[Closed] Royal Mail Strike(Why we are going on strike)CWU Dvd

mick - Member
well if you window cleaner chooses to clean your windows after his 48hr week then you may do dunno where hes posted but i sure dont do any work in my off time

Well my boss has a regular gardener who is a fireman, and his mate(s) have just redecorated all through his house. How DO they find the time to put in a full time job, and still have the time and energy for second jobs? Assuming that they are actually working in the first place. Remind me again, what goes on during a nightshift? And I've been in firestations at night and seen!

RM is no longer a public service, it is a business.

Actually it always has been. So nothing's changed then.

In which case it's one and only reason for existing is to make money for it's shareholders. Most businesses realise that they will make more money if they other a good service but the fundamental reason d'etre is to make money not to provide a service. As for the unions whinging on about the employees rights to jobs etc. and the purpose of the business being to keep people employed 🙄 (although again good businesses usually realise they will make more money with a well motivated workforce, but the primary motive is the profit).

Personally I'm quite happy with businesses being there to make money, if a service is so important to society it should be provided by the government whose priority should be the provision of the service.

i dont know chatsworth get round to leeds central station for 7 tonight and you can watch how busy i am if you interested ? 😉

RM is no longer a public service

It still is and its about time other "services" like Water, leccy etc be turned back into services for the public instead of a high priced service cut privatised cash cow for boards of directors and shareholders.

It seems some of you still believe that privatisation works. It hasn't worked for the UK public.

I'm still no wiser as to why they are striking and I stand by my comments I made on a previous thread - if they aren't wanting to work - sack them, then they can see how they survive with no money coming in...any money coming in to pay bills is better than none...so let them go and give the job to someone who would appreciate the job...this idea of going on strike because they aren't happy with changes is just alien to me...suck it up and get on with it as you are one of the lucky ones that has a job with an income.

this idea of going on strike because they aren't happy with changes is just alien to me

Really? Seems pretty sensible to me tbh. I take it you are with the guy on the first page then, happy working for a company making huge profits, doing loads of unpaid ot because they've made too many people redundant. Personally I just think you're jealous that they have decent representation and you don't. Ah well, bend over and enjoy your corporate shafting then...

Good luck Rich and all the other posties on here.

The problem for a lot of punters, me included is I fail to see how the service we receive can get any worse than it has been for years now, so I couldn't care less about your conditions. The wildcat strikes happening now have cost me £50 as my claim for my phone rebate didn't get to T-mobile until after the deadline, and my dads birthday card and prezzie arrived nearly a week later than it should have done. I was stood behind a woman in the post office yesterday who's sister had died and the majority of condolance cards and messages had arrived a week after the funeral. In all honesty would you feel sympathy for Royal Mail workers if you were her?
Twice this month I have come home from work to find packages on my doorstep in clear view of the street because the postie couldn't be bothered filling out a card and putting it through the letter box. I'm constantly cleaning red elastic bands out of the garden you fail to take with you and the gate is never closed like it was when you came through it. It doesn't happen anymore but we used to get cards through the door saying there was no-one in to receive a parcel whe my wife was at home on maternity leave, resulting in a trek to the local sorting office for a heavily pregant women.
I don't think it's the organisation thats the problem but a significant amount of Royal Mail workers attitude to the job. Whe you pay us some respect we may care whether you keep your job or not. I'd have privatised the service years ago.

One of the coffee companies I use has just e-mailed to say they have chucked Royal Mail because of the interruptions to business and gone with DHL.

Sadly, industrial action is driving business away and damaging image beyond repair.

"RM is no longer a public service"

It still is.....

imo nationalised companies in Britain (with the obvious exception of the NHS) have almost never been run as 'services' for the benefit of consumers and the general public.

Indeed this is precisely why, for example, British Rail was a failure. In contrast, the French saw public transport as providing a vital and necessary service to the nation, and as a consequence, the history of the French nationalised railways is one of impressive successes.

Furthermore, despite the fact that a nationalised industry might not [i][u]necessarily[/u][/i] create a profit, the "social wage" it provides, contributes hugely to the economic well-being of the individuals within the society.

Wish you much luck mate
Unless others worked in such work places and enviroments
then there will be an understanding.

^^ 🙄

I actually think it is many of the Royal Mail employees who could do with a dose of understanding what it is like on the other side and before you ask I have, albeit a long time ago, worked for RM and as I said earlier my Dad does so I do have some understanding of the RM work place.

.....as I said earlier my Dad does

So does the multi-millionaire Alan Crozier.

And ?

