- This topic has 33 replies, 15 voices, and was last updated 14 years ago by ernie_lynch.
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Postal Strike (Mandy content).
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MrWoppitFree Member
I saw an interesting interview with Lord Mandy last night on Channel 4 where he said, believe it or not, that there is "no point" in bringing in ACAS because it's up to the union and management to sort it out with talks and that ACAS could bring "nothing useful" to the situation.
I would have thought that ACAS, being experts in "Arbitration and Consiliation" would have a great deal to bring to the situation.
What is the hidden agenda here?
ernie_lynchFree MemberAccording to Newsnight last night, the "hidden agenda" as outlined is a secret memo, is that Mandelson and Royal Mail management want to smash the union. So they are itching for a strike so that they can do it a la Thatcher.
Personally I am sceptical about the secret memo ……. I can't help but feel that it was leaked on purpose to frighten the union. And I don't think it takes much to frighten the CWU leadership.
sootyandjimFree MemberIf Mandy 'smashes the union' will he need to have a disco ball installed above his grave?
Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middling Edition
Latest Singletrack VideosFresh Goods Friday 696: The Middlin...CoyoteFree MemberI suspect that Ernie has the right end of the stick. For a supposed "party of the working class" Labour seem to be very keen on hastening the end of the Royal Mail and CWU.
I've said it before, if Clive Barker were to write a politician he would write Peter Mandelson.
westkipperFree MemberThis seems unbelievable but I think Royal mail WANTS a strike, and the union is being played( its working) into looking like the bad guy.
I work in a delivery office in Edinburgh that has a fairly good relationship with its management. Weve implemented all the required changes, we meet or exceed all the RM workrates. The pegasus computer template ( imported by RM a tool to show how inefficent its workers are)show that even the easiest walks should have hours going in, not cuts.
We also rejected local strike action (as being ineffectual)
You would think RM would be happy with us?And yet, our head manager was ordered to select a member of staff to go on an extra run to a nearby striking office, entailing that the postie would be suspended if they wouldn't cross the picket line.
Inevitable, they were,and the office came out in sympathy.
If the errand was so vital a manager, or even non union member could have been sent, but no , it had to be a CWU member.
This happened the week we were balloted on national action.Does that look to you like an organisation keen to avoid strikes?
BermBanditFree MemberI think the CWU would get more public sympathy if its spokesman didn’t mainly sound like the Peter Sellers caricature of a union representative in “I’m all right Jack”. Bad PR and they do come over as antagonistic and belligerent, which I hasten to add they may well not be.
Personally, regardless of what is going on, I cannot see the benefit in cocking up your employers business to the extent that is being done at the moment. Every time there is disruption more business is lost forever. Last time round we balloted our customer base over paperless invoicing etc etc. We had already stopped sending goods by post, now we are looking to take postage out of the loop completely. We’re small, but Amazon, John Lewis, Argos, etc., etc aren’t. Who wins when this business is lost????
westkipperFree MemberBB, your right about the PR skills of the union, they come over badly compared to the plausible tones of Crozier et al.
Unfortunately its a lose-lose situation for us- go on strike and risk being out of a job, do nothing and the majority of frontline staff are definately out a job, as RM scales its public service commitment back by as much as it can get away with.TandemJeremyFree MemberMandelson is a complete snake who must never be trusted.
For some reason the government want to privatise the post. Obviously the bosses are hoping to make a killing as other privatised industry bosses have but why Mandy is so keen I don't understand.
The aim of this dispute is to break the union to make privatisation more profitable. Nothing to do with improving services or anything else but union breaking thru provoking a strike
westkipperFree MemberThe reason they want it privatised is patially Nu-labour ideology ( everythings crap without the profit motive)but mostly to do with something I touched on in the' is my employer doomed thread'.
Royal mail took a decade-long pension holiday to pay for modernisation that never happened.
The government agreed to honour it, and now that their bluffs been called over management incompetence, their keen to wash their hands ASAP.
There is also the matter of guilt over selling the UK potal sector down the river by their unilateral, early adoption of European deregulation laws.
The latter are the main reason that the company is losing money, not worker inefficiency.
