to be getting a leeeetle bit hacked off with the postal strike...

[AtheneNoctua]

Today I have to take a 2 hour lunch to sort out a Halloween costume because I can't rely on the mail to deliver one if I order it online. That is 2 hours of my work which I will have to make up if I want to be paid for it.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8327158.stm

I selfishly hope they hire the contract workers.

What about the public who relies on this service? Where is our compensation?

I will add I don't know the details of the reasons for the strike (because they aren't reported and not because I haven't looked). So I don't have an opinion on whether the strike is justified.

But I am starting to feel they have made their bloody point and I want my mail service back.

I did not know that, this was the delivery office not the post office and it was about 3 or 4 years ago, the counter staff were very rude but looking back now I can see how they had a hard day and I was sauntering in asking where my tickets were. I was just tryng to make the point that someone who would normally be very supportive of a strike - I am as left wing as they come - can be momentarily pissed of and that does not reflect their usual opinions.

My postmas is lovely by the way and has a hard job delivering to us lot as we are spread all over the place. He spoke to me about the fixed time in which he has to cover a large area and this means that customer service fails and mistakes are made. Today he tried to give me a magazine that belonged to a house up the road.

In areas like this the postman is part of what keeps a community going, he comes every morning, chats to dp feeds the dog a biscuit, lets us know whats going on locally. I know this is sentimental and probably not relevant but I do think that if we loose RM this is another part of the community that will go.

it's not as simple as you think carrots: if the posties go elsewhere, then RM will do what they want regardless.
they're still partly owned by the government and if the service is crap, they'll still exist.

if your company was crap, people wouldn't use it and you would fold.

but people still have to have post delivered.
and normal people wouldn't be able to afford the private companies.

and southeastastra again makes an excellent point: posties who have been there all their working lives, or been loyal to the company for years are suddenly told like it or lump it, and their pensions magically disappear into MPs' second homes allowance.....

yes, morgue, our town is quite rural and the posties are a huge part of the community.

most people round here love their posties and they would bend over backwards (indeed, my postie brings packets to me in my shop if i've not been at home to receive them, on his way home).

the people round here who have postal problems all seem to be on "lapsed rounds" which means that they don't have a regular postie, they end up with trainees and the regular posties from other rounds have to do some of that round on top of their normal duties.
oh, and they don't get pay reflectiosn for it either: it's all in addition to the rest of the job that they're expected to do in the same time.

YANBU. Here in London we have faced a series of strikes and consequently unreliable service from June.

According to the CWU website the reasons the strikes are happening are because:

"POSTAL WORKERS ARE FACING:
? Threats to job security ? full time to part time and compulsory redundancies
? Unreasonable demands ? being bullied to meet impossible work targets
? Cuts in pay ? longer hours for nothing"

full details here

While I have sympathy for anyone facing redundancy etc these reasons are no different to what many many people are facing in large and small businesses throughout the country and in pretty much all sectors. Therefore why should royal mail workers be different? Imo strike action is outdated and counterproductive. In an economic environment where most companies are having to cost cut the best way to preserve jobs is to accept short term pain for the long term benefit. By striking imo (and as a number of other posters have said) all the rm workers are achieving is that their customers are realising that there are alternatives so the business will just suffer and there will be a need for further redundancies/cost cutting.

As for pensions, again every sympathy particularly to people who are nearing retirement but private sector pensions have also decreased considerably, again, I do not see any reason why rm workers should be any different. Everyone is having to suffer at the moment and striking constantly is hardly going to improve the situation.

everyone is talking about rm though cassell.

would you rather the workers just accept job losses, pension losses, unfair changes to working conditions to name just a few of the problems as it's happening (imo) everywhere?

they are fighting to save a service that will be sorely missed.

when (not if) it goes at least we can say we fought for it.

Yes YABU, I am totally delighted, up against it cash wise and the moment and less final deamds that land on my doormat the better, I know its a very head in sand approach, but there you.

Get the bus to Tesco for a halloween costume!

As far as I can work out RM management want to impose changes to working conditions. The union wants to discuss changes. RM management are refusing to talk, and now the strikes have started have changed their position to until the strikes are called off.

By striking at this time it causes the maximum disruption to the service and its customers. For a strike to be taken seriously it needs to place the maximum pressure on the service provider.

