Royal mail

[Stuart Lyon]

Remember that a lot of junior and middle management will be ex-posties who's own union don't seem as public about their stance on the background to the current dispute. Has RM reneged on a previous agreement? Are they lying about mail volumes? Are they intimidating posties to absorb the changes or face dire consequences?

 

On another point why is management always deemed to be right? Is there truth in the allegations about the expensive new sorting kit being rubbish? Why do the top men keep getting huge salaries, bonuses etc when they waste millions on things like the change of name to Consignia which was swiftly consigned to the bin.

 

Think about the impact of all the previous privatisations high gas and electriciy charges etc and support the posties.

[Fat Striker]

Did anyone see the guys with the buckets asking the queue of fans entering the Wheatfield to "support the postmen"?

 

Eh, most have been on strike 1 day. Hardly a worthy cause at this stage.

 

Cringeworthy and ever so slightly dodgy methinks

[The Real Maroonblood]

Did anyone see the guys with the buckets asking the queue of fans entering the Wheatfield to "support the postmen"?

 

Eh, most have been on strike 1 day. Hardly a worthy cause at this stage.

 

Cringeworthy and ever so slightly dodgy methinks

 

Probably looking for some beer money.

[Jacko72]

Did anyone see the guys with the buckets asking the queue of fans entering the Wheatfield to "support the postmen"?

 

Eh, most have been on strike 1 day. Hardly a worthy cause at this stage.

 

Cringeworthy and ever so slightly dodgy methinks

 

 

Agree..

 

Like you would donate money to help them not deliver your mail.

Why do people think that striking is the answer to everything?

Bullet the strkers & take on someone willing to work, i'm sure there are plenty about.

[Walter Payton]

The royal mail made ?324 million profit last year, not enough they said to give us a wage rise !!!.. whilst Mr leighton our top man took home nearly ?6 million in pay & bonuses.. The also took a 13 year "holiday from our pension fund, that is to say they took our money from our wages every week but did not pay them into the pension fund. They have refused repeated union requests as to what they have done with this money also..You the tax payer will have to foot the bill for this because of the mis management within royal mail.. It's for these reasons we are striking, we want a top level probe into the running of our company, but seeing as we are owed by the govt. who are up to their necks in enough crap i doubt very much that'll happen.. we are mandy's worst nightmare for he fears we could scupper labours already slim chances of getting re-elected if people start to ask too many questions about just what's going on within the royal mail..

 

sorry about the length of my post but there is so much mis-information being banded about about this strike i just thought i'd put the record straight on a few things...

 

a very concerned postman ...

 

I'll quote this post of yours, since it was the shortest. These aren't your own thoughts on the matter, you've just plagiarised them.

 

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n18/maya01_.html

[maroonlegions]

I tried following your links but couldn't actually get to any copies of the document referred to. I did spend a few minutes trying to get better background on what the dispute is about. It's not easy to find exactly what the problems are but it seems to revolve around changes to working practises (and by implication terms & conditions) and, perhaps, pensions.

 

As far as the law stands in this country management need to consult with staff (and staff representatives) on changes but nowhere does it say that staff can veto these changes. I've worked in manufacturing all my life and change has been a constant for 20+ years, in fact innovation and the ability to change has been what's kept what remains of manufacturing in this country on its feet during the same time.

 

I have a lot of natural sympathy with the posties but when they/you go on strike that ends as far as I'm concerned. Maybe the CWU leadership would be better served communicating about what exactly it is they don't like about future changes in working conditions and less about politics and personalities (e.g. the constant name dropping of Crozier and Mandelson).

 

I hope that explains my perspective.

 

 

 

 

Here is the letter from the union to the head of RM letters explaining the reasons for no strike action. To view the CWU's proposal to Mark Higson Managing Director, Royal Mail, please click on the link: Letter to Higson 13.10.09 http://www.cwu.org/assets/_files/documents/oct_09/cwu__1255428572_Letter_to_Higson_13.10.09.doc'>http://www.cwu.org/assets/_files/documents/oct_09/cwu__1255428572_Letter_to_Higson_13.10.09.doc

 

 

I hope the above information in the links above explains the basics and reasons why and the unions perspectives.

