Postal strike

There are just two market town local sorting offices in my area that are not on the walk out. Good for them!

But guess what, RM are sending the staff to the main sorting offices in the larger towns, where they have to cross the picket line and thus face the comeback as scabs, etc, etc, etc.

Aaaaaaargh!

I've just posted an important document that we wanted signed and returned early next week - it won't even get there till Thursday now!

I've also had an email from Burning Shed - My copy of Fear of a Dark Planet(Special edition) has just been posted. I'll have to wait for that now too. And the (work related) book I've just ordered from Amazon.

I listened to the union official on the news this morning and it was like going back twenty-odd years in time.

Much as he and others may regret it, we live in a competitive society and as such, market forces dictate the level of remuneration that can be paid. It's a tough old world out there and poor old RM are trying desperately to modernise and increase efficiency in an effort to compete in a tough market.

Far from "Saving the postal service" as the union guy said was the main aim, all they're doing is putting the final nails in the coffin of the RM, who will then go down the tubes and the postal workers will move across to work for the likes of TNT. If the union think they have the support of the general public, they're living in cloud cuckoo land.

We can but hope the sensible majority of postal workers rebel against this insanity.

quote:

If the union think they have the support of the general public, they're living in cloud cuckoo land.

How would you know?

Average postal worker wage is £80 below national average yet management tell them they are 25% overpaid.
Management, at a stroke are attempting to introduce new shift times despite posties having built childcare commitments etc.. around existing shift patterns.
Their hours of work and work done will change from day to day making it impossible to plan their lives.
There will be fewer, later and less reliable delivery patterns.
2,500 post offices are due to close.
All this despite a growth in royal mail deliveries.
I too thought it sounded like we had gone back in time, to the Victorian era.

I'm awaiting the payout on my written off car - apparently it has been put in the post today .Look slike I won't be receiving that any time soon....

Should they really be called "Royal" with that level of service? Seems an abuse of the name to me. Still, as long as they get what THEY want eh?

Well said Malky just what I am hearing from postal worker acquaintances. Also the existing post is not being delivered without a strike going on.

Seems both sides have to pull themselves together.

As for remuneration, both posties I know are earning £25 to £30k pa total, have a hefty sum built up in a defined benefit pension scheme and both tell me it's not the hardest job in the world, despite funny working hours and shifts. They stand to lose out because of shifts/overtime rates apparently.

But then that's the market isn't it? Gone are the days where workers in other industries, for instance banks, got double time to work Saturdays or anything extra at all to cover the work of their 'off sick'/'on holiday' colleagues.

quote:

Originally posted by bob mccluckie:

quote:

If the union think they have the support of the general public, they're living in cloud cuckoo land.

How would you know?

I stated the Union, not the RM staff. Whilst most folks are probably sympathetic to the relatively low salaries of the postal workers; I very much doubt if that extends to their union and I wonder how truly representative the latter are of their membership?

During my work I've probably had more than the average contact with the postal service, and I've yet to encounter any of their staff who were supportive of their union. I'm sure there are some out there, but they don't appear to be in my area.

Malky, although the RM postal workers appear to be comparatively poorly paid, how does this compare with the salaries paid by their competitors I wonder? How do the RM compare with their competitors in efficiency? Salary increases, no matter how fair and just they may seem to the staff and the man in the street, have to be funded somehow. Can the RM put up their prices without pricing themselves out of the market? OFCOM will not allow them to do so anyway.

The only viable way a salary increase can be funded is to increase efficiency and reduce costs which is what I guess they're attempting to do and will result in a reduction in workforce numbers, which is opposed by the Union. So what's the answer for the RM? They're being forced into an impossible position and in my view will lead to their ultimate demise.

Chaps

As someone who worked in the Post Office for 22 years, I can assure you that both sides deserve an element of sympathy and the real villian is Nulab.

Up until a few years ago, the RM had a total monopoly on letters and was answerable either to HMG or as later, the Regulator.

It was during this time of monopoly, that the service levels withing the UK generally outstriped that of any other nation and the rates were amongst the lowest in Europe. Even Maggie Thatcher agreed that the privatisation of the RM was a privatisation too far.

Nulab surprised everyone by pushing the regulator to push for greater competion and it is here where the problem lies. The UK has 26.8 million addresses and this is constant with little scope for growth. Therefore if you introduce two or three or even more competitors, they lose the economy of scale. ie 3 competitors plus RM = about 6 million adresses per each which will actually force costs up rather than down.