When i worked from home a card came saying that it wasnt in etc, but i was sat less than 2m from the door.
i read it, opened the door to a shocked postie and asked for the parcel as i was in and he had not knocked. He had to then admit he didnt have it and could i go and collect it? FFS.

A couple of years ago i got birthday cards through the mail and each one had been opened. I complained and they said that i can collect my mail from the sorting office if i was concerned.

I work 9 hour days with no break for 8 hours pay.
I won't be going on strike as all these problems have been on going for the last 2 years or so,and the timing of this action (middle of the worst recession since pre war) sums up the thick unions.Remember the coal miners striking in the spring/summer ?? Thick as the brown stuff.

I think the problem lies with management.The decisions and waste made by these idiots are staggering at times.
eg.
we had a manager who used to work nights and they continued to pay him his substantial night allowance 18 months after he started on days.
eg.
designing a barcode scanner (£150 each,1 for every delivery) to be replaced a year later by a Pda that will do the same job. (£1500 each)
eg.
When i started 10 years ago we had 2 managers and about 80 staff,we now have 60 staff and 4 managers !

I can't stand unions as i think in general they are thick and lazy and try and justify their fees by kicking up a fuss about nothing most of the time.I would generally agree that it would be in a managers interest to keep staff happy.However when a business is so big and in a position where quality of service is overlooked in order to incease(not turn loss into profit) profits,normal business rules seem to be thrown out the window.
The sooner they realise that an improvement in service leads to increased profits the better.You can't do the former by cutting services and staff and so the latter is impossible.

Their are also other issues about cherry picking services by private companies etc,but that is for another day !

not bothered to read all the above comments, but being a postie is an unskilled manual labour job. 99.9% of the country can read, walk and ride a bicycle. 85% of the country is licenced to drive a small van.

so this should be a minimum wage job. unfortunately a few union monkeys want to earn £100k a year so posties go on strike all the time.

our place employs 5000 odd people, we've just switched to dx and email / pdf for as much as we can following yet another postal strike messing up things for us. thats quite a few less parcels and envelopes going by royal mail. all the current strike has done is meant a few less postal workers are required in our area. well done boys!

basically posties need to join the real world, accept a big pay cut, and work harder, because otherwise their firm won't exist in 10 years time.

imo nationalised companies in Britain (with the obvious exception of the NHS) have almost never been run as 'services' for the benefit of consumers and the general public.

Indeed this is precisely why, for example, British Rail was a failure. In contrast, the French saw public transport as providing a vital and necessary service to the nation, and as a consequence, the history of the French nationalised railways is one of impressive successes.

Unfortunately, the problems with the British railway system go rather deeper into our national psyche than that.

basically posties need to join the real world

But not as much as you.

Then perhaps, you wouldn't come out with bollox like this : "unfortunately a few union monkeys want to earn £100k a year".

aracer - the only difference British railways and French railways, was government policy towards them.
Simple as.

That kind of contradicts your previous point I think, but I'm happy to agree with you (though I don't think it particularly contradicts my previous point - it's not as if attitudes towards the railways have improved).

basically posties need to join the real world, accept a big pay cut, and work harder, because otherwise their firm won't exist in 10 years time.

Perhaps if you had read more of the posts above, you would have learnt that RM is making huge profits WHILST posties are working under current conditions.

There are lots of manual labour jobs paying above the minimum wage, why should a postie be different? I'm not happy for anyone to be working for minimum wage, particularly so when the employer is very successful.

I really couldn't bring myself to watch that posted link.
All I would like is my post delivered on time, preferably before I go to work. How is it still posible to get delays and lost mail in the 21st century with our vast transport network and computer driven systems?
I posted some pedals the other day to Scotland, all for £2.89 recorded delivery, it arrived next day, to me that was a bargain and I would happily pay more for that service. My lunch cost more than that!

I'd also like to thank the postie for not delivering my insurance certificate on time due to strikes as I couldn't tax my car without it.

The RM is aeons old now surely you should have mastered the art of a postal service by now.

Last saturday a postie put a card through to say he couldnt deliver a parcel,but i was in, so chased after him, and he said he tried to deliver it the day before friday, but i wasnt in, so didnt bother try today saturday,and friday he said he didnt have any cards to leave.
so a drive to the office thats open from 07.00 to 11.00 hrs on a saturday, and 07.00 to 13.00 on a weekday,despite staff being there all day.

We as a customer make the effort to deliver the mail to a post box, all the staff have to do is pick it up once a day, sort it and then redeliver it within 2 days.

Or is that to easy. SEEMS SO.