 

There is more information on the disputes and the reasons and stances on why we are striking on the union web site. link , http://www.cwu.org/

 

Also this from Billy Hayes the union leader on newsnight about the leaked RM document.

 

Also this from newsnight on the document http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8310618.stm

[maroonlegions]

Did anyone see the guys with the buckets asking the queue of fans entering the Wheatfield to "support the postmen"?

 

Eh, most have been on strike 1 day. Hardly a worthy cause at this stage.

 

Cringeworthy and ever so slightly dodgy methinks

 

 

I suppose you now what the impact on losing a days pay has on posties families with kids ect.Can you say how much a postie will lose in one day and what effects it will have on their families ect.

 

Hardly a worthy cause , try saying that to a room full of posties kids and wifes who do think its a worthy cause defending their jobs. Cringe worthy and every so dodgy is about right in your speculations on what the implications might have on families you know nothing about and their financial worries.

[Fat Striker]

I suppose you now what the impact on losing a days pay has on posties families with kids ect.Can you say how much a postie will lose in one day and what effects it will have on their families ect.

 

Hardly a worthy cause , try saying that to a room full of posties kids and wifes who do think its a worthy cause defending their jobs. Cringe worthy and every so dodgy is about right in your speculations on what the implications might have on families you know nothing about and their financial worries.

 

Having been made redundant last month I think I know a little about financial worries thank you very much - but that's a separate issue.

 

Funnily enough when I got into the ground I mentioned it to the guy I sit next to who happens to be a retired postie and he didn't agree with the collection buckets (at this stage) either.

 

I then received a text asking how the game was going from someone who currently is a postman and was on strike, standing on the picket line on Friday. I mentioned the buckets and his response? "They'll be in the tyne Arms" following it up with "Hmmm why would they be taking a collection? It's only one days pay!"

 

Now, when peoples jobs are are stake I realise tensions and emotions can run high but do you honestly think after striking for ONE day they should suddenly be the beneficiaries of charitable donations?

 

I mean who knows how this thing is going to twist and turn and for everyones sake I hope it gets resolved as soon as possible and doesn't involve people losing their jobs or facing real financial hardship.

 

Times are tough for a lot of us at the moment.

[maroonlegions]

Let me explain what this means. Each frame represents a round or a walk. Letters are sorted on the frame, and then bundled up to take out onto the walk. But mail delivery is a seasonal business. Traffic varies throughout the year. Around Christmas it is at its highest. In the summer months, when the kids are out of school, the volume drops. This is known as ?the summer lull?. So a national agreement was reached between the union and the management to reduce the number of man-hours in each office during the summer months. And the way this was done was to collapse one of the frames. One frame in the office would no longer have a specific postman assigned to it, but would be taken out by all the postmen in the office on a rotating basis. This meant an average of ten or 15 minutes extra work every day for every postman in the office. This agreement was meant to apply to only one frame and for the summer period only.

Now this has changed. There is increasing pressure to collapse more and more frames ? that is, to get the same number of postmen to do larger amounts of work ? and not just in the summer months but over the whole year. Management are becoming noticeably more belligerent. For some weeks now the managers have been bullying and cajoling everyone in our office, saying that a second frame would have to be collapsed ? ?figures are down? ? and that the workforce would have to decide which frame that would be. Everyone refused. Collapsing a frame would mean that one person would have to move frames, while another person on a ?flexible? contract would lose his job altogether. No one wanted to be responsible for making that kind of decision. No one wanted to shaft their workmates. And then last week it was announced, on the heaviest day of the week, and without notice, that a second frame was going to be collapsed anyway, regardless of our opinion. When the shop steward put in a written objection it was ignored.

