postal strike

[strapping young lad]

makes you wonder whether its worth getting a courier instead

yes it may cost you a tenner or more but if its value is a lot more than that at least you know its going to get where its supposed to during these awkward times

[v8kenny]

I'm waiting for several cheques  

Me too - and we have had no post since last wednesday  

[Bunnie]

All the stuff for my job interview on friday has been done via email due to the postal strikes so its not been to much of a problem.

me personal other than waiting to various bills to arrive the only thing i could possibly be waiting on is letter from the solicitors about my insurance claim.. but then they may not have bothered to send anything to me.

i can see the problems for mum and dad tho waiting to know just how much this weeks beer delivery has cost.. (normally anything around the 3K mark)

[strapping young lad]

whats interesting about this thread is that no one is defending the strike

normally when a question is asked about any industry someone normally stands their ground but not this time

maybe everyones had it with them?

[L90OOK]

They may as well all go home & sign on the dole...useless.
With computers fast taking over snail mail, especially in business you'd have thought the posties would be working harder to improve service & maintain there jobs, not striking & alienating the people that pay there wages!

The post here in South Devon has been terrible for over 12 months now.  Post used to turn up 7-7.30am everyday.  Now turns up between 10am & 4pm if at all!!  We even went through a period of collecting our own post from the sorting office :shock:
This has prompted me to turn my business into an internet biased business.
All my business is now done on the computer & fax now as I can't take the chance of invoices, cheques getting lost in post!
All incoming faxes go straight to fax server & all payments are done online.
The very few important docs I do have to send go by doc post with TNT or a another courier...at least it gets where it's going...eventually!

Perhaps we should all strike & not the Royal Mail service for a month & see how  that hurts their pockets...see what the union idiots have to say about that  

Rant over...nearly!!  :twisted:

[strapping young lad]

post in our new house is usually there by 9am but in the old house you could be having afternoon tea before it turns up

[Drift]

Some have called unofficial strikes today :roll:

Taken from the BBC.

He explained that the wildcat strikes were triggered by new Royal Mail rules, which they had not consented to, that prevented workers from starting work before 0600 BST and leaving before 1415 BST.

Flexibility

Historically, most postal workers begun their shift between 0500 BST and 0530 BST and were free to go when they had finished their round.

Mr Wall argued this loss of flexibility, and not pay, was the reason why he was on strike and said that he believed that was the case for most of his Royal Mail colleagues.

"The current Royal Mail management introduced this concept of flexibility when they were appointed," said Mr Wall.

It looks like they want to keep their job and finish tradition.

If they are paid 8 hours, why not expect to work 8 hours  

[dazzawhipple]

It looks like they want to keep their job and finish tradition.

If they are paid 8 hours, why not expect to work 8 hours  

second jobs...... :roll:

[Evilgoat]

It looks like they want to keep their job and finish tradition.

If they are paid 8 hours, why not expect to work 8 hours  

second jobs...... :roll:

So striking for the right to continue to carry on taking the micheal?

[mike142sl]

The very few important docs I do have to send go by doc post with TNT or a another courier...at least it gets where it's going...eventually!

Only works for business post - anything residential and TNT etc use 'guess who' to make the delivery - yes the Post Office.

[strapping young lad]

i dont think tradition works anymore, times have changed, management methods have changed.


i hear another strike is happening

lovely....

[L90OOK]

The very few important docs I do have to send go by doc post with TNT or a another courier...at least it gets where it's going...eventually!

Only works for business post - anything residential and TNT etc use 'guess who' to make the delivery - yes the Post Office.

Not if you address it correctly   ...play the system  :D

[Drift]

The strike is still on in alot of areas.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7037052.stm

[strapping young lad]

The very few important docs I do have to send go by doc post with TNT or a another courier...at least it gets where it's going...eventually!

Only works for business post - anything residential and TNT etc use 'guess who' to make the delivery - yes the Post Office.

Not if you address it correctly   ...play the system  :D

i always get stuff thats of any value delivered to work ;)

[SteveGoodz]

I've been reading nothing but anti-strike comments in this thread so thought it might be time to respond to some of the comments being made. Before I start I must declare that I do, on occasion, work for Parcel Force which is part of Royal Mail but operated as a separate business.

The workforce within Royal Mail (RM) have been implementing a series of "service improvements" ~ read cost cutting exercises ~ for the past 5 years. As customers of RM you will have seen the effects of these improvements as single daily deliveries, 2nd class letters taking up to 3 days for delivery, single daily collections from post boxes, not being able to purchase television licences from Post Offices, changes to the way letters are charged and an increase in the price of stamps. The quick-minded amongst you will see that not one of these changes has actually been an improvement ~ but it has saved millions. Each time a new improvement has been implemented the staff have raised objections on the grounds that it detracts from the service already provided and management have told them to "shut up and get on with it".