Also theyre haveing a national ballot, by post, has anyone told the union theyre on strike and theres 20 million letters stuck in the system, and that doesnt include all the wrongly delivered,stolen or damaged letter already.

What a way to run anything.

We as a customer make the effort to deliver the mail to a post box, all the staff have to do is pick it up once a day, sort it and then redeliver it within 2 days.

Let me get this straight; you think it's a harder process for you to walk to the nearest postbox than the sorting and redelivery part. Despite that requiring enormous infrastructure and thousands of workers. OK. Lets also consider the many thousands of pieces of mail you've received without incident. Do you remember them, or just take them for granted?

Perhaps if you had read more of the posts above, you would have learnt that RM is making huge profits WHILST posties are working under current conditions.

Posties and firemen. Last bastions of old school union idiocy

I think you'll find teaching unions can be quite old school too - ours managed to get rid of our maniac, bullying head - we'd be stuck with him now otherwise

Really about time RM employees got into the real world

Is that the real world of job insecurity and shafting whoever you can for a profit - sorry, 'meeting targets'?

There's always going to be rogues in every industry. Every postie I know is decent, hard working but harassed.

management/target/streamlining/b0ll0x just destroys peoples pride in their work.

Good luck Rich, some of us can cope with mail being a little late for a day or two.

The post I replied to stated that unless posties worked harder and for less that the RM would cease to exist. Do you agree with that? Enjoy your ot by the way, I hope you get paid...

Rich Penny all the infrastructure was put into place and paid for by us the customer and tax payer, probably

Really? Seems pretty sensible to me tbh. I take it you are with the guy on the first page then, happy working for a company making huge profits, doing loads of unpaid ot because they've made too many people redundant. Personally I just think you're jealous that they have decent representation and you don't. Ah well, bend over and enjoy your corporate shafting then...

Correct. Same goes for microsoft and intel. But guess what, I still reckon it's harder to develop an OS and a computer than it is to type...

Who cares if the posties go on strike, maybe the crap that comes through my letter box each day will stop for a while. Bills & junk mail.

I'm that guy and If I don't like it I can leave the company when the economy picks up.

Surely it would be better in that scenario to stand up for yourself and refuse to do excessive amounts of unpaid ot? I know you can't do that, but some people can through unions and I don't begrudge them that.

I ignored Darksides post because it mainly appeared to be chuntering on about a single incident which they've used to denigrate the entire business. Did I miss something?

I'm not a postie btw, it just irks me to see peoples rights eroded and then the only comments being that once someones fathers mothers brother got a ****ing card a day late 😈

Reckon the CWU are going to be busy, i'm in that union and just at the start of a dispute with BT over working hours and a good few other things too

Think there could be a bit of disruption all round this winter, too many companies have seen the so called recession as a way to intimidate their staff

Terms and conditions that have been fought for over many years are now being eroded or removed at the drop of a hat
Old gits like me can put up with it for a few years until retirement, but it would be nice to leave the younger generation reasonable and safe working conditions

The Irish posties are out on wildcat strikes over the same issues. Apparently they're sending out a postal ballot to decide whether to return to work.....

thekingisdead

Been cracked before.

To repeat another post: The argument seems to be that everybody else has had to put up with an erosion of conditions/pay at work, because that's how things are made efficient/profitable - so posties/firemen/whoever had better shut up.

Well beyond the thin end of the wedge.

Why do companies make profit? To pay shareholders. Don't make assumptions, I own plenty of shares, but I choose carefully. A fair share of profit should be seen to go back to the workers who earn it, not to managers who raise profits temporarily by shafting the workforce.

The health and well being of a nation requires people to be gainfully employed, taking pride in their work and feeling appreciated for it. Without that, you'd better pimp your handcart and head 'downstairs'

The union seems to be presuming that the general public have any kind of emotional attachment to the RM in the way they do to the NHS or the Army. We're all using email, we're in a hellish recession and frankly the general view in the real world is that post workers have been taking the p1ss for a long time.

Really fellas, you guys are painting yourselves into a corner here. We're about to have a public sector pay freeze for the next 2-5yrs and pensions are going to get sliced. Best thing you can do is try and keep Labour in power and this isn't the way to do it. Me I'm voting Tory or maybe Libdem in the hope they get to grips with the deficit which probably means taking a flamethrower to the RM and yes my beloved MoD.

The union seems to be presuming that the general public have any kind of emotional attachment to the RM

It is [u]not[/u] a "presumption"........... it is a recognition of fact.

All opinion polls show that the general public has a very strong attachment to a publicly owned Royal Mail.
That is [i]precisely[/i] why Lord Mandelson shelved his plans to part privatise Royal Mail.

