The CWU has to be more vocal about this useless Board

[wdo1256]

The CWU has constantly criticised the board and I believe that the time is right that they should make a stand. They must encourage staff and their family/friends who hold Royal Mail shares (and voting rights) to vote against board members at the Royal Mail AGM and the sale to Daniel Kretinsky.

This board is lucky that the Horizon scandal has overshadowed how inept they are. Their culture is one that will not listen to reason or common sense, and they have forced through change via executive action. They share this trait with Paula Vennells in the sense that they believe that they are always right and know better than anyone else.

Listed below are 20 mistakes made by those in charge of the business, making critical decision that have affected our future and wasted millions of pounds in the process. I want people with the moral fibre to do the right thing for my future, not people who you could argue are only interested in their self-preservation and pre-occupied by personal profit from any sale.

If the CWU do not make a stand then it is up to us to make others aware of who is accountable for this mess.

Examples
1/ Since being privatised in 2013. This board has made mistake after mistake and we are currently 1.7 billion in debt.

2/ Paid off Moya Greene £2.6 Million and appointing Rico Black with a £5.8 Million Hello, spending £1 million to get rid of him, as he spent most of his time working from home, the only problem was his home was Switzerland. Also spent over 5 months on full pay while on gardening leave

3/ Simon Thompsom did all the dirty work then was sacrificed him with a good payout to appease the CWU. He was also given 5 months full pay while on gardening leave

4/ They have ensured that generous terms and conditions remain for the people at the top, while mine and yours have been eroded and decimated.

5/ Instead of being reasonable and working with the CWU, they were stubborn in not giving an inch and systematic in their attitude to smash the CWU, leading to a bitter two-year dispute. When a compromised would have been better for the business and staff.

6/ In the space of a year from April 2023 -24 increased the price of a 1st Class Stamped Letter from 95p to £1.35. This is over a 40% increase to the public.

7/ Ofcom fined Royal Mail £1.5 million for 2018-19 £5.6 million in 2022 -23 for Q of S failure.

8/ Ofcom fined Royal Mail £50 million for breaking competition law. The board in their wisdom appealed, first to the Competition Appeal Tribunal, got refused, then went to the Court of Appeal, got refused, went to the Supreme court who upheld the fine. leaving Royal Mail to pay £50 million, Instead of £50 million there was millions of extra payments added due to the interest payments and legal cost of both Ofcom and Royal Mail. This attitude again of the board never being wrong and refusing to listen has led to wasting millions of extra pounds.

9/ Ofcom celebrated 20 years below and below is their biggest achievement. It is a bad reflection for a FT250 Company to be fined again and again by the regulator . Ofcom will be looking into the Q of S for 2023 – 2024,

“To celebrate A huge amount has happened over our 20-year history, so we thought we’d round up some of the highlights and notable developments.”
“The biggest fine we’ve implemented in our 20 years was in 2018, when we issued Royal Mail with a £50m financial penalty for breaking competition law. When we issue a fine like this, the money is paid to HM Treasury.”

]10/ Whistl is seeking up to £600mn in damages from IDS for anti-competitive behaviour.

11/ During Covid we were classed as key workers and carried on working, Royal Mail made a vast amount of profit, instead of investing the surplus cash into the company, the board gave an interim dividend of 6.7p per share plus a special dividend of 20p per share on top off them, putting themselves 1st again as they have a large amount of shares.

12/ Royal Mail have been recalled to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee in order to clarify or correct the information given by Simon Thompson on Jan 17th 2023. Once again the attitude of Thompson and the board after their versions of events was contradicted by over 1000 e-mails sent to the committee. This led to the embarrassment of being recalled by the committee and asked to take an oath as they were considered to have previously lied.

13/During this session Thompson, Keith Williams and Ricky McAulay, blamed a few rogue managers for prioritising packets and using PDA Outdoor Actuals to discipline staff. It didn’t dawn on the three wise men that this is happening in every Delivery Office in the country.

14/When they were questioned about the continued failure of Q of S they resorted to their usual approach, blame everyone else, it was down to Industrial Action. Yet everyone knows that before and during Industrial Action letters were left behind for the lucrative tracked items.

15/ During this period of Industrial Action Royal Mail suffered a cyber-attack which lasted over 6 weeks and cost over £10 million to recover. Is it a coincidence that during this period non front-line staff were encouraged to deliver parcels to break the strike, the question that must be asked how many people from IT security were missing from their duty and delivering parcels instead?

16/ There has been bad press regarding counterfeit stamps that has dragged on for months, again facing to react as Royal Mail is never wrong left to bad PR and a problem dragging on for months.
Also charging £5 surcharge on a stamp while a packet is £7 is excessive, when a stamp is £1.35 while a small packet is £4.59. This may be problematic in the future.

17/ Daniel Kretinsky came in with an offer of £3.20 per share and the board called it “Opportunistic” yet a week later they accepted it an offer of £3.60 per share plus 10p in dividends. How can someone offering 12% more in cash magically be an acceptable deal?