In addition to the improvements mentioned above, management have imposed changes to staff working times and practices without consultation. Imagine your own situation; you have a job which you've been doing for x years, you've built-up a routine around that job (taking the kids to school, caring for relatives, helping out with the local youth group, etc.). You go into work one morning and your manager says "oh, we've changed your hours, instead of 9 til 5 you're now working 12 til 8; starting today". Can't be done? Well it happened this week to several thousand RM employees (hence the wildcat strikes).

In common with many civil servants (which RM employees are) they work for low wages (typically less than 20k/yr when the national average is close to 25k). They know that when they sign up but there is a long-term benefit for them and that is a good pension scheme. Or at least it WAS until Gordon Brown raided it a few years ago and more recently management have announced they are going to a) raise the retirement age, b) reduce the pension payout and c) make employees contribute. The rights and wrongs of c) are irrelevant ~ it's the way in which the employees are being rail-roaded that sticks in their craw. How would you feel if 2 months from retirement you're told that the pension you were expecting is going to be reduced by 22% ~ not only have you suffered low wages for the past 30 years but now you're going to get a reduced pension too!

RM don't just collect and deliver letters. Much of their business is based around small parcels collected from businesses and delivered to private homes. One company I know ships about 1000 small packages each day via RM ~ you can't send those via email. As a business you can get a number of other postal companies to collect your mail (letters or parcels) BUT it's RM that does the delivery of these so if the posties are on strike they don't get delivered either.

No other company has the infrastructure to make house to house deliveries in each and every city, town, village, hamlet and farming community in the UK. If RM's management has it's way nor will RM in 5 years time. They want to bring in more automation but can only do that by making savings in other places and they haven't yet developed a robot that can deliver mail. They've already squeezed the business to the verge of breaking point and all that's left to cut now is wages. The union's estimate of 40,000 jobs (about 1/3 of the workforce) may be a bit high but can you imagine how much worse the service will be with even 20,000 less posties out there popping your bills, cheques and passports through the letter box each and every day?

I don't advocate or support the strike action and would never take part myself but I do understand the employees frustration. Their morale is pretty much at rock bottom. Believe it, or not, they actually want to provide a good service to the public. They see themselves as the whipping boys who are being forced to stand back whilst Adam Crosier (the highest paid civil servant in the UK) turns what was once the best postal service in the world into a third rate skeleton of its former self.

Feel free to disagree with any or all of the above, as you see fit, it's just an honest appraisal from someone who occasionally works in the business.

[Drift]

I applaud you for posting your views Steve.

But the fact stands strike action in the 21st Century will not work and there are not many of any cases of it working in big National or privatized companies.
Ive worked for the bus industry for 22 years starting as a driver.

The rosta's where constantly changed every few months without agreement, by the management after deregulation in 1986, yes we got fed up, yes in the late 80's early 90's we went on strike, it got us know where and disliked by the traveling public.
We where and drivers still are on a darn site less than 20k a year with shift pattens that would frighten most people.
This is just an example, there are many other industries the same.

It was quickly found striking is not a real option, ask Miners ask the Dockers (and my father was a Docker at the big strike).
All sacked.
Wild cat strikes will cost you your job, but the long term affect of a strike on a business can be catastrophic especially one that is already struggling.

The only way to win is getting the people on your side not alienating them.

Just my views on industial action, yup Ive changed a bit over the years  :lol:

[littlepow]

Can understand people being upset over the pension defecit, that will be more of a problem the closer you are to retirement.

But as to changes to working hours, sorry but the only answer is deal with it. I spend most of my life having my working hours change with little or no notice. Even get moved around the country or world on a minimal of 24hr notice.

But you take the money, you take the poo.

Even my misses has to be flexible at work in the NHS, usually working extended hours and weekends.

There are loads of people with families that don't have fixed working hours / locations and even less pay, they manage.

[Evilgoat]

Sorry but You arent Civil Servants, Privatised you see.

Average wage £25K errm thats crud too, on your current wage scale a Postie makes more than a lot of people in specialised sectors.

And the whining about not being pad for hours your dont work, ahem, welcome to the real world.

Yyes management is screwing it up and the pentions nonsense is wrong but the strikes are removing any support you had, hence the no positive views on the strike action.

If I strike over working conditions(without union backing), I get fired, plain and simple, this applies to almost all of the working population.

If I turn up at 5:30 am, do all my work and go home 4 hours later, I get paid 4 hours later, again, this applies to about 90% of the working poulation.

If I turn up at work, complete my shift early (assuming I work for someone that allows this) By not delivering mail, dropping it in the bin, going home to deliver it later in my car, again, I get fired.