Actualy, against the odds, we are currently in profit ( thanks to the staff)BermBanditFree MemberThere is a flaw in the argument. If and it is a big IF in my opinion the cunning stunt by that stunning c**t Mandy is to provoke a strike, then surely the CWU are either completely stupid not to realise what is self evident to those that know on here, or are knowingly pressing the self destruct button. In these cirucmstances surely a more sensible course of action is to comply completely with everything that "the management" throw at them?
kimbersFull Memberit really does look like the government and the royal mail management want to break up the royal mail
i predict a doubling of prices and a major decrease in efficiency as a lot of posties are laid off
sadly no MPs seem to be against this all 3 parties quite happily to watch us get rogered by the thatcherite business juggernaut , how the RM has survived to this day is amazing enough
just wait till they start doing this with the NHS in a few years
ernie_lynchFree MemberThis seems unbelievable but I think Royal mail WANTS a strike
It doesn't seem unbelievable to me. Destroying the union, or at least leaving the union weak and ineffectual, is absolutely vital for Mandelson's plans to to hand over Royal Mail's profitable operations to private foreign companies.
The best way to make a union very weak is to have a strike which they lose. After that, the chances of industrial action are extremely small. All the signs for me at least, are that the CWU is on course to lose this dispute.
The CWU leadership has shown itself to be weak and spineless, more concerned with not causing too much inconvenience, than of winning the dispute. There is no reason at all, why postal workers should return to work on the 25th Oct if no agreement has been reached. You either go on strike or you don't ….. you don't fart around with two day 'strikes'. It is a sign of weakness.
As too is a sign of weakness, the CWU still handing over £1 million every year to the Labour Party – that's £1 million of individual postal worker's money. Like the weak boy who is too scared to say no to the school bully, the CWU meekly hands the money over. And in another sign of weakness, the CWU recently opposed disaffiliation to the Labour Party.
As I have said before on here, it will be interesting to see what happens to the Labour Party after the general election. Suddenly the bully will no longer be strong and will be so desperate for help.
westkipperFree MemberI believe a former tory minister admitted during an interview on the dispute, that if privatisation of RM goes ahaed without too much fuss, its open season on what public services are left. 😥
ernie_lynchFree Memberbut why Mandy is so keen I don't understand.
You obviously don't understand Lord Mandelson then. He quite simply adores rich people, and as he famously said, quote : “we are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”
Plus of course as a former EU commissioner committed to free-market fundamentalism, he is also intensely relaxed about a Dutch private company taking over Royal Mail's operations and profits.
westkipperFree MemberOne of the problems with postal workers is that they are not as militant as the media seem to portray.
Go into my office an hour before we're due to start and about 40% of the staff are working, unpaid, in order to get finished within their hours.
About 30% have to use their own vehicle and fuel.
Even the bolshiest work across due breaktimes.
With that in mind I think the CWU is afraid if they call a more hardline strike lots of posties will begin to falter.
Postpeople also genuinely dont want to cause any more distress to the public than we have to.ernie_lynchFree MemberOne of the problems with postal workers is that they are not as militant as the media seem to portray.
That is the problem.
With that in mind I think the CWU is afraid if they call a more hardline strike lots of posties will begin to falter.
Best not to call for a strike at all then. Losing a strike is worst than not striking. Don't fight battles unless you are determined to win. Fighting half-heartedly almost guarantees that you will lose.
DelFull Memberi'd love to know what is that mandelson has over the powers that be that let's him keep on coming back, time and time again. the guy's beyond belief. he only has to open his mouth and it's clear he's lying.
i don't think the union is looking bad. i've been very happy with the service i've had from the po, for, err, my whole life, pretty much. bit pee'd off about 15 years ago, when i was an apprentice, and found i couldn't collect a parcel during my lunch break, and on another occasion my postie got a bit gobby with me when i wouldn't take my mail from him as i was on my way into work, and i asked him to put it through the box ( having just locked the door and being half way up the drive ), but apart from that i've been very happy with 'em. the average postal worker shouldn't underestimate how much the public like them, IMO, as they quietly go about their work. i support them.westkipperFree MemberErnie, if it was up to me we would skip the strike, and go straight to paramilitary action against Mandelson/Crozier…oops ,Mods, can I get away with saying that 😳
ernie_lynchFree Membergo straight to paramilitary action against Mandelson/Crozier…oops ,Mods, can I get away with saying that
See, there you go …………typical soft moderate postman.
Come the revolution when we are about to storm parliament, you'll be going all wobbly saying,
"Oh is it alright to do this, will we get away with it, no one will tell us off will they ?"I bet you only cycle on bridleways 😕
westkipperFree MemberErnie, I'm Scottish!' I cycle where I f*****' please (except pavements of course!)
chakapingFree MemberSome very interesting and perceptive comments here. Am I on the right website?
Could it be that Mandy is hated even more than unionised workers?
