i witnessed one of the PO's finest ramming an a4 'do not bend' card backed envelope under my neighbors door, giving it a final kick finally got it past the threshold.

And I witnessed a postie help a blind man cross the road, give 50p to a rough-sleeper, bring in the weelie bin for the old lady at number 28, before knocking off and going on a charity bike ride to raise money for disadvantaged kids.

But don't worry MrSmith, your curtain-twitching days won't be over when Royal Mail is privatised. I'm sure you will see plenty of cases of postmen kicking mail through letterboxes when TNT is delivering.

I looked at the pictures in that article, and if they're representative of the temp workers RM are getting in, then you've got a very good point, postierich. There's no way I want Mandy delivering my post.

I'm with postierich on this one – just think how many moans there will be on here when CRC/Merlin and all other online retaillers have to use the privatised companies that can only operate profitably by delivering and collecting once a week etc – never had anything but fantastic service from RM, long may it continue

The competition that the goverment has allowed doesn't play by the same rules so they can cherry pick leaving the expensive deliveries to RM. Also RM has to deliver anyones post. So any company can collect mail charge any price it wants then gets RM to deliver it for a standard price. Most people don't even realise the RM has delivered this mail.

Competition must be on an even footing – it this that's killing RM.

Would this be the same uneven footing that means that TNT/DHL have to charge VAT for their services whereas the RM dont? Or the same uneven footing that means were TNT or DHL wanting to offer a last mile delivery service, theyd have to pay a stinging penalty to RM under the exclusivity clauses in their existing last mile contract?

I dont think we're going to see any legal action around the hiring of temps, certainly not while the RM can rely on seasonal workload and the existence of backlogs in their defence or while Mandy's the Business Sec.

and peoples atitudes towards striking Posties

I think anyone who strikes, for whatever reason, is a bloody idiot. It never, ever solves anything. Go right ahead, shoot yourselves in the foot.

my grandad used to work at longbridge.

he said that place was striked (struck?) out of existence, when they should have been modernising.

striked (struck?)

[/s] bloodyminded

I think anyone who strikes, for whatever reason, is a bloody idiot. It never, ever solves anything.

ermm…I've been part of industrial action before…it got us a vaguely ok pay deal as opposed to the laughable offer from employers.

There's a reason strikes continue to happen (they shift the balance of power slightly back towards employees), and there's a reason they're protected in law (at the moment) so that striking workers can't just be sacked and replaced.
Unless you think the Victorian workhouses had the right idea about employer-employee relations?

I know there was talk of getting rid of the 2nd delivery – not sure if it happened as we never got one anyway – but didn't they really get rid of the 1st [early] delivery?
Our postie now comes at 1pm & others seem to say the same

Have RM pulled the wool on this one?

Seriously, who the **** do you think are recruited by the companies packing and mailing 'gifts' out to you over the Christmas period anyway, cheap temp workers exactly like those pictured …

They wear hoods – criminals!
They are not descended from the white middle classes – shock horror, send them 'home'!
They smoke – definitely a sign that they do drugs and are worthless citizens too!
They haven’t been background checked – well guilty until proven innocent is the way isn’t it?

Yeah the RM management are a pain in the ar$e but everyone in the private sector has come across management like that at some point, most of us don’t hold the counties postal communications to ransom to try force our arm in negotiations.

I'm pretty happy to sit on the fence about most things, there are 2 sides to every argument, but that is just ignorant racist journalism.

my grandad used to work at longbridge.

he said that place was striked (struck?) out of existence, when they should have been modernising.

It is one of those enduring myths that industrial action leads to job losses. Longbridge went liquidation in 2005 after a quarter of a century of industrial calm. When New Labour came to power Longbridge employed 16,000 workers, today despite no crippling strikes it employs less than 200.

In the early 1980s BL workers were told by the government to turn their backs on their unions, place their faith in management, and the car industry would have a bright secure future. The workers did precisely that, and their industry was destroyed. Any lack of investment was purely down to management – there was no opposition from the unions.

Job losses are not the result of industrial action. As this graph clearly shows.

What is significant about this graph is it shows that the lowest levels of job losses in the last 30 years occurred during the "strike riddled" 1970s.

If this myth that industrial action causes employment were to be true, then you would expect to see a huge peak in the 1970s, with a very low trough during the 80s and 90s. And yet, the complete opposite is true.

I have often pondered why some people appear so willingly to believe myths which are patently untrue (the Tories are the party of low taxation is another favourite) and I have come to the conclusion that challenging what they are told is simply too problematic for them – just accepting it is so much easier.

And like the creationists who choose to genuinely believe that the World was created in 6 days despite all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they choose to believe the nonsense they are told about unemployment, unions, taxation etc, because it simply sits very comfortably within their belief system. To reject it would challenge the very basis of everything which they have been told. Best to just believe it then.

Damn it. I didn't realise they'e already started recruiting. Will it be too late if I apply next week?

What is significant about this graph is it shows that the lowest levels of job losses in the last 30 years occurred during the "strike riddled" 1970s.