As long as post is arriving late, is being willfully misdelivered/destroyed/lost/batched up by the posties then there will be no sympathy. Yes I see what you say about parcels but theres only one thing that most people of the Uk see day in, day out, and thats the post.

[dazzawhipple]

Steve,

Good posting

I agree with the pensions issues PO is not the only company with this problem

But working the contracted hours you should ie 6-2 but comman pratice is to get overtime in the morning and to leave early...  blimey if I do that i would be on the dole

[Ricky]

I'm not a postie but have a close freind who is. one of the main sticking points at his depot/sort office is the early finish . currently if he completes his job after 4 hours he goes and gets paid for 8, but if management asks him to stay the full 8 hour shift to help others out. he can claim the additional 4 as overtime even though he's already being paid to be there! common for a dept/section to slow down to create overtime for others which is recipricated at a later date.
No wonder the buisiness is in such a mess!

[dazzawhipple]

and there striking over that  :shock: .......sack them all then thay would have to get a real job

[V8MoneyPit]

currently if he completes his job after 4 hours he goes and gets paid for 8, but if management asks him to stay the full 8 hour shift to help others out. he can claim the additional 4 as overtime even though he's already being paid to be there! common for a dept/section to slow down to create overtime for others which is recipricated at a later date.
No wonder the buisiness is in such a mess!

This is just one of many examples of historical practices that should never have been allowed in the first place. The problem is that people get so used to it that they find it hard to accept being asked to work the hours they are being paid for.

Here are some more examples:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/09/npost309.xml

Some are just astonishing  :shock:

[SteveGoodz]

Sorry but You arent Civil Servants, Privatised you see.

Depends on your definition of privatised. If having just one share holder who just happens to be HM Government is being private then I concede your point ~ but then you have to agree that British Steel, British Rail, British Leyland, British Telecom, British Aerospace, British Gas and 95% of the deep coal mines were never anything but privately owned (i.e. never nationalised).

Even when The Post Office was turned into Consignia and made a PLC they were still owned by HMG and turning that into Royal Mail hasn't changed its status.

[SteveGoodz]

currently if he completes his job after 4 hours he goes and gets paid for 8, but if management asks him to stay the full 8 hour shift to help others out. he can claim the additional 4 as overtime even though he's already being paid to be there! common for a dept/section to slow down to create overtime for others which is recipricated at a later date.
No wonder the buisiness is in such a mess!

This is just one of many examples of historical practices that should never have been allowed in the first place. The problem is that people get so used to it that they find it hard to accept being asked to work the hours they are being paid for.

This is not a historical practice. It was introduced less than 5 years ago by the very same management team that now want to stop it.

[SteveGoodz]

Look folks, I wasn't defending the strike action ~ personally I think it's futile and will simply hasten the demise of RM as a single entity. My post was intended to give some balance to the debate; to put forward some of the concerns that RM employees have expressed to me ~ an outsider ~ when I've asked them.

In my original post I mentioned a company that sends about 1000 small packages a day with RM. I was in a meeting with their owner today (on a completely disassociated matter) and he told me they've been losing £25k per day since the strikes started and he's going to have to lay off staff just when he should be thinking about taking on temps for the Xmas rush. He's also cancelling his contract with RM and looking to use TNT/DHL/Business Post/whoever in future. Perversely, his situation will probably have a knock-on effect on my own business as he's almost bound to delay some planned automation improvements that I've spent 8 months talking him into  :(

[Drift]

Sorry to hear you have got caught up in the backlash of this strike Steve, last thing any business need.

I think members feel let down by the whole RM saga and its affecting them to, so its bound to be a slightly  :?  one sided debate.

Its good to see other opinions and views, it makes things alot more interesting.

[V8MoneyPit]

currently if he completes his job after 4 hours he goes and gets paid for 8, but if management asks him to stay the full 8 hour shift to help others out. he can claim the additional 4 as overtime even though he's already being paid to be there! common for a dept/section to slow down to create overtime for others which is recipricated at a later date.
No wonder the buisiness is in such a mess!

This is just one of many examples of historical practices that should never have been allowed in the first place. The problem is that people get so used to it that they find it hard to accept being asked to work the hours they are being paid for.

This is not a historical practice. It was introduced less than 5 years ago by the very same management team that now want to stop it.

Fair enough. I have read incorrect information if that's the case. But I stand by what I said in that it should never have been allowed to happen in the first place.

I'm certainly not laying the blame with any one party. That, frankly, is never the case in disputes. The management have plenty to answer for. No doubt about that. I'm just not sure stike action is the answer. In my view (and that's all it is) it just alienates the majority of the public and they could really do with the public on their side.

I don't think anyone is having a go at you. Your point is well put, perfectly valid and appreciated in the discussion.