Strikes usually take place at times of stress in a system - Firemen striking the the begining of November, Teachers striking during term time, lecturers striking at the begining of October, BA staff over Christmas. It forces the employer to move for a quick resolution.

Surely if any demand is a) reasonable, b) in line with what the market is offering c) the employee is actually worthy of both the job and the benefits, it should therefore surely be possible to walk into another company or organisation and receive the exact benefits and/or conditions you are demanding. I think with a lot of strikes, this is not the case. If I want my (private sector) job to bring me greater benefits (security, pension, pay, etc) or working conditions, I would have to look for another job which is offering these. If none are available to me, it would be clear my demands are unreasonable.

I don't know, maybe that's too simplistic, but I am sick of being held to ransom by public sector services who feel unduly entitled to benefits which most people don't receive.

southeastastra - er well everyone else has to accept those sort of changes if they want to have a chance of keeping their jobs. It is understandable that they want to protest against those changes and that is why there are laws in place re redundancies, changes to conditions etc. Sorry but I don't believe the mantra that they are fighting to save the service because it does not make any sense. If the service is completely unreliable because of the strikes then people will find alternatives which can only harm the service/business long term.

what benefits are you talking about gaga?

notanumber I'm interested by your use of the word 'ethical'. In your opinion are there ever circumstances when striking would be an 'ethical' form of protest?

No, I meant there are more ethical forms of protest. I read back to some of your previous posts and I think we are of similar minds!

devil "it's not as simple as you think carrots: if the posties go elsewhere, then RM will do what they want regardless.
they're still partly owned by the government and if the service is crap, they'll still exist."

Without the posties there will be noone to deliver mail, ergo no Royal Mail. If the working conditions aren't good enough, don't work there until they are good enough. That's the way the commercial sector works - RM shouldn't be any different. Striking clearly says, "my working conditions were excellent and now that's being changed and I want my easy job back. I know I can't get a better job elsewhere as otherwise I would."

Please don't tell me how hard it is to be a postie and how it's not an easy job. It's a relative term. As I said, if they could get a better job, they would. Therefore it's an easier job than another. It's simple logic.

Sorry gagamama cross post. You put my point very well

i am lost at reading some of these comments 'If the working conditions aren't good enough, don't work there until they are good enough.'

that's a very simplistic view. not sure what my dp would say to that

carrots, they would just employ shit workers and agency staff (who don't care much abotu what they're doing as long as they get paid)

it's not an easy job and it isn't about getting a better job.

my own postie has always suffered with bad asthma and been stupidly shy his entire life: working at the RM has effectively cured him of both of those conditions.
it's a way of life.

and no, i'm not saying that it's a good social life.

all jobs are hard, but if you love your job, then why shouldn't you fight for the best conditions in which to do your job?

and it's not just the posties that love posties either; as a nation we've always been fond of our postal system and it's been ruined by the twats in power.

@ southeastastra!

We're running a business offering next day delivery via RM- at the moment we're OK as halloween is keeping us going (sory OP not costumes LOL), but parts etc will be hard for us to get in if this continues after this week, and with a drop in sales as always occurs with a postal strike, and the additional cost of sending by courier..... we'll be on a loss for as long as it lasts.

The postie wants our support, yet we don#t get any in return- packages arrived snapped and leaking today, many things currenly lost in post due to backlog, when Dh tried to claim on recorded delivery they refused and we ended up losing £35 on some hurriedly amde up excuse.... the local post master keeps telling DH to register for income tax or get a proper job (we ARE registered for income tax FFS! We are so careful abdout keeping to the rules)....

Frankly I an see a time coming when we ditch RM for ever, and whilst we have avoided that up until now we can't take the hit for them for ever.

"The postie wants our support, yet we don#t get any in return-"

i get love notes on my post every day

not from the postie who brings my post, i hasten to add!!

i'm a small business too, who relies on a fair few postal orders.
i'm just making it clear that i send it out first class by royal mail and that there might be a delay as a result of strike action.
nto had any complaints yet.

We only really sell to people who need our items in a hurry, becasue of the nature of what they are; the odd 2 day wait is fine (everything goes first class recorded) but any longer does mean we get complaints as people can't use the tools for their work without the parts we retail, and using a courier would triple the price (lots of our items around the £2 - £4 mark) so whilst most people who buy from us would have to travel to source from a shop, at that point it becomes worth their while.