The Regulator then came up with the daftest idea ever. Any competitor could come into the scene and force the RM to use its national infra structure to deliver a letter from a collection point to the final adress for 13p. This pushes the RM into an automatic loss situation.

Bear in mind that 86% of delivery costs are to pay Posties (walking the streets delivering house to house is expensive), the only way RM can avoid a loss situation is to reduce labour costs.

On the other hand, no matter which competitor handles the mail, it still gets handled by the posties, so their work is hardly likely to dry up. Therefore the threat of job losses is somewhat misleading.

TNT and the like will cream off big contracts and use their own infrastructure when it suits them. They can, at the same time, continue to use the RM structure where it suits them. The volume of mail diverted from RM is unlikely ever to exceed 7%.

Therefore you have a ludicrous situation where a workforce is having to work harder for less money knowing that lorry loads of mail will still arrive at the sorting offices at a rate of nearly 80 million per day. You also have the managers having to force wages down because the governemt will not tolerate a subsidy of the business or allow a loss.

This is one very good example of a nulab cock up.

Regards

Mick

quote:

Originally posted by Mick Parry:
Even Maggie Thatcher agreed that the privatisation of the RM was a privatisation too far.
Nulab surprised everyone by pushing the regulator to push for greater competion and it is here where the problem lies.

Correct, it is telling that (Labour??) Blair/ Brown are pushing privatisation to levels that not even the arch-privatiser herself dared to dream of.

Thanks for that Mick, a very informative post indeed.

I still believe, however, that the current postal system is too rooted in the past. Are we being realistic in expecting the postie to deliver our mail every morning at 8.00am (in my case) for the relatively paltry sum of the cost of a handful of first-class letters?
Are we prepared to pay the true, realistic cost of such a service?

I have recently had direct dealings with TNT as a result of changes in the way health services are contracted and you're right about them being only interested in the more lucrative contracts. However, that's only natural for a commercial organisation and nevertheless they are a far more efficient organisation than the previous NHS structure who were responsible previously.

Am amusing outcome of this is that pcs, one of the Civil Service Unions, has had to extend the deadline for the return of ballot forms in their recent postal ballot on industrial action because of the posties' industrial action...

For once Mick I thank you for a very informative post.
Amazing that anyone could see diversification in a "fixed" market could help anyone make money (profit).
Early morning deliveries around hear are a thing of the past.8-8:30 is now more often after 12:00.
I personally don't have a problem with this and generally find the service is good and reasonably priced. Any time I have gone to alternative carriers even for big parcels (eg speakers) they are more expensive than RM/ParcelForce.
They was mention from a couple of acquaintances of jiggery pokery with the pension fund,not sure what that's about.

Howard

Mick

Thanks for your insight. Anyone familiar with the NHS will realise that you could substitute a few words in your summary and describe much of the unfolding disaster of competition/targets and choice within NHS secondary care.

Bruce

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Woodhouse:
Mick

Thanks for your insight. Anyone familiar with the NHS will realise that you could substitute a few words in your summary and describe much of the unfolding disaster of competition/targets and choice within NHS secondary care.

Bruce

I strongly disagree with this. As someone who for the last forty years has been working for them I'm very familiar with the NHS and the incredible inefficiencies they harbour under the guise of protecting a system which dates from the middle of the last century.

I'm not going to bang on too much about this, much has I'm tempted...

Excellent post Mick.

I thoroughly support the work force of the Royal Mail who deserve to paid well for a good service - I like to get my post every day. I'd like my dustbin emptied every day too. I want hospitals that are as good as they are in Scandanavia. I really want good services for the 21st century not a return to the dark ages. I pay enough tax (don't we all) so I think this should be possible.

Lots of public money is just wasted on political agendas; not sure why we need all those MPs, couldn't we outsource it to the lowest bidder or perhaps privatise parliament - just a thought. It doesn't seem to like to do much to help hard working postman or lots of other public service workers.

ROTF

quote:

Lots of public money is just wasted on political agendas; not sure why we need all those MPs, couldn't we outsource it to the lowest bidder

Cool, Downing St transposed to MG Road in Bangalore....wouldn't be any worse I guess.

