Royal Mail national strike looms for Christmas

custardy

Wookster wrote: »

It certainly seems that the Royal Mail staff will receive a lesson in free market economics: if you provide a poor service long enough, customers will desert you and you, leaving you with harder to fulfil business that no one else wants.

The striking workers need to be sacked and replaced with people ready to modernise and work as necessary.

heres another one,perhaps you will step up

exactly what is the modernisation?
am i getting an extra pair of hands?



and yes i do feel lucky

Generali

Wookster wrote: »

It certainly seems that the Royal Mail staff will receive a lesson in free market economics: if you provide a poor service long enough, customers will desert you and you, leaving you with harder to fulfil business that no one else wants.

The striking workers need to be sacked and replaced with people ready to modernise and work as necessary.

Ah but you miss the point about the Roal Mail. They're a Taxpayer owned company which means you can't make them redundant without the permission of the union.

The union can refuse to recognise the future of postal services as long as they want. The taxpayer will have to continue to pay for the resulting losses.

inspector_monkfish

is this a thread for all the most cantakerous old g!ts on MSE ?? :D

bo_drinker

I realise they have reasons and I am not bothered if they strike as I hate xmas so for me it really doesn't matter..
But I would have thought with the looming competition and the internet propping them up for the last 10 years they are shooting themselves in the foot. When it all goes pear shaped in the future and all the posties are not needed I wonder if they will feel so good then Just a thought.

bendix

custardy wrote: »

well i dont know,according to many the service was very good then?
if you think you will get a bite from me on these little snips then you wont.
QUOTE]

But that's the whole point custardy. I don't doubt for a minute that the service was better when you had 2-3 deliveries a day. Of course it was.

But those services don't exist now - and noone really cares - because the world has moved on. People bank electronically. They use emails and faxes. The service isnt so great now PRECISELY because the service is not needed anymore except in the examples other posters have educated me on.

Overall, though, the postal service hasn't gone into decline because Royal Mail wanted it to. It has gone into decline because the demand for its increasingly archaic services are no longer needed.

Year on year . . the march of progress is inexorable.

And that is precisely why very few people outside the postal service give a rat's a**e about the fight between RM management and RM staff, a fight which - rightly - will lead to the end of both sides. It's economic darwinism at its finest. A classic case study.

Generali

inspector_monkfish wrote: »

is this a thread for all the most cantakerous old g!ts on MSE ?? :D

Board not thread I think.

Apart from the pets one too of course, and the Arms, and probably all the other ones I can't be bothered to read...

On reflection, I think this is the internet for cantankerous old g i t s. Perhaps we should start up another internet for nice people.

bendix

bo_drinker wrote: »

I realise they have reasons and I am not bothered if they strike as I hate xmas so for me it really doesn't matter..
But I would have thought with the looming competition and the internet propping them up for the last 10 years they are shooting themselves in the foot. When it all goes pear shaped in the future and all the posties are not needed I wonder if they will feel so good then Just a thought.

Yeah . . what bo said, times two. It's a complete non-industrial confrontation between two sides who have nothing to do with the vast majority of people's day to day lives.

It's almost laughable.

bendix

Generali wrote: »

Perhaps we should start up another internet for nice people.

Am I invited?

custardy

bendix wrote: »

custardy wrote: »

well i dont know,according to many the service was very good then?
if you think you will get a bite from me on these little snips then you wont.
QUOTE]

But that's the whole point custardy. I don't doubt for a minute that the service was better when you had 2-3 deliveries a day. Of course it was.

But those services don't exist now - and noone really cares - because the world has moved on. People bank electronically. They use emails and faxes. The service isnt so great now PRECISELY because the service is not needed anymore except in the examples other posters have educated me on.

Overall, though, the postal service hasn't gone into decline because Royal Mail wanted it to. It has gone into decline because the demand for its increasingly archaic services are no longer needed.

Year on year . . the march of progress is inexorable.

And that is precisely why very few people outside the postal service give a rat's a**e about the fight between RM management and RM staff, a fight which - rightly - will lead to the end of both sides. It's economic darwinism at its finest. A classic case study.

lol year on year internet sales and packet traffic increase
you may not use the letter services but i can assure you there is still plenty of demand
how much official business do you do 100% via email?
infact look at ebay,they banned all digital delivery sales,no future in mail?
the service maybe changing but the problem is things are for want of a better phrase 'stuck'

RM are still tied to the USO 6 day a week service
the DSA system is flawed,the prices are too low and RM to easily undercut.
no company is going to start delivering when its far far cheaper to use RM
RM's answer is cost cut,cost cut & cost cut.
they dont care about the service ,they dont care about finding out from those in the service about what needs/could be done.

RM use flawed figures to justify cuts through the 10% a year drop in mail.
mandelson is creaming himself at privatising RM,since he failed the last time

on a side note,how the hell did he get back into play anyway

Out,_Vile_Jelly

bendix wrote: »

So let me see if I understand the massive impact a postal strike has on your job.

Ummmm. . . expense claims are a couple of days late.

Is that it? I agree, it's pretty mission critical. I feel for you.

No, the postal strikes in London have resulted in weeks of delays. Students don't usually have the financial cushioning to absorb delayed payments of three figure sums.

You obviously don't have daily dealings with RM- I am merely trying to give examples of how it is used, and how the alternatives aren't always practical.

I do think the strike is misguided and will not serve the postal workers at all in the long run.