No it doesnt.

It shows numbers of registered unemployed. Not the same thing as changes in levels of unemployement are not wholly linked to redundancies.

But I'll let you off because you've come to the darkside and started using graphs 🙂 throw in a formula or two and you get honory membership of my gang.

i think this figure and formula sum it up nicely

I believe that is known as "Weber's Death Spiral of Industrial Relations"

Excellent Stoner ……….. the only thing you could pick on in my argument was a pedantic point – what a result !! 😀

OK, have it your way : What is significant about this graph is it shows that the lowest levels of unemployment in the last 30 years occurred during the "strike riddled" 1970s.

Or to put it another way, in the last 30 years the employment market was at it's best, when the unions were at their most powerful.

It's still a myth-busting comment.

btw Soner, I can't "throw in a formula or two" ……. I'm just a simply soul you know (iirc grade 4 CSE maths) 😐

Late in on this but although my deliveries are at lunchtime which is a PITA and I have a succession of different posties, they are all pleasant, helpful etc so I have no complaints about them and actually want them to stick around.

when they should have been modernising they were **** around. The workforce was too big and the site too sprawling and cost too much to run, so they were left behind.

many years of goverment subsidy led to longbridge hanging on.

if you make shit cars inefficiently you'll be screwed

at the end they still had three shifts of 6 people making sure snowchains fitted properly.

Surely it makes sense for deliveries to take place throughout the whole day? Otherwise, you would be employing stacks of posties for very short shifts or paying them for hours that they're not actually delivering.

And I witnessed a postie help a blind man cross the road, give 50p to a rough-sleeper, bring in the weelie bin for the old lady at number 28, before knocking off and going on a charity bike ride to raise money for disadvantaged kids.But don't worry MrSmith, your curtain-twitching days won't be over when Royal Mail is privatised. I'm sure you will see plenty of cases of postmen kicking mail through letterboxes when TNT is delivering.

FYI i was walking down the street i can't see my neighbors door from behind my curtains.
a community minded postman in your area isn't going to change the attitude of lazy pissed up drug smoking littering ones in mine.
my uncle is a postman in a rural area, he's not one to ram letters under doors and he raised over £2000 for charity by walking up some mountain in peru.
His actions make bugger all difference to the standard of service here though.

i think the point is mrsmith
you either pay 40p to get a letter sent nextday anywhere in the country with a service thats 90-99.9% reliable (depending on who you believe)

or you pay 5 quid to send the same letter (± another £3 depending on what part of the country its goin to) for a 95-99.9% reliable service
but the nice privatised postman will have a nice brown ups uniform to cover up his tattoos

think anyone who strikes, for whatever reason, is a bloody idiot. It never, ever solves anything

Bear that thought in mind on your lunch/tea/holiday/bank holiday break.

….paying them for hours that they're not actually delivering.

I think you'll find that's called "being on standby"

FYI i was walking down the street i can't see my neighbors door from behind my curtains.

But your hawk-like eyesight allowed you to see the "do not bend" label on the envelope ?

Presumably the letterplate which the postie kicked the letter through wasn't a metre off the ground ?

If I was a postman and someone expected me to bend down to poke a letter through a hole 4 inches off the ground, they would be very disappointed. I wouldn't even bother trying, and I would just drop the letters in front of the door.

Who the hell are these people who think that a postman or woman should get on their hands and knees to poke letters through their undersized letterboxes ?

Company believes it is right and is standing it's ground. The workers believe they are right and are standing their ground. The company has a simple, if not ideal, solution – hire temps. The people have no solution other than to bitch and moan.

I'm all for fairness in pay and work etc, but striking helps no-one and in a service like this it simply gets the rest of the country on the oppositions side. Way to go 😉

Anyone turning the work down in a time like this must have either good enough finances to cope or a mental problem to not be taking whatever work is available.

If the new rules specified by RM were implemented and the entire low level staff walked out I'm fairly confident they would be replaced by people who were willing to work under those rules, it's not as though they're inhumane rules, just that they're different to their existing lot.

Who the hell are these people who think that a postman or woman should get on their hands and knees to poke letters through their undersized letterboxes ?

Not helpful to be near the floor, no, but hardly a problem. I spent a long time delivering letters, can't say low letterboxes ever crossed my mind.

think anyone who strikes, for whatever reason, is a bloody idiot. It never, ever solves anything

Bear that thought in mind on your lunch/tea/holiday/bank holiday break.

+1.

Anyone turning the work down in a time like this must have either good enough finances to cope or a mental problem to not be taking whatever work is available.

