Current Industrial Action

[maleorder]

It says a lot that my last visit to this forum was: Wed Nov 28, 2007 4:04pm. Apologies for not keeping in touch.

We are one of the largest eBay sellers in the UK and have relied very much on the Royal Mail. We have previously taken great pleasure in telling our customers just what a great orgnisation and just how reliable the RM is.

I'm currently worried sick for my business and my 7 employees. Its been a tough year which shows no signs of getting easier. So far we have managed to keep our small team working by cutting margins to the bone and by not taking any salary ourselves for three months (there are two directors). Its generally a little quieter in summer but we were looking forward to the Autumn to earn some money to put into the business and in turn generate income to spend with RM. I have now stopped placing orders with suppliers. Those same suppliers are asking us to accept invoices and sales promos by email.

The action you have voted for means that I have no choice but to persuade our buyers to pay the extra for a courier delivery. We will subsidise it where possible. We have no choice.

The alternative is to face 100's of refunds and non-receipt claims which could put us out of business. We currently deal with a minimum of 10 per day given the backlog. Once we are out of business or find an alternative delivery mechanism we won't come back.

You may be thinking that customers like us going elsewhere will put pressure on management to give in. It wont. It can't.

Given the work we have put into our business and the money we have put into your business in the last five years and the loyalty we have shown we feel so incredibly let down by you for voting to strike. It can only cause the RM demise to come more quickly.

Please don't respond unless you can offer me and the 7 families who rely on me some kind of positive thoughts.

[markj113]

While I sympathise with your position and the 7 families what about the 120,000 royal mail employees and their families.

I presume you chose Royal Mail to handle your goods due to price and quality of service and in the long run this is what we are fighting to protect as well as our own livelyhoods.

constant staff cuts, mail centre closures and the threat of privatisation will only help destroy quality of service and increase prices which will have a long term impact on your business compared to the short term disruption that strike action will cause.

[tailfly12]

Spend a week in a delivery office and you see the bullying and Harassment that goes on by management. You will see why we are going on strike there's time its unbearable.

[POSTMAN]

maleorder,i think you will find that through RM's abuse of the deal we signed when we last striked that your packets and many others packets from others as well are already regulary delayed and that is without strike action.

Let's get one thing straight,WE DON'T WANT TO STRIKE,but we have no choice,i have lost over £1000 so far.And i am prepared to lose more,for my terms and conditions which have been ripped away from me and to have a job where i can actually finish at my finishing time without any work left at my office!

[BELIAL]

Why not write to Mr Crozier it's his idea after all. Please don't respond unless you can offer some comfort to the 30,000 who are threatened with unemployment and the 84% who are due to have their working hours cut to 16pw.

[westlondonpostie]

I appologise, What else can we do, We've voted for a national strike but as of yet no date has been set, by having this ballot we hope that Royal Mail will take negotiations seriously rather than sitting at the negotiating table reading the same statement over and over,
So far we've lost 60,000 jobs, no sunday collections anymore, the second delivery is gone, In parts of the country Postman are now not starting they're deliveries until after 12 and some do not have sufficient time to complete they're delivery meaning post is either left in the office or returned to the office.
To me modernisation means an improvement in the service we provide, do you believe that you're service has improved in the last few years?
There is now talk of ways Royal Mail can increase revenue which may include no more saturday deliveries, reduced collections and also the introduction of zonal charging, which would mean the further away the destination and the weight of the item the more the customer would have to pay.
Once again I appologise for any inconvenience caused, but we feel we must make a stand now for our job security and the future of the service we provide to our customers for years to come.

[turkishdelight]

We are also ebay traders, and it is going to be tough no doubt about that- due to the nature of our items sent we can't even choose to go courier, as no customer is going to want to stump up the difference between a 90p label and whatever a courier would charge.

I was fully against the strikes as they were portrayed in the media, but having done a bit of reading I can see that it is for us customers as much as it is for the Royal Mail workers.

Personally we will stop all business a couple of days before and a couple of days after, and just hope that the new stuff gets sorted before the backlog.
As has been pointed out the strikers are also losing pay, not much we can do but suffer with them. Hopefully Ebay's plans to disallow use of the despatch DSR around the time of the national strike will help, if they remember to put it into practise
At least the issue is getting covered in the media (skewed as it is) so our buyers will be aware of possible problems- you never know, some of them may decide to get their shopping done before Christmas eve this year.

I don't think that the industrial action will make any difference, but it's better than no-one trying and the service we all rely on falling to bits without a fight.

My heart goes out to you and your employees, and indeed anyone who is really affected by the strikes, but to blame the posties instead of the descision makers at RM is very unfair.

[ashcan]

It speaks volumes about Royal Mail and its employees when you see Google ads on this site advertising the postal services of Royal Mail's competitors.
There are Ads with banners such as "Avoid the Postal Strike" and "Beat the Postal Strike" so it certainly appears that those competitors are more efficient than Royal Mail at growing their business.
It would make me laugh except as a Royal Mail customer I still have to suffer yet another strike generated by out-of-date miltants.