Generally I support the posties needs but I can't do that at the cost of our livelihood, that's too big an ask.

ATM we're focussing ona dvertising our higher band items and possibly utilising the EBAt reduced courier charge but in all truth, if the courier is good we would be unlikely to return to RM for those bigger items. Why would we? We can get them collected from home instead of walking out in the rain to queue for 20 minutes, the cost of some of the ebay sponsored couriers is less and their claims handling could not possibly be less useful than RM.

It's a fair point to ask what the strike is about, with the irony being that the union is for communication workers, so they really could be doing a better job.

But, would support any worker on strike. They are the ones who suffer personally (not paid on strike days) so a little inconvenience is not a problem for me.

Employing temporary workers almost certainly will be deemed illegal.

I used to work for a very large private company. A few years ago they decided to economis on everyone's Ts and Cs. They increased thw work week from 37.5 hours to 40 hours. Took away the car allowance from anyone who had one, ended final salary pensions, etc. There was a consultation, new contracts were drawn up. Every employee had two choices: sign the contract or terminate your employment. A lot of people left. A lot of people stayed. That's the way life is in a free market.

It does seem to me that sometimes people think they are special and should not be subjected to the same modernisation as everyone else in the society in which they live. And if this is the case with the postal workers then I don't have a lot of sympathy. I still don't know what the strike is abaout, and I don't consider the union's own website to be an unbiased source so I haven't read it.

The difference, Southeaseastra, between your DH's loss of income and my 2 hour lunch to get the holloween costume is that both of these consequences are a direct result of your DH's choice not to work. Whilst you may regard my DS' Halloween costume as trivial, I assure you it is VERY important to my DS. But, reallym he hasn't been affected. He will have a HAlloween costume. But it will cost me more money and I will have to work 2 more hours because there is a postal strike. So, yes, I am getting annoyed with the strike.

Again, whether it is RM's fault or the Postie's fault I do not know. But I wish the two of them woulf grow up and get the mail service moving again.

Athene, order from Amazon, they don't use Royal Mail any more.

I needed to order from ebay because I needed non season items to construct an outfit for a "Dinosaur explorer".

But, of course, my scenario is but one example of all of the lives and businesses who are effected by this strike. They should settle their disputes and get on with the job.

What about people who don't get their hospital appointments? People whose medicine doesn't appear in their mailbox? Bills that don't show up and then become overdue?

Enough is Enough!

quite frankly, while i support the idea of strike action after my DH and his family were involved in the miners strikes.. i am getting heartily fed up of the post strikes.

Its getting annoying and when our check for our TV license went walk about and we got a threatening letter about not having a license, they lost my sympathy all together.

They provide a service, they're trying to save jobs.. if everyone defects to couriors there won't be any jobs to come back to and redundancies will be necessary.

When strike action means shooting yourself in the foot and doing more damage than good, its time to stop.

Well, the only upside I can see is that it gives me the perfect excuse to save a fortune and tell everyone we're not going to be able to do Christmas Cards this year due to the strikes.

As DH has lived in 2 other countries and has friends now scattered all over the world, I'm rather looking forward to not wasting my lunch hour, stood in a queue in the post office to send the overseas cards at some point late November.

Everyone's getting an e-card this year, except those I can hand deliver. And even then I might not bother.

athene: "The difference, Southeaseastra, between your DH's loss of income and my 2 hour lunch to get the holloween costume is that both of these consequences are a direct result of your DH's choice not to work."

it's not a choice.

anything that has to be striked against can no longer be given that description.
anyone who doesn't strike when a strike is called (and a member of the union) is a scab and that's got to be the worst insult ever.

what's the point of a union if it's not there to support the workers?

as you've no doubt seen in the press, the big bosses get paid more money than i could ever dream of, regardless of how well the company's run.

i think you're being a bit blinkered to this.

and my old company had the same problem that yours had with the new T&Cs and yes, a lot of people left. and those who don't are still unhappy with the way things are (and getting worse and worse as time goes on and they don't listen to the workers)
there isn't a choice. most people cannot just leave a job because the goalposts have been moved around them.
they have to fight for what they believe is fair.