Such was the resentment and the chaos in the office that a lot of mail didn?t get delivered that day, and what was delivered was late. If a postman fails to deliver a letter, it is called ?deliberate withholding of mail? and is a sackable offence. When management are responsible, it is considered merely expedient. There?s a feeling that we are being provoked, and that this isn?t coming from the managers in our office ? who aren?t all that bright, and who don?t have all that much power ? but from somewhere higher up. Everyone is gearing up for a strike.

The truth is that the figures aren?t down at all. We have proof of this. The Royal Mail have been fiddling the figures. This is how it is being done.

Mail is delivered to the offices in grey boxes. These are a standard size, big enough to carry a few hundred letters. The mail is sorted from these boxes, put into pigeon-holes representing the separate walks, and from there carried over to the frames. This is what is called ?internal sorting? and it is the job of the full-timers, who come into work early to do it. In the past, the volume of mail was estimated by weighing the boxes. These days it is done by averages. There is an estimate for the number of letters that each box contains, decided on by national agreement between the management and the union. That number is 208. This is how the volume of mail passing through each office is worked out: 208 letters per box times the number of boxes. However, within the last year Royal Mail has arbitrarily, and without consultation, reduced the estimate for the number of letters in each box. It was 208: now they say it is 150. This arbitrary reduction more than accounts for the 10 per cent reduction that the Royal Mail claims is happening nationwide.

Doubting the accuracy of these numbers, the union ordered a random manual count to be undertaken over a two-week period in a number of offices across the region. Our office was one of them. On average, those boxes which the Royal Mail claims contain only 150 letters, actually carry 267 items of mail. This, then, explains how the Royal Mail can say that the figures are down, although every postman knows that volume is up. The figures are down all right, but only because they have been manipulated.

Like many businesses, the Royal Mail has a pet name for its customers. The name is ?Granny Smith?. It?s a deeply affectionate term. Granny Smith is everyone, but particularly every old lady who lives alone and for whom the mail service is a lifeline. When an old lady gives me a Christmas card with a fiver slipped in with it and writes, ?Thank you for thinking of me every day,? she means it. I might be the only person in the world who thinks about her every day, even if it?s only for long enough to read her name on an envelope and then put it through her letterbox. There is a tension between the Royal Mail as a profit-making business and the Royal Mail as a public service. For most of the Royal Mail management ? who rarely, if ever, come across the public ? it is the first. To the delivery officer ? to me, and people like me, the postmen who bring the mail to your door ? it is more than likely the second.

We had a meeting a while back at which all the proposed changes to the business were laid out. Changes in our hours and working practices. Changes to our priorities. Changes that have led to the current chaos. We were told that the emphasis these days should be on the corporate customer. It was what the corporations wanted that mattered. We were effectively being told that quality of service to the average customer was less important than satisfying the requirements of the big businesses.

Someone piped up in the middle of it. ?What about Granny Smith?? he said. He?s an old-fashioned sort of postman, the kind who cares about these things.

?Granny Smith is not important,? was the reply. ?Granny Smith doesn?t matter any more.?

So now you know.

 

Please spare a thought for the poor postman/woman as they trudge the streets in all weathers delivering your mail whilst fat cat managers earn thousands in bonuses for running down something we see as a service to the community but they only see as a way to screw as much profit from as possible..

 

 

 

As a postie myself i agree that you have raised very important and valid points in part 1 and 2 of your posts.We in our D.O. are always referring too the failing mail volumes in our D.O.These referrals are in the forms of jokes and in all seriousness.

 

I do also see the point in that these down stream access mail volumes do keep most posties and postal workers in jobs.

 

The main point here is that while the down stream mail is delivered by us in the finale mile scenario these revenues for this mail are down due to TNT,DHL and UK Mail processing this mail and so charging us less for it to be handled and delivered.Now this is crucial in what RM are saying in revenues and mail volumes going down.

 

They are lumping this drop in revenue with actual MAIL VOLUMES , so in reality mail volumes for posties and mail centres are up but the revenues for this mail is slightly down so in reality we are delivering more mail not less.

