I'm obviously missing something in the Royal Mail saga.
Firstly we had The Most Titled Man in Britain try to sell of around a third of it to a German company but that fell through. Didn't the Germans suddenly realise they weren't getting a decent deal?
Now we have the postal workers union insisting their members want to commence a series of strikes. Several members interviewed on Sky TV in the past 24 hours say they certainly don't want to strike but would prefer talks to continue. No say the union, we're striking and that's that.
Just an hour ago the Royal Mail announced they intend to hire 30,000 temporary workers, not to do the job of the striking posties of course, but to sort out any backlogs which may occur during the strikes. The Royal Mail states the temporary workers are the amount usually hired prior to the Christmas rush but this year they are being recruited slightly earlier.
Some of the biggest online companies, such as Amazon and John Lewis, have made other arrangements for the deliveries of their merchandise. I very much doubt they will return to Royal Mail because, as any business knows, there must be trust and security between you and your delivery service.
Pensions are involved in the saga but many of us have had our pensions cut drastically by this present government. Why is the postal workers union bringing the organisation to its knees? Can someone please make the case for the union's actions?
By the way I spoke to my own postie this morning and none at my local sorting office voted to strike. Yes it's a only small town, but the men and women who work there have the same domestic worries as most of us.
The Right Rant has another view on this subject.
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We are witnessing the epitome of Labour capability in a brewery, Subrosa.
There is a list of strike reasons here:
http://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/community/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20258#p196707
anyone can join the forum
I thought so OR, not suprising though.
Lorenzo, thanks for the link.
Just a note to other readers, you have to register to gain entry to the site. I've done that because I'm interested in knowing what is going on.
Another step towards privatization I suspect (with the collusion of union leaders).
Nothing surprises anymore does it scunnert? Mandy didn't get his sale so this is the result.
I think that the problem is the long term mismanagement of the Royal Mail by Alan Leighton and Adam Crozier (who lets not forget walk away with a combined annual salary of £6.5 million), who's brief was to ensure that the Royal Mail was fit for privatisation. This involved bringing in poor working practices and the withdrawal of several services (like early/morning deliveries).
It shows how determined Gordon Brown was to push through privatisation that he got one of his key lieutenants to organise the scrapping of Postwatch, who at least won some fights with the Royal Mail.
Postwatch offered a reasonable service Allan. I used them on a couple of occasions and they sorted out my concerns professionally.
What will happen now is that the Royal Mail will collapse, the workers will lose out (not the bosses of course) and the remaining mail companies will pick off what they want, for a pittance.
The union isn't helping at all with encouraging strikes. The public would be far more onside if they halted these strikes, don't you think?
To be honest, yes the strike will be PR suicide but i'm not really sure what's left for the Union to do. Whatever happens, Brown Mandelson and Cameron are probably going to get away with a privatisation which will be a disaster.
Having said that, the time for the public to get angry and change minds came and went with the Urban Closure programme. Once that happened, Royal Mail management could pretty much get away with what they wanted as they had government backing.
Allan, my postie said exactly that the other day. When I asked why they didn't try to rally public support at the time, he said the unions didn't think it important.
I too see privatisation. Another centuries old tradition down the sewers - marvellous how labour can clear a country isn't it.
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