Don't believe the nonsense he claims were the reasons for shelving the plans. Yes, he's right when he claims "now isn't the right time to do it" but [u]not[/u] because of the recession. But because New Labour are so deeply unpopular, that to push through a plan which the public strongly opposes, would contribute to electoral suicide.

[url= http://www.politicshome.com/Landing.aspx?Blog=6303 ]Royal Mail part-privatisation shows public strongly opposed[/url]

Quote :

[i]A PoliticsHome.com poll of its OpinionUK panel has delivered a resounding verdict to the question of where the general public stand on Peter Mandelson's plans for Royal Mail part-privatisation: 65% oppose the plans, only 24% support them.[/i]

Even Conservative voters, are opposed by a two to one majority to the part-privatisation of Royal Mail.

[url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/feb/25/royal-mail-poll ]65% of voters oppose Mandelson's Royal Mail privatisation plan[/url]

I think you might be basing [u]your[/u] presumptions mcboo, on the views of a few IT wallahs who are whingeing they've had to wait a couple of days for the shiny blingy bits ....... for their horrendously expensive and over-indulgent hobbies.

.

we're in a hellish recession and frankly the general view in the real world is.........

Exactly ........ we're in a recession. Unemployment is about to 2.5 million and climbing. So what's the most important thing we should be doing ? [u]Saving jobs[/u]. Cutting services and throwing people out of work makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Unless of course, your name is Peter Mandelson. In which case, preparing the Royal Mail for privatisation to satisfy the needs of your multi-millionaire mates with which you sip cocktails on luxury yachts, is really rather important.

Shame he had misread the mood of the public and has had to at least temporarily, abandon his plans. Although the cuts in services and jobs will continue.

Unless of course ....... the unions are successful in their opposition.

Exactly ........ we're in a recession. Unemployment is about to 2.5 million and climbing. So what's the most important thing we should be doing ? Saving jobs. Cutting services and throwing people out of work makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Mandelson dropped the sell-off because there was no way a wounded Brown government could get it past the Labour backbenchers. Don't think there is much more to it than that.

I'm going to level with you and Postierich. I don't give a sh1t about your pay, working conditions or job security. I don't blame you for trying to hang onto what you have got so good luck to you but don't lets pretend we are all in this together. There is going to be a whole lot more of this when the next govnt gets to grips with the public sector so we better all get used to it.

Oh and the Royal Mail will be considered profitable when it has plugged the £5bn hole in the staff pension fund.

Frankly the Royal Mail is the last stand-off 'sell-off' Britain. Blame Thatcher , blame who ever you like. Fact is Labour has well and truly sold everyone down the river.

Mandelson will not sell off the RM he'll simply tinker at the edges and leave it useless and unprofitable and in the mean time give it away to some foreign power.

Labour have sold us all down the river - they've made peace with murderers, given our water to the French, (and the Nuclear industry) paid off the bankers and left us with the bill.

I've got to say, no matter about (some) of the inefficiencies of the RM the alternative is appalling. What next? Sell off the NHS?

I say don't believe the hype! I'm with Postierich on this one - Back the Royal Mail

back the royal mail - tick, agreed. only way to ensure a single price for all letters nationwide, sense of history.

back the unionised muppets who want to hold the country to ransom over yet another absurd pay demand? no.

theres a recession on, times are hard. deal with it.

frankly lets sack all the union members in RM. theres 4m unemployed at the moment, most of them qualified and experienced in every single skill required to deliver post. i'd say 50,000 of them will be willing to do so for 10-14k a year ote.

Amazing stuff, again, from the unions

As far as I see it the posties should be grateful for a job (and are paid way beyond their abilities) Or am I missing something that it's difficult to walk along a road and place envelopes into a hole in a door?

The posties are repeating what Scargill did in the 80's - I can't wait for Dave to get in power and crush the surviving unions

I have sat in on about 50 redundancies in recent months. Mostly good lads who have done nothing to deserve the shit they are in!! They are all to a man highly skilled machinists and toolmakers with skills that dwarf the average letter slotter. This strike makes me sick to my stomach and they will reap what they sow mark my words.

i don't have any sympathy for them

they don't give a flying shite about the problems they're causing for small businesses and the public

i've been waiting 8 days for important documents - someone paid for them to be delivered first class, they're just taking the piss. if you don't like your job do another job or start a business, but then that would take a bit of nouse and hard work.

my bro was a postie, always seemed to be moaning about finishing 'work' early but still wanting to be paid for the 2 hours he was sitting at home watching Jeremy Kyle

ps - postierich is excused this rant