 

We the posties are the front line foot soldiers and we know the amount of mail we are delivering each day.We do see the volume each day and i for one agree and see the that the mail volumes we delivery are definitely up.

 

Now when these changes came in to walk sequences or the number of calls assigned to each individual walk this was based largely on these figures of mail volume decline by RM.

 

Just look at the diffidences in mail volumes on a Tuesday compared to Wednesdays and the rest of the week, these volumes should be evenly spaced out over the week instead of a quite Tuesday to a manic Wednesday.

 

The staff rotation in mail centres should be assigned to make sure we get a fairly even volume of mail on each day not all lumped on us on particular days bar Tuesdays. I DO AGREE WITH ALL YOUR POINTS RAISED IN YOUR 2 POSTS

 

The warning signs were there when D.O.s where suddenly STOPPED from weighing the mail that came in in each delivery van from mail centres. I remember when we had to weigh and then record ALL mail in the boxes you described each morning BEFORE we even started sorting it or began the process of A,S.A.P.

 

 

P.S I would watch your texts in your posts and make sure you use paragraphs

as the English grammar teachers on here are known to get their knickers in a twist because of it.. Take care mate and hopefully we can end these strikes and achieve much more fairer working practices.

[maroonlegions]

Having been made redundant last month I think I know a little about financial worries thank you very much - but that's a separate issue.

 

Funnily enough when I got into the ground I mentioned it to the guy I sit next to who happens to be a retired postie and he didn't agree with the collection buckets (at this stage) either.

 

I then received a text asking how the game was going from someone who currently is a postman and was on strike, standing on the picket line on Friday. I mentioned the buckets and his response? "They'll be in the tyne Arms" following it up with "Hmmm why would they be taking a collection? It's only one days pay!"

 

Now, when peoples jobs are are stake I realise tensions and emotions can run high but do you honestly think after striking for ONE day they should suddenly be the beneficiaries of charitable donations?

 

I mean who knows how this thing is going to twist and turn and for everyones sake I hope it gets resolved as soon as possible and doesn't involve people losing their jobs or facing real financial hardship.

 

Times are tough for a lot of us at the moment.

 

 

Yes times are hard for a lot of people but my point was each individual has different financial hardships to deal with, not everyone's difficultly is the same in seriousness.Now did that postie who text you saying that postie would be in the Tynie Arms know the hardships of this other postie.

 

Yes it is early days i agree with you i myself personally would never ask anyone for hand outs but as i said each individual has different financial issues to deal with.With all due respect i do see your points and like you want a early settlement to this dispute with the least possible hardships suffered by everyone in this dispute.

[maroonlegions]

The postal workers, having this year doubled annual profits to ?321m, have had to listen to specious lectures from Peter Mandelson, a twice-disgraced figure risen from the murk of New Labour, about ?urgent modernisation?. The truth is, the Royal Mail offers a quality service at half the price of its privatised rivals Deutsche Post and TNT.

 

In dealing with new technology, postal workers have sought only consultation about their working lives and the right not to be abused ? like the postal worker who was spat upon by her manager, then sacked while he was promoted; and the postman with 17 years? service and not a single complaint to his name who was sacked on the spot for failing to wear his cycle helmet.

 

Watch the near frenzy with which your postie now delivers. A middle-aged man has to run much of his route in order to keep to a preordained and unrealistic time. If he fails, he is disciplined and kept in his place by the fear that thousands of jobs are at the whim of managers.

 

This man Peter Mandelson has sat back and never got involved with this dispute until now when the leaked document surfaced.Given his tracked record in his past dealings is it fair to say he cannot be trusted on anything he says regarding this dispute,WHY now has he crawled out of the wood work, his timing is suspicious to say the least.

[maroonlegions]

CWU Announces Strike

 

Watch the moment when the Communication Workers Union announced, in a news conference, that they had failed to reach a deal with the Royal Mail and therefore would stage a two-day national postal strike.

 

link for video on announcement , http://news.sky.com/skynews/video?videoSourceID=2075458

 

 

No agreements then,strikes on Friday and Saturday to go ahead this week.

