POL workers should not have to subsidise the Network

[MinisterofCucumber]

The British public want Post Offices to remain open and provide the full range of services.

It is accepted by all parties that Post Offices need a subsidy to remain open.

The Post Office Network benefits the whole of the country and should be subsidised by the whole of the country through the tax system. Instead, POL workers, whose wage rises have been less than inflation for years, are being forced to take a pay cut so that the government will be able to cut the subsidy in the future. POL management's cost cutting obsession shows they are colluding with this aim.

In other words, POL workers are paying more than their fair share towards the Network Subsidy. Even using the conservative Consumer Price Index, a Supply Chain PA on £325 a week basic is £25 below the £350 he/she should be on just to keep pace. Why should POL workers have to pay more towards the Network Subsidy while others on more money have to pay less?

[Mad Max]

leave then if its so bad..

[POSTMAN]

leave then if its so bad..

You've changed your tune.

[Lounge Lizard]

Sub-postmasters/postmistresses are having their income cut, those at Post Offices in a WH Smiths are near the minimum wage, so the privileged few at the less than 400 Crown Offices remaining aren't doing badly by comparison.
Always look on the bright side.

[MinisterofCucumber]

Blimey.

It's not a foregone conclusion that the Post Office is going to go.

People want to keep the Post Office, let's help them.

[subbie]

The Minister has a point, it cannot be denied that the public want a Network of Po's big and small, but the Gov, not just this one, all of them past and present, will not pay to ensure such a Network remains, or at least I should say ENSURES that the money they do give is spent on the right things.
All workers in the Counters sector are being exploited to varying degrees in order to cover up the waste that the Corporate bods make of any capital injection the Gov gives them.

Subbie

[TrueBlueTerrier]

leave then if its so bad..

[MinisterofCucumber]

The CWU should be campaigning to stop the Post Office Network Subsidy from being cut by the back door.

POL management should explain what they mean by "financially sustainable". How can they justify wage cuts because they believe that the subsidy will reduce in the future?

What do they base this belief on?

Is this a reasonable prediction, bearing in mind that the public want to keep the network going?

[randompostman]

Sadly the whole postal network including POL is in a mess after being split up by successive "Governments" in their race for profits with the collusion of management and the CWU HQ at the expense of the postal service. How do you fix something that has been so utterly broken? You have to start again using what you have left but that on its own will not be enough as society as a whole has to be fixed at the same time. Now that is truly massive task.

[MinisterofCucumber]

Change is in the air.

The public reaction to the phone hacking scandal shows that people want a change. Some commentators are saying that the UK is going through our own version of the 'Arab Spring'.

Cameron should have been aware that Coulson had been found guilty of bullying by a tribunal in December 2008:

"We find the behaviour to have been a consistent pattern of bullying behaviour... with the intention to remove him from their employment, whether through negotiating a settlement package or through a staged process of warnings leading to dismissal," the tribunal's judgment stated.

"The original source of the hostility towards the claimant [Driscoll] was Mr Coulson, the then editor of the News of the World; although other senior managers either took their lead from Mr Coulson and continued with his motivation after Mr Coulson's departure; or shared his views themselves. Mr Coulson did not attend the tribunal to explain why he wanted the claimant dismissed."

This was published before Cameron had entered Downing Street and before he appointed Coulson as his Press Officer on £140,000 a year of tax payers money. Funny how none of the editors at Cameron's conference last Friday raised this issue. Bullying seems to be a very sensitive topic for all sorts of managers, not just those in RMG.

On what basis do you give someone a second chance?

Surely they have to convince you they have changed their ways. I am not aware that Coulson volunteered to get treatment for his bullying problem.

Was the Prime Minister right to give this bully a second chance?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/de ... d-reporter" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[randompostman]

Change is in the air.

The public reaction to the phone hacking scandal shows that people want a change. Some commentators are saying that the UK is going through our own version of the 'Arab Spring'.

Cameron should have been aware that Coulson had been found guilty of bullying by a tribunal in December 2008:

"We find the behaviour to have been a consistent pattern of bullying behaviour... with the intention to remove him from their employment, whether through negotiating a settlement package or through a staged process of warnings leading to dismissal," the tribunal's judgment stated.

"The original source of the hostility towards the claimant [Driscoll] was Mr Coulson, the then editor of the News of the World; although other senior managers either took their lead from Mr Coulson and continued with his motivation after Mr Coulson's departure; or shared his views themselves. Mr Coulson did not attend the tribunal to explain why he wanted the claimant dismissed."

This was published before Cameron had entered Downing Street and before he appointed Coulson as his Press Officer on £140,000 a year of tax payers money. Funny how none of the editors at Cameron's conference last Friday raised this issue. Bullying seems to be a very sensitive topic for all sorts of managers, not just those in RMG.

On what basis do you give someone a second chance?

Surely they have to convince you they have changed their ways. I am not aware that Coulson volunteered to get treatment for his bullying problem.