18/ What was said to the board during that week, it makes you wonder what promises were made to the board to make them change their minds so quickly, do you trust them?

19/ This great deal is for £3.7 Billion, broken down it is £1.2 Billion cash up front and £2.3 Billion in borrowed funds. If this bid is successful Royal Mail will owe £4 Billion. Will Royal Mail be forced to sell assets to service this debt and what would be the debt each year.

20/ If this is such a good deal why have none off the other major shareholders listed below given it their approval, because it is rubbish and they put their shareholders interest first, it’s only the Royal Mail board who think that this is a good deal.

I'm hopeful that enough of the major shareholders, along with Royal Mail employees and members of the public will vote against it, the Royal Mail S

From Market Screener the top shareholders of IDS
Vesa Equity Investment SARL 263,675,507 27.52 % 893 M £
Schroder Investment Management Ltd. 75,100,670 7.837 % 254 M £
RWC Asset Management LLP 62,116,056 6.482 % 210 M £
UBS Asset Management (UK) Ltd. 60,235,232 6.286 % 204 M £
Royal Mail Share Incentive Plan 53,039,000 5.535 % 180 M £ Royal Mail Staff are the 5th largest shareholder
Threadneedle Asset Management Ltd. 49,632,792 5.179 % 168 M £
Jupiter Asset Management Ltd. 41,327,178 4.313 % 140 M £
The Vanguard Group, Inc. 24,731,825 2.581 % 84 M £
BlackRock Advisors (UK) Ltd. 21,609,197 2.255 % 73 M £
Dimensional Fund Advisors LP 19,909,898 2.078 % 67M £[/b][/b][/b]

[nim84]

These points should be put to the government and the Shareholders, and the responses should be made public, this is still a public service, the mismanagement and damage has been detrimental to everyone, except to the board, they are failing, but compensated very generously. It's not right!

Excellent Post

[LouBarlow]

It isn’t a public service. It is a private company operating primarily to make a profit.

[derekm]

It isn’t a public service. It is a private company operating primarily to make a profit.

That’s true but we are providing a service to the public are we not. ??

[kazardaimenu]

It isn’t a public service. It is a private company operating primarily to make a profit.

That’s true but we are providing a service to the public are we not. ??

When it suits them.

[postslippete]

Sad but true. Royal Mail is currently being run for the profit of a few and this is what privatisation does.


On one of the points listed regarding the 2nd offer being 12% (or is 15%) higher than his 1st offer; you can't help but believe that there is an element of strategy involved on both the current board and Kretinsky. Is 370p a share really a fair price for IDS when it has spent more time above 400p a share than below it? That is something for the other major shareholders to decide. As far as I'm aware only Redwheel have opposed RM shares at 6.8% a stake - they haven't said anything about the 370p a stake.

[LouBarlow]

It isn’t a public service. It is a private company operating primarily to make a profit.

That’s true but we are providing a service to the public are we not. ??

In the same way McDonalds is sure.

[wdo1256]

It isn’t a public service. It is a private company operating primarily to make a profit.

That’s true but we are providing a service to the public are we not. ??

In the same way McDonalds is sure.

Granted we are a company with shareholders however, we are in a unique position as we are legally bound to deliver to every address in the UK as stated by the USO. Is that not a public service?

McDonalds are managed by franchised owners and are not obliged to set up outlets in remote areas of the country. They offer a public service but in areas where they decide to set up.

[Barnacle]

The USO is what makes Royal Mail a public service company. Get rid of the USO or diminish it by a couple of days and it’s as good as over. May as well change the name to Evri at that point.

[wdo1256]

15/ During this period of Industrial Action Royal Mail suffered a cyber-attack which lasted over 6 weeks and cost over £10 million to recover. Is it a coincidence that during this period non front-line staff were encouraged to deliver parcels to break the strike, the question that must be asked how many people from IT security were missing from their duty and delivering parcels instead?

***Note the head of security was on Workplace pictured delivering mail at this time.***

[tramssirhc]

Privatisation is responsible for the situation workers find themselves in. The CWU needs to do what the members have decided we should do through the parliament of our Union - campaign for and secure renationalisation. The members need to boot out the entire leadership of our Union, from the bottom to the top to achieve this. Other workers in other industries have achieved the policy of renationalisation and we can do the same. No amount of market analysis will resolve our problems. The decision to sell has been made. Our resources are better used achieving renationalisation.

[Tman]

Other workers in other industries have achieved the policy of renationalisation and we can do the same.

Such as?

[Barnacle]

Other workers in other industries have achieved the policy of renationalisation and we can do the same.

Such as?

I’d like to know the answer to this too because I would have thought we’d be hearing a lot about that situation given the state of Water privatisation etc.

I agree that the top of the CWU needs a shake up but it is really difficult and probably deliberately so, to remove leadership. There’s a lot of moaning but little in the way of gaining a consensus for a vote on the leadership.

[guardianangel]

The union have become defunct, with less people joining because of the inferior terms of new starters its only a matter of time before they are extinct.

[tramssirhc]

The railway industry. Network Rail was renationalised. The TOC's have been.