Egbert Posted October 22, 2009 Report Share Posted October 22, 2009 I received a pile of mail this morning and am told that locally postmen have been seen riding around on their bicycles as usual. Does this mean that in Warrington, our postal workers have shown good sense and decided to work on despite the misguided actions of their union? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LymmParent Posted October 22, 2009 Report Share Posted October 22, 2009 Well, Egbert, there are no other scientific explanations for the phenomena you describe...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianR Posted October 22, 2009 Report Share Posted October 22, 2009 collection only off today. Delivery affected tommorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Kennedy Posted October 22, 2009 Report Share Posted October 22, 2009 One assumes that there might be quite a bit of overtime available to clear the backlog....is double time still paid on a Sunday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted October 22, 2009 Report Share Posted October 22, 2009 Hopefully, the overtime for clearing the backlog will all go to the 30,000 temps who the Royal Mail have recruited. Striking workers shouldn't expect to profit from the disruption they cause. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted October 22, 2009 Report Share Posted October 22, 2009 Our post was delivered at work too altough the postman didn't seem his usual bouncy self. Saw one emptying the van near the post office too and he looked a bit like a startled rabbit. I guess it was probably becasue everyone had probably been looking at him all day wondering why he wasn't on strike after all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazj Posted October 22, 2009 Report Share Posted October 22, 2009 as the delivery service is so crap anyway; will anyone notice if they strike? My mate got his post at 4pm yesterday! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted October 22, 2009 Report Share Posted October 22, 2009 Better late than never. Both my home post and our works post is delivered around lunchtime these days. It was a bit annoying for a while as it always used to be first thing in the morning but it makes no difference now really and we've got used to it. Does tend to go to pot a little though at work when we have stand in posties. At least the regular one has an insight into who gets which post. It's supprising how many are named or labeled incorrectly by the senders. Not too bad if your neighbouring businesses will hand over your wrongly delivered post but 'some' are not quite so forthcoming Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted October 22, 2009 Report Share Posted October 22, 2009 Yet another situation we can thank the EU for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter T Posted October 23, 2009 Report Share Posted October 23, 2009 Hopefully, the overtime for clearing the backlog will all go to the 30,000 temps who the Royal Mail have recruited. Striking workers shouldn't expect to profit from the disruption they cause. What are they supposed to do? The management/Government won't sit down with ACAS and find a compromise. This could be the start of another winter of discontent and the start of bye-bye New Labour and tyhe return of Old Labour. Sometimes it is a matter of seeing what is going on, NOT a question of how it affects "me". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LymmParent Posted October 23, 2009 Report Share Posted October 23, 2009 I can't judge the relative merits of RM and the Union, but our local posties live here and are good blokes who go the extra step for us on lots of occasions where they could play jobsworth. If they really feel that things are so bad striking is their only option, then something is very wrong indeed with the management's approach. I don't think anyone should profit from strike action, no, but sometimes you have to stand up to bullies, and what I see in the news as quotes from both sides suggests that RM management is being very unreasonable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted October 23, 2009 Report Share Posted October 23, 2009 The "Spanish practices" currently in use within Royal Mail have to be seen to be believed. Guaranteed overtime - regardless of whether it's required by the level of workload or not. Guaranteed finishing times - whether or not deliveries or collections have actually been completed. Strict and rigidly applied demarcation of job roles with employees forbidden by the union from assisting in other parts of the process when their own role is not busy. I even know of a Royal Mail sorting office located on a large corporate customers site in Liverpool which is staffed by 12 full time postal workers but which, due to the corporate customer contracting their postal services out to UK Mail, has not handled one single item of mail in over 5 years. Every time Royal Mail management suggest closing this dead office and transferring the staff, the local CWU immediately accuse them in the local press of planning huge cuts to their network with mass redundancies. They then threaten a ballot on walk-outs at the main Liverpool sorting office at Copperas Hill. So for 5 years, 12 full time staff have been maintained at an empty office which now contains a couple of comfy sofas, a wide screen TV, and a pool table. The reason Royal Mail staff are so easily persuaded to take strike action is that they all know they will make far MORE money working overtime to clear the backlogs than they would lose in pay stoppages for striking, even if Royal Mail does dock their pay for it - often they don't! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted October 23, 2009 Report Share Posted October 23, 2009 our local posties live here and are good blokes who go the extra step for us on lots of occasions where they could play jobsworth. Agree with you there LP. Our local postie kindly kept a look out for my sons bike on his daily travels after it was stollen. In fact so did my local milkman. Nice blokes and certainly not jobsworths Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted October 23, 2009 Report Share Posted October 23, 2009 If you subject (at the behest of the EU) a public service to open competition, this brings in private companies who will cream off the profitable and easy services - so the old lady in outer Benbecular could be paying ?30 to send a letter - that's market forces. The whole point in a postal service is to ensure affordability to all, irrespective of location, thus supporting the idea of a monopoly. The same issue has arisen with bus services locally. Now in an effort to "compete", a rather incompetant management is endevouring to cut costs, practises and jobs - cos we can't have the Plebs enjoying any perks in their conditions of employment can we - such perks are the province of MPs and Bankers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vic Posted October 24, 2009 Report Share Posted October 24, 2009 The "Spanish practices" currently in use within Royal Mail have to be seen to be believed. Guaranteed overtime - regardless of whether it's required by the level of workload or not. Guaranteed finishing times - whether or not deliveries or collections have actually been completed. Strict and rigidly applied demarcation of job roles with employees forbidden by the union from assisting in other parts of the process when their own role is not busy. I even know of a Royal Mail sorting office located on a large corporate customers site in Liverpool which is staffed by 12 full time postal workers but which, due to the corporate customer contracting their postal services out to UK Mail, has not handled one single item of mail in over 5 years. Every time Royal Mail management suggest closing this dead office and transferring the staff, the local CWU immediately accuse them in the local press of planning huge cuts to their network with mass redundancies. They then threaten a ballot on walk-outs at the main Liverpool sorting office at Copperas Hill. So for 5 years, 12 full time staff have been maintained at an empty office which now contains a couple of comfy sofas, a wide screen TV, and a pool table. Too much reading of the Telegraph, I think. Even the management say they've cut out 93% of "Spanish Practices" (some of which grew up as management-sanctioned ways of boosting wages in areas where recruitment was difficult). Compared to expecting a 4mph average speed on a delivery round, there's plainly room for "modernisation" to cut both ways. Now, where's this dead office you know about? Why would the CWU be bothered about this when - according to the union - they've lost 1500 jobs in Merseyside in the last five years? http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2009/10/08/postal-workers-vote-for-strike-action-100252-24884489 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted October 24, 2009 Report Share Posted October 24, 2009 The Spanish practices have only survived as long as they have precisely because the Royal Mail is a moribund, 1970's unionised, government propped, monopoly. Any REAL world company would have either got rid of such practices years ago or gone under in the face of competitors who were more in touch with commercial reality. It says a lot that I heard a CWU leader criticise the current Royal Mail senior management for, "being interested primarily in making money" - and there's me thinking that was the function of senior managers in companies, is there some other priority they should be putting first??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfie Posted October 24, 2009 Report Share Posted October 24, 2009 How about 'Service to the Public' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted October 24, 2009 Report Share Posted October 24, 2009 Nice one Wolfie! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle Posted October 24, 2009 Report Share Posted October 24, 2009 Received mail on Thursday, none yesterday and mail today, why the big headlines and how are billion pound losses being made? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LymmParent Posted October 24, 2009 Report Share Posted October 24, 2009 Received mail on Thursday, none yesterday and mail today, why the big headlines and how are billion pound losses being made? They aren't. Posties have organised action that delays mail a bit, to try and get ordinary people a bit cross, so RM will have to take a bit of notice. There will be losses in terms of parcels and important documents being sent by other couriers, but a billion quid is tripe! As far as I can see, the real dealbreaking issue is that RM management won't commit to the scope of cuts and changes they intend to make, but want the Union to agree to them. I can't see that one ending happily unless some concession is made. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted October 24, 2009 Report Share Posted October 24, 2009 How about 'Service to the Public' Without profit there can be no plugging the hole in the pension fund and no investment in modern machinery and working practices. Without these, there will be no Royal Mail and therefore no "Service" - to the public or to anyone else! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vic Posted October 24, 2009 Report Share Posted October 24, 2009 You've not bitten on my line asking where this dead office is... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted October 24, 2009 Report Share Posted October 24, 2009 It's at the Alliance & Leicester site in Bootle (formerly the Girobank head office). When it was Girobank it had its own sorting office, and its own unique postcode (GIR 0AA). Soon after Alliance & Leicester bought Girobank they contracted all of their bulk outgoing mail - about 2 1/2 million statements and other letters per month - out to UK Mail. But the Royal Mail staff are still there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted October 24, 2009 Report Share Posted October 24, 2009 Yer don't get it Inky: if it's a public service - it wouldn't need to "make a profit" - somethings in life can be subsidised to ensure service provision (NHS doesn't "make a profit" either). The reason it now has "to make a profit" is cos the dictators in Brussels have forced "competion" on postal services. The reason we can't get a national broadband scheme in place is cos the private sector see "no profit" in it - so if you live outside an urban area you've had it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted October 24, 2009 Report Share Posted October 24, 2009 Received mail on Thursday, none yesterday and mail today, why the big headlines and how are billion pound losses being made? Can't say it caused us any problems at all either at home or work.... one day without post and double delivered on time today. Normal home postie was out and about in the area but we got a newbie too who was dropped off with his deliveries by a royal mail van right outside our home.... and pointed in the right direction by the driver. Guess that's where the extra costs have come from, so does that count as a loss Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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