way round the state-aid rules was to part-privatise Royal Mail, thus allowing it to borrow on the open market. No one knows all this better than the great Europhile Lord Mandelson. But it still raises the question as to who would want to invest in a business which EU rules force to run at a loss. The other mystery, of course, is why, in all the coverage given to this vexed issue, no one will explain why it is happening.

By Christopher Booker
Published: 8:46AM GMT 01 Mar 2009

^!£$&

Well I support the posties,
I know what its like to be in a Job where your workload is constantly increased, whilst staff are being let go, your told theres no money for pay rises yet the bigs wigs get bonuses for your hard work!
Good Luck to the Posties I say!!