[heston]

ashcan.militants....a very unfair an undeserved comment,perhaps if you fully understood the background to the dispute,rather than relying on a liberati right wing media campaign usurped by lies and distortion for your information,may i take this opportunity to express our apologies for the upcoming official industrial action pending,a bullied workforce,overworked stressed out and in desperation have taken this decision with a heavy heart,we thank you for your contribution to the forum,hopefully you will take the time to forward your complaints to the real culprit in this dispute,adam crozier,closing down 2nd deliveries,cancelling sunday collections,later deliveries imposed on us through later attendance times,closures of the pocl network,etc have been under croziers watch ,whilst we are fighting to resurrect this once great institution,virtually unrecognizable after conserted attacks by senior rm managment,in the pursuit of profit against service,it would be helpful for all concerned ,if prior to furnishing us with your contribution ,you took the time to understand the facts,rather than fall for a media driven agenda to which you so avidly agree with,for your own business driven financial reasons....

[ashcan]

Heston
Your phrase "you so avidly agree with,for your own business driven financial reasons" just confirms my impression that some of the Royal Mail's workforce have no idea about the real world outside their company.
My concern is with my income which your impending stike will reduce just like all your other strikes have before this.
"business driven financial reasons" LOL thats how business works for heavens sake.

You totally disregarded my comments about competitors ads but then again I see that this website encourages the use of offensively worded smilies - tells you a lot.

[heston]

ashcan, you dont understand.....why would crozier want to advertise rm ,invest in new products,etc,he is destroying the business ,setting the company up for full blown privatisation,easily achieved with the cwu destroyed,ansd a submissive scaled down work force,then when sold off,the new owners will grow the business with new products ,advertisments etc,we aint sold of yet,

[ashcan]

I really do find the words "F*** Off" in a smilie to be offensive. Yet you ignored that as I expected. It does speak volumes about attitude.
I do not intend to post anything more here as I feel its a waste of time trying to change such attitudes.

[heston]

i agree and apologise for the smiley,it is indeed offensive,then again so is the phrase out of date militants

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Ashcan why would a MEMBER explain the reasons behind a smilie thats for the Admins to do, and I am one. Its meant to be light hearted banter aimed at the 3 people we most blame for the situation we find ourselves in. However, in the same vein as you posted, I find it strange that you would complain over such a minor thing, yet you think calling us "out of date militants" without actually investigating why we are going on strike acceptable, it, as you so kindly suggest, shows us where your priorities lie.

Also if you are so clued in about internet advertising I would not need to explain that "Google Ad Words" are selected automatically by Google and are generated by a system that trawls the page they display on, and targets those adverts to match. Therefore if we have a discussion about a Postal Strike we are going to get adverts that mention it. It is nothing to do with the policy of the forum what adverts appear, apart from that fact that we use Google Ad Words.

Just so you now where I come from I am an Ex serviceman who served in Bosnia, the Falklands in 1982, and Northern Ireland. I have also worked in Customer Services and for small retail companies using RM to dispatch goods, so I do know what its like in the "Real World", I honestly thought before I joined RM that Unions had no place in today's society as they were an outdated concept that pitted bosses against workers. After only 6 months in RM I changed my mind:

These are just some of the reasons I am going on strike.

WE ARE NOT AGAINST CHANGE - we signed up to the Pay and Mod Agreement. RM ignored Phase 4 till we started local strikes.
WE ARE AWARE THERE WILL BE JOB LOSSES - 60,000 gone in recent years,
WE ARE NOT ASKING FOR A PAY RISE PER SE - We had a pay freeze this year which was imposed without agreement against the spirit of the 2007 agreement.
WE ARE NOT AGAINST MODERNISATION - But we haven't seen it in deliveries unless you count longer routes with heavier bags.
WE ARE NOT AGAINST WORKING HARD - The Union suggested having independent organisations help both sides come up with a fair and balanced way of measuring workload and standards - Royal Mail refused and are still refusing
WE OFFERED A MORATORIUM ON STRIKES IF RM DISCUSSED CHANGES - RM refused saying it was a stalling tactic but now they want it when unagreed systems are in place.

We are and we will strike against - Bullying and Harassment such as.

Being suspended for pointing out H&S concerns.

Being sent home without pay when we can't complete a delivery in the time allotted especially if managers are not willing to Walk Test us or check individual posties frames to see how busy they are.

Genuine Overtime being struck off when you go over your contracted hours on a busy day.

Being sent home without pay when you cant do the half hour flexibility when asked - even if it personal reasons are meant to be taken into account.

When you do the 1/2hr flexibility not being able to claw it back or be paid it on overtime. Or being given it back in 5 minute chunks.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- And modernisation of the service by Royal Mail ---------------------------------------------------------------

Give the Public a service - Yep thats Royal Mails job and guess how they do that.

