Post staff to hold national strikes (22+23 oct)

custardy

Smiffy74 wrote: »

hating the posties for their greed....

greed?.....

amcluesent

Postal strikes to go ahead as union workers raise funds for long haul

The three days of strikes, starting on Thursday at 4am, takes the national dispute into its second week with signs that both sides are preparing for a long haul. Unions including Unite, the country's largest, and Unison, the public sector union, have been organising "solidarity" payments to striking members of the Communications Workers Union.

They have paid thousands of pounds into a CWU fund to sustain postal workers through several more days without work.

mazza111

This isn't about pay...

Not for me anyway. Although a pay rise or more hours would have been nice. None of the posties want to see the service deteriorating any further in the hands of inept management

Of course the business needs modernising. But the way RM are going about it is all wrong. They are not putting in place what they said they would, and enforcing stuff that wasn't agreed.

cyberbob

BBC wrote:

"We had made huge progress with the help of the TUC when the CWU came back from their executive meeting with a whole new series of demands."

For their part, the CWU said they had tabled a new proposal earlier in the day, but as of 1800 GMT had not received a reply, so strikes had to take place.

"Had that proposal been agreed this would have enabled a period of calm and allowed further talks with Acas with the intention of concluding a full and final agreement," said deputy general secretary Dave Ward.

Doesn't really sound like the unions want an agreement

custardy

cyberbob wrote: »

Doesn't really sound like the unions want an agreement

why?you dont know what has been in any proposal

MsCrow

Originally Posted by bigheadxx If the workforce was more pro-active then they would find solutions to these problems rather than moaning about them.

Rhubarb. The posties have been implementing a lot of the 'solutions' in many areas around the country. Local to me, they went down to the summer four hours two years ago which they were promised would be for thirteen weeks. They're still on the same four hours with heavier workloads. They were never consulted about the extension of this agreement. Seems a bit rotten to me. They got on with it regardless though.

peter_the_piper

Just a few thoughts and not commenting on the rights or wrongs of the strikes.
I run a (very) small business with about 10 major suppliers, so far each one has asked me for email addresses to send their e-invoices to and have given me their bank codes to enable me to pay by bank transfer. This means that there will be around 2-300 less invoices and acknowledgements coming to me and 2-300 less cheques going back by mail. Thats about 900 pieces of mail less the Royal mail will get over the year. We also save on 2-300 stamps as well. Take any guess you like about the number of small businesses doing the same, (not including the loss of items being despatched by these businesses)let alone medium and large ones and you have a recipe for commercial suicide. In the end its not important who's right or wrong, just whether there will be a mail service left at all.

cyberbob

What I always find strange about these big unionised industries is they seem to forget that they are the Employees not the Employers they are paid to do a job. They are not running the company.

custardy

bigheadxx wrote: »

Modernisation will inevitably involve cuts. Like all nationalised industry the workforce and union will resist change until it is to late and the organisation goes into terminal decline.

If the workforce was more pro-active then they would find solutions to these problems rather than moaning about them.

Agreed 2 years ago:

http://www.news.royalmailgroup.com/news/article.asp?id=2054&brand=royal_mail

cyberbob wrote: »

What I always find strange about these big unionised industries is they seem to forget that they are the Employees not the Employers they are paid to do a job. They are not running the company.

so be proactive but shut and do your job regardless
is that about it?

bigheadxx

custardy wrote: »

so be proactive but shut and do your job regardless
is that about it?

You should take every opportunity to put forward ideas that are helpful to the business overall not just in your own interest. Proactive means being part of the change. It seems that the union and workforce is only interested in its own immediate position and not the future of the organisation. In that case, if you are not bothered about the long term future viability of your employer then yes just get on with your job.