To think WTF is going on with Royal Mail?

[WorriedandScared93]

What is the actual point of them anymore? I sent a small parcel 1st class 2 weeks ago and it's still not arrived...

Everyone switching to other delivery companies, who do you think delivers the mail that these companies charge you for but deem not cost effective to actually deliver?

It's all very well saying posties are destroying the business instead of the incompetent, money grabbing bosses but really you're just showing your ignorance.

If the Royal Mail bosses destroy the business, how do you think you'll get your mail? I can't imagine any other company taking the USO!

I support the posties, blame the greedy management. We should support those standing up for employment rights and decent pay.

I have used DHL for the last couple of years and never had a problem. Flexible delivery and collection options, cheaper than RM, easy to organise online.

You're right. Of course I don't blame the workers, just to clarify. They do have my support.

But sorted and delivered by who? What will that person be paid to provide your cheap service? What will their working conditions be like? How will they earn enough to support a family? How will they source flexible and affordable childcare to enable them to work on a zero hours contract?

I wouldn’t want to work in those conditions so why should we expect others to? If we don’t fight for decent workplaces and treatment of the people who work in them then we will all be on a slippery slope to poor pay and conditions.

Royal Mail have been totally clear they are prioritising parcels and not letters during the strike- why is everyone so shocked that no posties working = no post?
More irritating is people who should have realised putting important paperwork in the post - looking at you solicitor

Royal Mail is failing badly. Mum sent me a birthday card 1st Class - a distance of 13 road miles. Took 9 days. Card from Moonpig (from sister) - 11 days. Barclaycard statement - usually received 10th or 11th, still not here. I haven't sent Christmas cards this year as they won't get there.

Have they? It doesn't say that on the website.

Ah it does!! Found it!

It seems postage is bad the whole world over.

It's not dark at 4:45am in the middle of the winter?

RM has been going downhill since it was privatised. Our local postboxes suddenly changed from noon or 4pm collections to 7am or 9am. There was no warning at all. I kept getting told off at work as we were being fined for wrong frank date. Every time I have work mail to send I have to put the next days date on it or drive to the nearest sorting office to post it for same day collection. Not a huge deal but really annoying. When I asked the postie about it he said they had cut staff so the delivery postie had to empty the post boxes on the same trip.

@SomethingOriginal2
I've always been happy with DHL service.

EVRi ARE still delivering I have one arriving today and had one yesterday!

I fully support all of those on strike campaigning for fair pay and fair working conditions. Yes you are being unreasonable and really self centred.

RM could very easily be transformed into a viable, competitive and profitable business which offers an effective and convenient service to customers and recipients and the best pay and T&C's for its employees... only two objectives are required...

• Reduce letter deliveries to 3 days a week.

• Completely separate off the letters from the parcels sides of the business from each other.

Reducing letter deliveries would make letters far more commercially viable and would allow RM to offer a much better level of service with a standalone parcel delivery service, giving real time tracking, accurate delivery slots etc etc

Reducing letter deliveries from the current pointless and archaic 6 days a week would result in a reduction in the workforce but this isn't really a problem, there are thousands, probably tens of thousands of posties, particularly the older ones, who would jump at the chance of even a modest redundancy package.

This would leave RM in a much stronger position as a business, streamlined, more efficient and relevant.. and ensure the remaining workers can continue to enjoy the best pay and best T&C's in the industry

The one thing standing in the way of all of the above is the union, who want RM to remain a lumbering, inefficient, outdated and labour intensive operation because any reduction in the size of the workforce would result in a reduction in the money they receive from union membership subs... we can't have union leader Dave Ward taking a hit on his £140k a year salary now can we?

Finally someone else understands.

But prepared to be told you're wrong and the strikers are fighting the good fight against the evil capitalist bosses who just want to destroy RM.

I keep seeing posts about how conditions have gone downhill since privatisation (which was 2013) and that is probably true, knowing how many private sector companies work. But were conditions pre privatisation really so great? strikes are not a completely new phenomenon for RM; I can distinctly recall a couple of fairly prolonged strikes back in the 80s where the letterboxes across the country were blocked and public outcry about the country being held to ransom - no electronic and delivery alternatives back then. There have been further strikes since and in fact, which may well have contributed to RM eventually losing their monopoly (and presumably to privatisation). This latest round of strikes is just going to lose them further business and put a further squeeze on the business, leading to even more stringency and lost jobs. I will be very sorry to see RM go, but I fear greatly for their future after this

They are wrong though. The Royal Mail was sold with a very specific and very clear USO attached.

The current owners knew it was there and should have factored in the costs of delivering that service when they bid. But we all know the plan from the outset was to extract as much cash out of the business as quickly as possible and asset strip it before either selling it on or closing it down.

There's not much I give the Tories credit for but I'm delighted they're not allowing the RM owners to wiggle out of that USO (although they should never have sold RM in the first place).

@Yants in your model what do people do when they need next day delivery and what do you think would happen to the quality of the letter delivering service if it became a separate non-priotitised non-essential part of the business?

It's a private company now, not a public service. Forget the 'Royal' brand.
Therefore the goal is to maximise profit for shareholders and directors. Until it's stripped of all assets then sold on.

^ This. Except for the fact that RM aren't making a huge profit because of the USO. We've known for years that RM lose money on delivering letters and other post and the company would love to focus on parcels only but can't because of the USO. Even letters supposedly delivered by (for eg) TNT if that still exists were actually delivered by RM. I think the management are trying to basically give up the letter delivery stuff and fuck people missing hospital appointments/not getting bills etc. It's another fucking privatisation that's screwing up the country.

Someone who understands?

Someone who is questioning Dave Wards salary, that is less than a fifth of the marvellous CEO Simon Thompson, I mean he is doing a cracking job for his £750k salary, I expect companies are waiting to snap him up any time soon.

Yeah we get that you hate RM @Florenz , you sound very strangely over invested and really quite nasty, is there a back story here? Or like a PP said, you have a dog in the race?

Anyway, come on the CWU.✊

Exactly this, the likes of @Florenz don't care about others, you can see this so clearly, it's I don't care, they're low skilled workers so fuck them.

Mind you, the likes of @Florenz also arrange for a "colleague" to look after their children when they're working, not the want for paid for proper childcare, it's cheap, I am not paying for decent proper childcare service, it will do. She actually expects RM workers to sort the inevitable childcare issues in this manner.

Speaks absolute volumes of how some people regard how others and their children should be treated.

www.express.co.uk/finance/city/1524142/royal-mail-delivers-payout-400m-shareholders

It's not a bad profit!

I've never had a problem with EVRi or Yodel. Had parcels from both companies this week, both in the expected 2 hour window of time and brought right to my front door, which is quite difficult to find as it's not on the street that is named on the address, although it's correct.
Expecting my coffee subscription today from Amazon delivered by DPD and tomorrow a parcel from Holland and Barrett delivered by Yodel.
It all depends on the drivers and on my route, they're 5⭐.

This thread is ridiculous. It is not your employers job to arrange your childcare for you. There is nothing wrong with friends and colleagues minding each others children on occasion. This is the normal way of the world.

Do you really think Royal Mail would be successful if only the management would allow the workers to work the hours convenient to them and in the way they prefer to do it? It wouldn't be. They'd lose the profitable parts of the business to competitors and be left with delivering letters to places no-one else will deliver to, at a massive loss for every letter delivered, and they'd go bankrupt.