My two pence is that short strikes are a very useful tool, for exactly the reason that they don't really inconvenience anybody – but do highlight the issue to the public at large.
It's just a shame the public at large are so hostile to concept of organised labour.
russjpFree MemberTake 5 mins to read this – http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n18/maya01_.html
It's a postie view on whats happening within the company, and trust me its spot on
westkipperFree MemberYeah, Its almost like the 'War on Terror' has moved to a 'War on organised labour'. And everyone is resolute in the 'no surrender' message.
ernie_lynchFree MemberWell it worked for Thatcher, so why wouldn't it work for New Labour ?
During the miners strike Thatcher stated that the enemy had been defeated during the Falklands war, and now Britain had to defeat "the enemy within"
And chakaping, never underestimate how ill-informed the general public is can be about an industrial dispute.
How many people, despite all the media coverage, do you think realise that Royal Mail still handles 75 million letters and parcels every day ? How many people do you think realise that all four branches of Royal Mail makes a profit ? How many people do you think realise that Royal Mail double it's profits last year ? How many people do you think indeed realise, that this dispute is not about money ?
westkipperFree MemberIsnt it telling that with all the Damage/ Modernisation done by St Margaret of Grantham, she left Royal mail well alone?
ernie_lynchFree MemberIt is indeed west kipper.
After opposing every single privatisation by the Tories without exception. The first thing New Labour did once in power was to say, "right the problem with Britain is that the Tories didn't privatise enough".
chakapingFree MemberYes, my personal bugbear is why do people equate "modernisation" with some vague idea about shiny robots and stuff rather than worse working conditions and a poorer service, in the name of profit?
MrtrotterFree MemberNice to see some intelligent discussion on the 'postal dispute' for a change. I thought this letter from a postie covered a lot of the issues as to why posies have voted to go on strike:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/10/royal-mail-strike-amazonI personally think that a 'work to rule' would have been a more effective and less financially painfull for posties. Having worked for R.M. for over 10 years I still see people coming into work early, using their own cars, not claiming overtime and others all too willing to do extra work on overtime. Unfortunately the union is often grumbled about as much as management (especially after the last strike when the leadership caved in to government pressure) and it's a fact that workers have been losing battles like this for decades. I'm proud of the people I work with though. Not one person crossed the picket line last time we were on strike (out of several hundred). Sounds a bit corny but I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees.
NikNak7890Free Memberrussjp – Member
Take 5 mins to read this – http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n18/maya01_.html
It's a postie view on whats happening within the company, and trust me its spot on
From someone else who works for RM, his statistical "facts" aren't very accurate.
Mail volumes ARE down.
He mentions a national agreement on ‘pay and modernisation’, and then complains about the implementation new practices agreed by the very same union.He is correct when he talks about inept RM management though. A large percentage of managers have come up through the ranks through a system of nepotism and "do you fancy having a go". They have little or no training on how to manage, with zero qualifications on the subject. There is almost no information being cascaded down about modernisation plans, I suspect there aren't many, and most are made up on a whim.
He is also correct about the pension deficit. RM had such a large pot of money they were in fear of a fine for holding too large a purse. In their infinite wisdom, RM decided to have a 13 year holiday from contributions (note WE didn't get one).
This very quickly turned into a deficit and RM were forced by PostCom to pay the deficit back within 20 years – and in order to do that they have to pay £300m a year on top of their contributions; making them now practically bankrupt.I have zero faith in RM management, but national strikes will drive the businesses that ARE keeping us afloat away. As an aside, I had an email from Wiggle to say that because of the planned strikes, they've decided to move to Citylink 😐
westkipperFree MemberNikNak, I have to disagree, I've just read that article and think its very accurate.
About six months ago I was almost lured into believing the mantra about falling volumes, it did seem like there was a 5% drop or so, but recently it seems like I'm working over my time every day.
Today (saturday) I reckon I took out well over 100 kilos.postierichFree MemberWiggle maybe using City link and still offering free postage but keep an eye on the price of the goods,they will start to go up.
Leters are down but weight/bulky items are up.
30,000 temps to be hired thank god for that makes our job easier and a nightmare for the managers,shame that service levels will drop.
johnnersFree MemberCity Link? They're absolutely appalling.
If they're a taste of QOS in post-privatisation RM then all the usual suspects who take every opportunity to slag off the posties will have a real wake-up call coming.
ernie_lynchFree Membershame that service levels will drop.
Royal Mail management will make certain that you'll get the blame for that.
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