My god this is like pulling teeth, but I suppose it's to be expected when trying to debate with someone who clearly has no detailed understanding of the subject matter.
I've already given numerous examples of how the union are not acting in the best interests of their membership and are leading them down a very risky path, but for the hard of thinking I'll say it again...
RM want to reduce the 6 day letters USO... This makes perfect sense as it's an outdated, irrelevant and very inefficient and labour intensive practice, being not only a huge drag on the companies finances but also limiting the quality of service that RM can offer with parcel delivery.
It would make perfect sense to reduce the USO down to perhaps 4 days and completely separate off the letters and the parcels sides of the business from each other, this way delivering letters would be far more cost effective and at the same time RM could offer a much better service with parcel delivery, real time tracking etc, as posties can concentrate on delivering parcels without having to deliver hundreds of items of junk mail and pizza leaflets at the same time.
The union vehemently oppose any reduction in the USO because "job losses" even though there are thousands, probably tens of thousands, of posties who would jump at the chance of VR even if only minimal terms were being offered.
In theory RM could achieve the required reduction in the workforce without offering any redundancies at all, just by biding their time and allowing natural attrition to reduce the numbers accordingly as it currently runs at 8-10,000 employees leaving the company per year.
In my unit of 75 staff there are 5 redundancies potentially available... so far there have been 19 applicants for them.
As I've said, the ONLY reason the CWU are opposing all and any job losses through streamlining the company is because they don't want their gravy train of income from membership subs to be reduced... they are not acting in the best interests of their members at all.
T&C's - Many of the T&C's that the union are opposing being taken away are additional payments that many senior posties receive as "grandfather payments" for roles and responsibilities that no longer exist, this is hugely unfair as it effectively creates a 2 tier workforce with senior staff getting considerably higher pay than younger employees for doing no extra work. RM have offered quite generous "buy out" terms to end these money for nothing grandfather payments.
Later start times- These are essential for RM to compete in the parcels market as this allows them to accept LAT parcels for next day delivery... again the union oppose this. Most of my colleagues who are opposed to later start and finish times are the most senior posties who don't have any family commitments but they just prefer the early start, early finish working pattern.
I've always found RM to be accommodating in offering family friendly arrangements for parents of school aged kids and I see no reason why such arrangements couldn't be continued and modified going forward.
I'm not disputing that Simon Thompson's pay and renumeration package is obscene, just as all CEO's of large corporations have obscene pay and renumeration packages.
Although Thompson's pay is actually quite modest for the size and scale of the company... there are plenty of other CEO's out there receiving far higher pay whilst their workforce is on much lower average pay and worse T&C's than what posties receive.
But this is veering into a whole wider ideological debate about the wealth divide and corporate executive pay.
There are numerous other elements to this dispute which I'm happy to discuss further with you if you want to highlight them?