To think Royal Mail workers should not be striking

[Hitthehighseastoday]

They’ve already been offered a 9% pay raise and declined. Royal Mail is already making a loss. It’s a national service for the public which is now being severely disrupted by strikes, it’s appalling.

It will just mean that more people will us RM less and use private couriers more even if they have to pay more for a reliable service

Whatever happened to British Leyland as they were on strike every other day 😳

The rest, as they say, is history

By all means give them the pay rise they want but don’t be surprised if it comes with down sizing later

Seen it happen far too often unfortunately 😔

A work to rule is far more effective plus you don’t loose pay like you do when you go on strike

I’m sure whatever my opinion is you will disagree with whatever I say just for hell of it

@LucilleLou ok then.... I think I've made my stance pretty obvious, but you hide away....

@EngTech when you say private couriers, you mean like RM? They've been privatised?

@Conkersareback Yep, RM are private but others couriers don’t go on strike, well not yet anyway

The Govt will stay out of it as it is a private company so the shareholders are feeling the pain as are most of the country

You have made a lot of things pretty obvious

Other couriers are self employed or not part of a union!

That may make a difference, do you think?

But their ‘employees’ have far worse t&cs, but as long as their cheaper I suppose that doesn’t matter to you?

@EngTech do educate yourself about the USO and the government.

@LucilleLou oh bore off!!

"I can't say what i think, because you'll be horrid"

Are you five years old?

Our postie is fantastic, never more so than during lockdowns. Hope they get a better offer.

Good for you OP. Someone has to lead the race to the bottom so I think it’s great that you’ve stepped up.

‘Modernise or die’ is just another way of saying ‘do what you’re told so we can keep the shareholders and the execs happy or you won’t have a job’.

Honestly the vitriol towards strikers is disgusting!

its a democratic set up, the unions vote whether to strike and go with the majority, many people unhappy about people standing together as a collective.
regardless of what op thinks, it was a democratic choice with a majority calling for strike action.

I couldn't care less whether they strike or not but I think it's a foolish thing to do. It's like the workers think Royal Mail is still part of the public sector and not a private company competing with Hermes, DHL, FedEx, DPD etc etc.

Modernise or die is another way of saying "adapt to the changing needs of the customer or go out of business and you'll all be out of a job".

What exactly is wrong with an employer expecting their employees to do what they are told? Would you employ someone who couldn't follow basic instructions?

Where to start?

1. It's such a huge change in directjon from what they are known for that they'd be at a disadvantage fom the outset as there would be zero consumer confidence. It would be like Currys trying to move into hairdressing.

2. It's an already established and oversatutated market. Any organisation with a large fleet will already have their own workshops or will have contracts in place with either their fleet vehicle supplier/manufacturer or a specialist fleet maintenance company.

Unless the Royal Mail had clients already lined up they're not going to be able to compete with what's out there, at least not on the scale they'd need to be successesful.

Why would I take my fleet work to Royal Mail over my current provider when the Royal Mail have no history of being able to deliver that service?

Unless it was being offered at a massive discount no one kwould and even then any half decent fleet manager would be skeptical, especially when they know Royal Mail have their own fleet for their own primary business to look after meaning you're unlikely to their top priority.

3. The set up costs. It's not just a case of going hey, we'll open the doors to more servicing, they'd need to be equipped to deal with it.

For example, most fleet maintenance companies have mobile units for minor on-site repairs and a selection of pool vehicles specific to their clients needs for when vehicles are off the road over a longer time. So they'd either need to buy and kit out a selection of pool vehicles or find somewhere to store their clients pool vehicles on site.

You'd also need to either equip each workshop to deal with a much wider range of manufacturers. I'm not sure on the full make up of the Royal Mail fleet but I see a lot of Peugeots around my way and the occasional Renault or Ford, but if to be serious about fleet management as a business model they'd need to be able to diagnose a wider range and that's not cheap. The Mercedes STAR system, for example, used to cost well into 5 figures for the hardware/software package (been a few years since I've been in that space so may have changed) and that's just for one.

You can obviously get cheaper generic systems that covers a wide selection of vehicles (which I'm sure Royal Mail will have) but for some work you need the OME. So either you pay to equip the workshops properly or you have to be selective about which clients you take on.

Again, why would I take my fleet work to a company who might not be able to diagnose/fix all issues with my vehicles when there are plenty of competitors who can?

You'd need to either create an IT system for customer work or integrate it into whatever they're using just now and have someone account managing the clients.

4. Physical space and workshop capacity. I'd imagine Royal Mail have built their fleet maintenance operations around the needs of their own fleet and so workshop/yard space and staffing levels will be arranged accordingly. Where would the additional capacity to come from both for the storing of customer vehicles and all the additioonal stock lines, and for carrying out the work? If Royal Mail currently have their mechanics sitting twiddling their thumbs for half the day in massive half empty workshops then that just highlights their shit management.

There's other reasons but that's already a much bigger rant than I expected it to be.

They're not competing, they're actually trying to say that all delivery workers deserve decent pay and conditions.

If they succeed, 🤞, as vacancies come up
due to natural "wastage" the people employed/ self employed by the awful other delivery companies, will move to RM.

Thereby, making these awful gig companies think twice about their conditions and their want to have £££££s of profit, above staff satisfaction.

www.kentonline.co.uk/dartford/news/dpd-driver-dies-at-depot-277675/

But, hey as long as you can get your parcels delivered faster…

Royal Mail as a business absolutely are competing with the other delivery companies.

But they're making a profit.... so they want more at the expense of employees, so you think that's right?

They will not be making profits for much longer if the workers keep going on strike and refusing to modernise.

What exactly is wrong with an employer expecting their employees to do what they are told? Would you employ someone who couldn't follow basic instructions?

what has following simple instructions got to do with holding a strike?

You're correct @Florenz , and thank fuck they won't!

C'mon the union! Bring them and the CEO down!

Keep going, you're doing great!

Yes I am completely bored off