Royal Mail website goes on strike

Perhaps....

As the site is back up, maybe that indicates the strike will be a fart-in-a-wind-tunnel affair too

Um...

It's not Unavailable, the pages were just delivered a bit late, of maybe they were delivered to the wrong address...

Royal Mail...

...oddly since they announced the strike, I actually seem to be getting quicker and more regualar mail deliveries.

Can they go on strike, say twice a month?

"UK.gov expect Royal Mail to operate at a profit so they can sell them off"

Sell them off?? But wait, we're in a Labour Gov.. they NEVER privatise... oh wait..

That said, one thing is for certain, I get peev'd when you have employees that exepct to still have their job, even when the organisation they work for has gone to the wall due to not making the tough decisions of cutting back staff. I've been in a situation where I was handed a letter saying I was being made redundant. yes, I have dependacies, but I certainly didn't start shooting off and saying "How can they do this?!", or the real kicker "How can the Gov let this happen.. I have 14 kids to feed!"

Pah! It's business, and not a right to have a job.

And don't get me started on job seekers allowance either! .. Or benefits for that matter!!

Get back to work and take the news professionally!

AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!!

*explodes in a red mist of anger*

i'm a b)

I'm with the OPs initial assessment, I don't see delivering mail as being all that skilled.

Sure we'd all like to be paid more but for delivering less mail year on year? Surely not.

I may pay a bit more if they'd deliver my mail before I left for work but as they don't and I normally have to go collect all my parcels from the depot at weekends.. I'm not really a big supporter of my local postie.

Ex RM says...

The problem is here is that Postal Workers believe they have a right to a job for life, for ever, irrespective of any other factor. The Royal Mail does not have a compulsory redundancy policy but a plan to lose a large %age of the workforce through attrition over the next few years. As a result of the shrinking market and increased automation of sorting, DHL etc autosort 93% of their mail, and the Royal Mail.. 55%. Ultimately the business must change and if it doens't it will change anyway. A days strike costs £2m+ a day : £1m in lost business per day and £1m in lost contracts as customers move to other provders.

The same other providers that then deliver the "Final Mile" of the delivery to the Royal Mail anyway! The same "Final Mile" delivery that Postcomm charges to the Other Providers at less than cost... and refuses to change that price, so RM are subsidising the competition.

@AC - Ex RM Says

"The same other providers that then deliver the "Final Mile" of the delivery to the Royal Mail anyway! The same "Final Mile" delivery that Postcomm charges to the Other Providers at less than cost... and refuses to change that price, so RM are subsidising the competition."

Of course they have to charge less than cost. The government made damn sure of that when they deregulated the postal system, otherwise nobody would have bid for the franchises. It's the only way they can make a profit. Of course if RM is ever sold off it will be expected to operate at a profit and that last mile can't possibly operate at a profit as long as Postcomm play their political games. The stupid thing is of course that allowing RM to charge a reasonable rate would give them a chance of turning a profit, which would in turn give Mandy the opportunity to sell it.

Perhaps the one place where RM are not facing as much of a drop in business is that final mile. Our village posty tells me he has more mail to deliver now than five years ago (ebay?). That is to say he has more mail to deliver to the addresses that were there five years ago and he has all the new build on top of that. He is, however, already expected to deliver the mail in less time than he did five years ago. Quite often the bags are too big for him to safely ride his bike, so he has to push it which slows him down even more. The mail arrives at the local post office later than it used to do, due apparently to the sorting office doing their job less efficiently than they used to. So the people at the end of the round are getting their mail much later than they did a few years ago.

All of which leads to another thing slowing him down. Him getting it in the ear from people because they seem to think it's his fault the post is arriving later than it used to.

Modernisation my arse! A cynic might suggest that they are pushing rural deliveries to the point where they are no longer practical. Then they will press UK.gov to change their contract so they they can either make people collect from their local post office or pay extra for delivery. It would mean a new income stream and might explain the u-turn on the closure of several village post offices in this neck of the woods. The option of free collection wouldn't work if there wasn't a local post office would it?