1. Close 3,500 Post Offices.
2. Reduce the service at 1000s of others.
3. Allow the Government to withdraw some of the services you used to be able to get at POs.
4. Ceased Sunday Collections (now for anyone to get anything on Monday you need to send it before 1230 on Saturday.
5. Cancelled Bank Holiday Collections.
6. Cancelled 2nd Delivery
7. Made the 1st delivery later than the 2nd ever was.
8. Laid off 60,000 workers through various means.
9. Close delivery offices and amalgamate them into Super DOs on industrial estates miles from bus routes.
10. Bring in a complicated and expensive postage system. (Pricing in Proportion).
11. Increase handling fees for Import from £4 to £8.
12. Increase the surcharge of underpaid items to £1.
13. Increase stamp prices above inflation.
14. Agree a price with DSA competitors to use our network which means we subsidise them to the tune of 2p per item.
15. Take 5 years to spend half of the 1.2billion the government loaned them, but we are still yet to see the machines in use on a UK wide basis even though trials are going well according to RM.
16. Removing Mail cycles and replacing them with cars and then claiming they are doing everything to reduce carbon emissions.

But of course its the Union fault I must remember that

[westlondonpostie]

Ashcan why would a MEMBER explain the reasons behind a smilie thats for the Admins to do, and I am one. Its meant to be light hearted banter aimed at the 3 people we most blame for the situation we find ourselves in. However, in the same vein as you posted, I find it strange that you would complain over such a minor thing, yet you think calling us "out of date militants" without actually investigating why we are going on strike acceptable, it, as you so kindly suggest, shows us where your priorities lie.

Also if you are so clued in about internet advertising I would not need to explain that "Google Ad Words" are selected automatically by Google and are generated by a system that trawls the page they display on, and targets those adverts to match. Therefore if we have a discussion about a Postal Strike we are going to get adverts that mention it. It is nothing to do with the policy of the forum what adverts appear, apart from that fact that we use Google Ad Words.

Just so you now where I come from I am an Ex serviceman who served in Bosnia, the Falklands in 1982, and Northern Ireland. I have also worked in Customer Services and for small retail companies using RM to dispatch goods, so I do know what its like in the "Real World", I honestly thought before I joined RM that Unions had no place in today's society as they were an outdated concept that pitted bosses against workers. After only 6 months in RM I changed my mind:

These are just some of the reasons I am going on strike.

WE ARE NOT AGAINST CHANGE - we signed up to the Pay and Mod Agreement. RM ignored Phase 4 till we started local strikes.
WE ARE AWARE THERE WILL BE JOB LOSSES - 60,000 gone in recent years,
WE ARE NOT ASKING FOR A PAY RISE PER SE - We had a pay freeze this year which was imposed without agreement against the spirit of the 2007 agreement.
WE ARE NOT AGAINST MODERNISATION - But we haven't seen it in deliveries unless you count longer routes with heavier bags.
WE ARE NOT AGAINST WORKING HARD - The Union suggested having independent organisations help both sides come up with a fair and balanced way of measuring workload and standards - Royal Mail refused and are still refusing
WE OFFERED A MORATORIUM ON STRIKES IF RM DISCUSSED CHANGES - RM refused saying it was a stalling tactic but now they want it when unagreed systems are in place.

We are and we will strike against - Bullying and Harassment such as.

Being suspended for pointing out H&S concerns.

Being sent home without pay when we can't complete a delivery in the time allotted especially if managers are not willing to Walk Test us or check individual posties frames to see how busy they are.

Genuine Overtime being struck off when you go over your contracted hours on a busy day.

Being sent home without pay when you cant do the half hour flexibility when asked - even if it personal reasons are meant to be taken into account.

When you do the 1/2hr flexibility not being able to claw it back or be paid it on overtime. Or being given it back in 5 minute chunks.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- And modernisation of the service by Royal Mail ---------------------------------------------------------------

Give the Public a service - Yep thats Royal Mails job and guess how they do that.

1. Close 3,500 Post Offices.
2. Reduce the service at 1000s of others.
3. Allow the Government to withdraw some of the services you used to be able to get at POs.
4. Ceased Sunday Collections (now for anyone to get anything on Monday you need to send it before 1230 on Saturday.
5. Cancelled Bank Holiday Collections.
6. Cancelled 2nd Delivery
7. Made the 1st delivery later than the 2nd ever was.
8. Laid off 60,000 workers through various means.
9. Close delivery offices and amalgamate them into Super DOs on industrial estates miles from bus routes.
10. Bring in a complicated and expensive postage system. (Pricing in Proportion).
11. Increase handling fees for Import from £4 to £8.
12. Increase the surcharge of underpaid items to £1.
13. Increase stamp prices above inflation.
14. Agree a price with DSA competitors to use our network which means we subsidise them to the tune of 2p per item.
15. Take 5 years to spend half of the 1.2billion the government loaned them, but we are still yet to see the machines in use on a UK wide basis even though trials are going well according to RM.
16. Removing Mail cycles and replacing them with cars and then claiming they are doing everything to reduce carbon emissions.

But of course its the Union fault I must remember that

Say's it all Teebs, well done.