Was the Prime Minister right to give this bully a second chance?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/de ... d-reporter" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So the rot is in "Government" the media and the employing class or society as we know it? They cannot and will not be reformed as is seen from around the world by "governments across the world including Europe, the US the middle and far east and Africa and they will use up to deadly force to hold on to that power to the control "their" people, they all lie cheat and steal to make their own lives better at the expense of workers. This is a fact i know but most refuse to believe and i wonder why? The evidence is all around, starting with the way POL, RM and PF have been run down as far as RMC members are concerned for profit. When you look at that and know it as fact then begin to look at your wider world! Government, councils, fuel, food, water, health, housing and education and except that whilst you pay more for less the employing class consolidate even more power and profit from your graft and what choices are you left with? Continue down the path we are being led like the cattle to the slaughter that we have become or to grasp what is yours and your neighbours by right.

[subbie]

I thought the debate on this thread was the removal by this Gov of the Network Subsidy? Could we return to it please.

It would appear that POL's reaction to the loss of the subsidy is to totally change the Post Offices look, feel, and service we give to the public at all levels of Branch.

Certainly I feel that the position, office, rank call it what you will, of Sub Postmaster is being done away with, and replaced with Agent, or Operator, whose focus will be on other things rather than quality of dedicated service to the public, many of whom are the most vulnerable members of our society.

The plan is set, they are moving towards delivery...........they must be stopped.

Subbie

[randompostman]

Quote, " I thought the debate on this thread was the removal by this Gov of the Network Subsidy? Could we return to it please."

You are quite correct but sadly it is a lost battle. We are more than half way through the complete destruction of POL and when our courts and "Government" say it is fine for an old lady to wear a nappy rather than have the care and dignity she needs and deserves and the public barely raise an eyebrow then they will not care about POL so "Government will do what it wants. Off topic and for that i am sorry but there is nothing that can or will be done so maybe it is not so far off topic?

[MinisterofCucumber]

It is not a lost battle, Randompostie.

There is a revolution in favour of decency in the air. Spin and lies are out of fashion. The government will not admit that they want to cut the subsidy because a lot of Tory and Lib dem voters live in villages and feel very strongly about keeping their Post Offices.

This was highlighted in the debate in Parliament on the Postal Services Act:

"Fiona O'Donnell: Given how many post offices are running at a loss and how many are on the market, does my hon. Friend agree that it is important to the future of post offices that they have a period of at least 10 years to plan and recover?

Ian Murray: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. The hon. Member for Northampton South was clear about the size of the revenues that go through the post office network, and therefore the survival of many post offices in rural and deprived areas would be in jeopardy. The figure has been mentioned of 900 post offices being temporarily or long-term out of business. It is clear from such figures that the business model for the post office network is unviable at the moment, let alone after taking an additional £343 million out of it.

Tory and Lib Dem MPs were happy to use the Post Office for their own political ends when it suited them in opposition. The post office network was a political hot potato for many years in my constituency of Edinburgh South. It seems shameful that the Liberal Democrat party, which has made a living out of saving post offices—or pretending to save post offices—now sits in judgment on Royal Mail and threatens many thousands of post offices, if not the entire network.

That the Government are not prepared to put a straightforward clause into the Bill to guarantee the future of post offices calls into question the logic of allocating more than £1.3 billion of taxpayers’ money to subsidise and refurbish them. There are still no bankable contracts for additional Government work for post offices, in spite of the warm words and requests of the National Federation of SubPostmasters. It is not clear that the Post Office will even win the renewal contract from the Department for Work and Pensions following the benefit changes.

The Government’s failure to take forward Labour’s plans for a people’s bank at the Post Office is yet another Lib Dem manifesto pledge broken. They are turning their backs on the very people out of whom they made political capital for many years.

Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab): That is a fundamental point. In France, Germany, which has been cited, and Switzerland, such banks are viable banks. They are more than just a service for poorer elements of the community, as the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) said; they are successful enterprises. I am astonished that the Liberal Democrats, of all parties, do not insist that the bank should be part of the new model."

Postal workers should be aware that management are trying to get us to accept the view that the battle is lost and there's no point fighting. Don't believe them.

http://services.parliament.uk/hansard/C ... rt004.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[randompostman]

MinisterofCucumber you are so right yet so wrong. How many fights can those that are willing to fight take it up? I will stand beside and lose pay for ANY! workers that wish to fight And yet still POL CWU won’t stand. CWU /Post office counters do nothing, they have IMPOSED pay cuts as Union members and then the members do nothing so what can be done? Happy to fight a fight, but when the membership gives up, the truth is what can we do? There are Loads of working people that are willing to stand up and sadly CWU POL are not on the list. The day just one POL CWU stands outside their office i will be there and that is a fact but they won’t! The CWU HQ is as much to blame but it does not change facts. POL is finished and will die a death as will RM because our senior REPs are happy getting a good wage. Less than five years and we will be UNITE and the CWU will be no more, still we are posed the question what can we or should we do? It will happen, the POL members may?" Moan" but they WON’T stick up for themselves and "Government" have decided so no matter what truth, justice or decency of the cause it can play no part in our battles because it is strength that will win the day and it is not there.