Cheers

Jim

40,000 jobs to go, meanwhile Crozier and co. takes £1m+ bonus last year and tells workers that 2.5% is all they can expect 'cos the business is'nt doing too well. C'mon I have no connection with the mail service whatsoever but don't you think that this is just taking the piss. 5th richest country in the world. Yeh but for who? I'm with the posties on this one!(and I'm afraid like others will take the hit of undelivered mail). The government was again hogtied by European legislation that demanded the opening up of the British postal service thus allowing cherry picking of the best of the service by outside competitors. But that was what Crozier supposedly brought in to stop. Solution, give myself f****ing great bonus, give rest of board f****ing great bonus. Sack staff (40000 or so should do) thus making ourselves less efficient. Hike price of postage (thus making us less competative)Sit back and wait for takover/crash, walk away with big severance package for being shit at my job. So the posties have a great pension scheme. What do we do? Berate them for getting this set up in the first place (and paying into it) OR demand that ALL companies Supply a similar scheme. I noticed during the Firefighters strike FF's being lambasted for the same thing. These guys paid 11.25% of their salary towards that scheme. The cash collected over 30 years was spent by local governmennt on other services (how was this different from Maxwell). I guess I've nailed myself firmly to the socialist mast with this diatribe but at some point I feel that we must all STOP being appologists for big business and government who keep down the masses with the innane mantra of unproductive/loose to competition/can't afford etc etc whilst we sheep agree....I'm away in the huff

quote:

Originally posted by Howlinhounddog:
I guess I've nailed myself firmly to the socialist mast with this diatribe...

Not at all. Don't devalue common sense with political labels. Mick detailed the cause with great precision and from an informed standpoint. You have merely reacted reasonably. Socialism doesn't come into it, IMHO.

Taking cause & effect to the logical conclusion, and it's actually the EU that's the problem. Let's have the Common Market back; that is, after all, what we voted for.

[QUOTE]Socialism doesn't come into it,[QUOTE]

Doesn't it? Workforce gets shafted whilst management get millions. As Billy Hayes rightly points out, the government rushed to bail out Northern Rock but are content to let a government industry go down the tubes.

quote:

Originally posted by Howlinhounddog:
40,000 jobs to go, meanwhile Crozier and co. takes £1m+ bonus last year and tells workers that 2.5% is all they can expect 'cos the business is'nt doing too well. C'mon (snip)
....I'm away in the huff

Well spoken Howlinhounddog! I'm glad you're not the sort of dog that bites the Posty! : )

It does amaze me sometimes, when Royal Mail of the UK is the envy of the world, here in Little Britain some people don't realise what a great mail service they have.... and if there is a group of people that Alan Leighton hates more than posties, it's the general public!...
For more than 10 years now RM bosses have told posties: "Royal Mail is no longer a Public Service - it's a buisness"!..
(although I would say it's always been both; we serve the public, but we do charge them for this service)...

Aparently, the trouble with the general public, is they have the audacity to post 'stamped' mail in all shapes and sizes that require a labour intensive work force, but LiEr-leighton's friends in the 'corporate world' post ready-machinable mail that makes easy-money, this is "moderisation", profits before people is the modern way so don't stand in the way of progress!
Looking at other modern ideas include - ripping off the workers pension fund! It happens all the time these days! The monsters that commit this crime are too thick-skined to care what people think and quite incredibly they not only get away with it but sentence their workers to an extra five years hard labour in Royal Jail!
Other moderisation ideas include; giving big bumper bonuses for all managers and new rights to the fat and lazy unproductive line managers to bully workers into ill-health.

Seriously, over the last decade, RM have made very good progress with efficiency and better productiverty, by making careful changes over time the staff number has steadily dropped. It's this that needs to contuinue, not this asset-stripping, macho-managing sodinisation plan of lier-leighton and his croney crozier.
Royal Mail is totally unable to compete now because it must (by some strange law that makes the mind boggle) sort and deliver the parasite mail of the so called competitor. The harder Royal Mail work at this, the better off these cowboy mail company outfits become : (


The bottom line is, it's the public who will suffer in the end because one day they will wake up and realise the post service they had is lost and gone, and they will only remember how good it used to be.

SUPPORT YOUR POSTIES, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE! : )

Kind Regards to all ~
nymph

quote:

Well spoken Howlinhounddog! I'm glad you're not the sort of dog that bites the Posty! : )

quote:

SUPPORT YOUR POSTIES, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE! : )

WOOF WOOF!

Music for the Picket Line!

Up the Workers! ; )
nymph

So what have all these web sites got in common <g>

http://www.k9magazinefree.com/k9_perspective/iss34p20.shtml

http://www.dogpage.ision.co.uk/labrse2.html
http://www.lrsec.org.uk/Fundraising/Latest%20News.htm

http://www.dogmagazine.net/picture-post-of-the-day/