[Goodmorningmrfisherman]

Watch the near frenzy with which your postie now delivers. A middle-aged man has to run much of his route in order to keep to a preordained and unrealistic time. If he fails, he is disciplined and kept in his place by the fear that thousands of jobs are at the whim of managers.

 

 

This is nothing new my friend,can I just ask you to pass on to the postpersons involved in this paractise that running round a delivery is and was outlawed by the Health and Saftey Executive around 1984 when time and motion tried to sanction it at the west D.O.

 

It is also illegal under company law for an employer to disipline an employee on a health and saftey issue.

 

Your union rep should know this.

 

Good luck on your actions and I hope you don't get sold down the river by leaders who are trying to feather their own nests,A Johnstone springs to mind.

[maroonlegions]

This is nothing new my friend,can I just ask you to pass on to the postpersons involved in this paractise that running round a delivery is and was outlawed by the Health and Saftey Executive around 1984 when time and motion tried to sanction it at the west D.O.

 

It is also illegal under company law for an employer to disipline an employee on a health and saftey issue.

 

Your union rep should know this.

 

Good luck on your actions and I hope you don't get sold down the river by leaders who are trying to feather their own nests,A Johnstone springs to mind.

 

 

 

Aye you are correct in your points you made about health and safety laws and dismissal we have not got a union rep at our D.O. just know and have not had one for about a year.On the health and sfteu laws there are still posties at my D.O who are still talking out overweight bags, over 16kg.Cheers for the wishes of good luck also mate,take care.

[dazbo]

Agree..

 

Like you would donate money to help them not deliver your mail.

Why do people think that striking is the answer to everything?

Bullet the strkers & take on someone willing to work, i'm sure there are plenty about.

 

:qqb017::qqb017:

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

Why do none of the posties on this thread not mention the elephant in the room? The pension fund deficit! That's the real problem.

 

Just like Rangers are "only" ?30M in debt, that isn't the real issue in their case. MIH's debts are their problem and how the share issue was funded is the real issue. Likewise, funding the post office deficit under the funding requirements is the real pain point for the Royal Mail and its shareholder, the Government.

 

So, in operating terms, ?321M is fine. It's the other obligations that are the problem.

 

Incidentally, why aren't the union calling for price rises to support their demands?

[Goodmorningmrfisherman]

Incidentally, why aren't the union calling for price rises to support their demands?

 

Why would any employee want to ask for a price rise on the product they supply,knowing all to well the rise would not solve any issues for them.

 

As anyone who has spent time in the service of Royal Mail knows,give the employer more money and he will squander it away on hairbrain daft policies without improving the service.

 

The real problems of royal mail started in 1984 WHEN the goverment insisted that the managment structure should be made up of university graduates who knew nothing about the ins and outs of the postal service.

 

This resulting in at the time of GPO,The post office and then royal mail being one of the biggest contributers to the treasuary becoming one of the biggest drains of it.

 

Why because then the Goverment at the time(1981 onwards) wanted their people ie the uni graduate to gain employment on leaving,before any emplyee who had risen through the ranks of their company.

 

It saddens me to see the demise of this once great service and head postmasters of my time who all started as a humble postie must be turning in their grave the way it is run now.

[dazbo]

This is nothing new my friend,can I just ask you to pass on to the postpersons involved in this paractise that running round a delivery is and was outlawed by the Health and Saftey Executive around 1984 when time and motion tried to sanction it at the west D.O.

 

It is also illegal under company law for an employer to disipline an employee on a health and saftey issue.

 

You're spot on mate!

 

Somedays i need to put a jog-on JUST to get finished for my finishing time!

 

Also, i got a stage warning at work, i was wearing the correct footwear and wasn't running, but i got the warning( thanks to the new breed of erse kissing managers, imo) a couple of years ago,when i returned to my duty after falling down a flight a of stairs erse first and knackered my hip! i got the warning coz the place where i fell didn't have a hazard mentioned in the walk log!!

i still need physio for it but thats the thanks i get!