So companies should be able to use the current financial climate to threaten staff into accepting whatever pay and conditions they like? Marvellous.

i think the point is mrsmith
you either pay 40p to get a letter sent nextday anywhere in the country with a service thats 90-99.9% reliable (depending on who you believe)

or you pay 5 quid to send the same letter (± another £3 depending on what part of the country its goin to) for a 95-99.9% reliable service
but the nice privatised postman will have a nice brown ups uniform to cover up his tattoos

personally i would pay anything if it was guaranteed to get there*. i have just found out that the invoices i sent weeks ago never arrived so have arranged to PDF them by email. i use the post very little as i try to email as much as possible and now FTP data instead of sending disks in the post. if the post office disappears then competition between operators will keep them on their toes and if i have to collect a parcel from the depot so be it. the opening times are longer than my local PO collection point (which has now moved to 48hrs after attempted delivery because of the backlog)

* the royal mail signed for and guaranteed delivery services are a joke 3 weeks for a guaranteed next day parcel and some stuff is still in a warehouse somewhere.

The RM quite clearly needs a very big shake up from top to bottom. The current batch of strikes are just another great example of how rotten the whole organisation appears to be.

When the service works, it works brilliantly in my opinion. But for the past six months the post in my town has been awful as they amalgamate two sorting offices. It can easily take a week for a letter to get from one side of town to the other.

Any private sector business performing this badly would simply go out of business.

I don't think privatisation would be the answer though, especially given what happened to our rail network. But at least from what I see and hear the current management needs to go and the Union grip needs to be significantly weakened.

As for the strikers, it's your right to withdraw your labour but don't expect me to be jumping up and down in joy at the prospect.

Any private sector business performing this badly would simply go out of business.

What you mean like doubling their profits last year ?

But your hawk-like eyesight allowed you to see the "do not bend" label on the envelope ?

Presumably the letterplate which the postie kicked the letter through wasn't a metre off the ground ?

seeing as the do not bend envelope was bent into a graceful curve by the attentive postie the red "do not bend' lettering was easy to spot

the letter was being rammed under the door between the threshold and the bottom of the door.

If this myth that industrial action causes employment were to be true

For once I agree – striking does not create employment, quite the opposite in fact.

For once I agree – striking does not create employment, quite the opposite in fact.

He he …. I poke a stick in the hornets nest, striking at the very heart of the well rehearsed myth that industrial action causes job losses, and the only challenges I get are on typos and pedantic corrections ! 😀

……sweet as 8)

*walks away smugly*

before Gus' head gets quite too big….

The reason, IMO, that industrial action has little effect on employment rates is that in any given industrial dispute the numbers of jobs at risk do not represent a statistically significant proportion of the workforce.

RM employes c190,000.

Reports last year suggested that "upto 50,000" jobs would be put at risk under the sale of a third of the business. Given a) that's almost certainly a CWU number and b) probably doesnt take into account remployment of a proportion of those at risk jobs by a private sector operator, the prospect of job losses is probably closer to 30,000.

drawing from your splendid graph Gus, that represents approximately a 1% change in the number of unemployed, or more usefully a change in the unemployment rate of 0.08%. The Office for National Statistics on sampling variability is a whopping +/- 0.3%.

so, the fact that employment rates were either high or low at any point in time, is unaffected by the level of industrial disputes at the time.

Top marks for effort Stoner ! 😀

coffeeking said:

I'm all for fairness in pay and work etc, but striking helps no-one

And there's the rub. A lot of fairness in pay and work (see comments above re lunch breaks etc.) has only come about because employees wielded the only power they have over employers – withdrawal of labour. If you want to work in a society where strikes/unions are illegal, good luck to you. Enjoy the low pay/long hours/poor conditions…

That graph tells us nothing but the unemployment rate over a spread of years. Anything else is purely supposition.

I could just as easily say that (with the same authority, based upon the graph) that unemployment 'lags behind' action. It is a consequence or a knock on effect of action. Applied to the graph we can see low unemployment in

the "strike riddled" 1970s.

but as a consequence (it could be argued) we can clearly see dramatically rising unemployment in the early 80s.

You could also surmise that 80s Privatization had a positive effect on unemployment ( as there is a dramatic drop in early 90s)

We can all manipulate stats to back up what we want to say. That graph shows unemployment rates, and no more. Anything else is just supposition and assumption.

That graph shows unemployment rates

The graph shows numbers unemployed. Not unemployment rates. Quite different. In terms of economic measurement you need the denominator. In terms of amount of human misery, you probably dont.

Rates are the percentage of the economically active population who are not working but want to work and are actively looking for employment.

The graph shows numbers unemployed. Not unemployment rates. Quite different.

Not really that different Stoner.

Note how low the unemployment rate was during the "strike riddled" 1970s

As Sqwheeler says – and to lunch breaks you can add novelties like the 2-day weekend, the minimum wage, paid holiday, plus a host of additional perks (lying-in allowance and the like) that have now been abolished in favour of the miserable baseline remuneration that many unskilled jobs seem to come with these days.

The RM seem to be the classic scapegoat for any number of delays, losses and inefficiencies by other parties – think of the classic "the cheque's in the post" excuse.

My experience of them, both as a customer and for a short period as an employee is that they have high standards, slacking isn't tolerated any more than any other job, and they have pretty good systems in place to ensure that theft, dumping etc. are kept to a minimum – which for all the stupid way the Daily Mail have reported it, is something that's going to become more widespread if poorly trained temp workers take over.