Royal Mail to hire 30,000 scabs

[sjonit]

Ye Runt, when we were forced to deliver the DSA (downstream Access) mail, things started to get fucked up. We are payed less than the price for 2nd class mail for these items and expected to send them as 1st class, its ridiculous.

IMO the government did have a hand in bringing it on themselves by opening up the mail market to these companies such as UK Mail, TNT etc for reasons said above.



Days are gone when u can work in the same job for all your life. Technology is changing so rapidly, of course we are going to modernise with new equipment, its absurd that the union are fighting this.

[Largest of Gregs]

Fair play to them, these 'scabs' will work for their money

[Semprini]

Royal Mail has monopoly and universal service obligation. Uses profit from lucrative revenue streams to subsidise service to tiny rural areas where commercial delivery service is uneconomical.
Government says other companies can now do the lucrative bits. They do.
Other companies still use Royal Mail for part of the delivery route, yet keep the profit.
Royal Mail still has universal service obligation, yet no longer has profitable arm to subsidise the cost of this.
Royal Mail haemorrhages money (with a Chief Executive on a £3m salary).
Service degraded (anyone remember 2nd post?) and offices closed in the name of efficiency.
Union opposes privatisation by stealth.
Media paint union as bunch of cunts.
Media are spastics.

Let me know if I've missed anything.

[crazydiamond85]

fuck all that
Scabs are the scum of the earth.

The reason they are striking is their workload and conditions have got worse and worse and they are only going to get even worse.
I for one am sick to death of folks complaining about the postal service, if you think you could do any better than your average postie then why not try the job and see for yourself.

I for one support the Posties, yes maybe I am biased what with my Dad working for Royal Mail, but I would support any trade union who is fighting for the rights of its members to have good working conditions

Originally Posted by Semprini

Royal Mail has monopoly and universal service obligation. Uses profit from lucrative revenue streams to subsidise service to tiny rural areas where commercial delivery service is uneconomical.
Government says other companies can now do the lucrative bits. They do.
Other companies still use Royal Mail for part of the delivery route, yet keep the profit.
Royal Mail still has universal service obligation, yet no longer has profitable arm to subsidise the cost of this.
Royal Mail haemorrhages money (with a Chief Executive on a £3m salary).
Service degraded (anyone remember 2nd post?) and offices closed in the name of efficiency.
Union opposes privatisation by stealth.
Media paint union as bunch of cunts.
Media are spastics.

Let me know if I've missed anything.

That's about right

[XMachina]

Originally Posted by crazydiamond85

I for one support the Posties, yes maybe I am biased what with my Dad working for Royal Mail, but I would support any trade union who is fighting for the rights of its members to have good working conditions

He's not based at Underwood Rd? Fucking hopeless office. I went to collect a parcel and they said they couldn't find it. I then asked if I could talk to the manager and 5 minutes later they come back with my package.

[Largest of Als]

I've been pushing some of my suppliers to stop using Parcel Farce for a while... they fuck up at least three times as often as everyone else...



Al

[supernothing]

Here' is a pretty good postie's aye view of the Royal Mail situation. Hate how the CWU are being portrayed as a bunch of luddites opposed to modernisation per se, who don't seem to understand the damage they are doing to the company. Who understands and has thought through the issues more than the men and woman who are going to strike? I'm sure they have agonised over the implications more than anyone. The plight of the posties is symptomatic of the changing nature of labour rights all over the country; letting the market into what is still percieved as a public service and expecting things to be the same, casualisation, "streamlining". And now the huge pool of surplus labour created in part by the global financial downturn (brought on by the very class of people who Mandleson would have the Royal Mail sold to) is being exploited to put an end to workers' rights to act collectively to protect their jobs.
All ya'll that are greeting that you wont get yer post for a couple of days should wake the fuck up and realise that this isn't just about some economically illiterate backwards posties.

Originally Posted by poprock

I’ve got no faith in the Royal Mail any more. These strikes have fucked it for good. From the best mail service in the world to a complete joke in the space of a year. The union have managed to ruin the company, the bloody idiots.

Why put all the blame on the union?

[Warped]

At the bank we have problems getting our bank statements and cheque books sent, there is talks about leaving the royal mail. It's business customer that make royal mails money and if people like banks and other large compaines leave, like amazon allready have they will go down the drain big time. I don't think any goverment should get involved in a industrial despute at all. Allthough im all for strikes and things i dont think they have been organized well. Wouldn't one large national srtike have been better than lots of smaller ones leading up to this next big one.

It's a shame, i love the idea of the post office, the social aspect of having a local post office and that a scottish firm have the contract to make all post boxes. I think this could be the final nail in the coffin.

[poprock]

Originally Posted by supernothing

Why put all the blame on the union?

Because from what I can see they’re treating the corporation as though it’s still a nationalised monopoly. Which is utterly wrong.

Royal Mail needs to change radically to adapt to the fact that it’s no longer a public service. It’s failed utterly to do so over the intervening years and now it’s crunch time. Adapt or die. Finally, they start trying to change and the union takes a huff and throws spanners in the works. There’s no point fighting to save jobs if doing so forces the company into financial failure. They’ll be protecting workers’ rights up until the point where there’s no fucking jobs for any of them.

Semp’s nailed what’s going on, for me.

If the union were smart, they would have been campaigning this loudly for the corporation to ‘modernise’ and adapt to market conditions right from the off. A good workers’ union should be proactive, not reactive.

In my opinion, the Royal Mail should never have been privatised. Expecting it to competitively make a profit, yet still provide the quality of service we expect, was always ridiculous. So this is all Thatcher’s fault, right?

[supernothing]

But you blame the union for "ruining the company". It wasn't the union that instituted a crippling campaign of privatisation and dergegulation. And in fairness it isn't the union's job to run Royal Mail, it's continuing to do business is in thier interests but it isn't thier job. Thier modus operandi is to protect the rights and jobs of thier members - any Royal Mail business plan should take that into account, the union is there to force them if they fail to do so.

[poprock]

Neither the union, the workers, or the corporation itself are to blame for past Governmental decisions. Politicians are a law unto themselves, it’s the jobs of all those stakeholders to make a good play of the hand they’re dealt though.

You don’t think it’s shortsighted of the union to deal with job losses now rather than actively campaigning earlier on for the corporation to buck it’s ideas up?

Nor to campaign for jobs and pay now regardless of the fact that if Royal Mail concede it will ultimately serve to keep them in an untenable position and looking for Government aid in future?

[TSR]

The 30,000 won't be hired until after the strike from what I've heard

The CWU don't seem to be communicating very well - I thought this was all only about modernisation, but apparently it's also to do with foot-posties delivery loads/etc

Needs modernised, people are gonna loose jobs. Accept it

Originally Posted by supernothing

And now the huge pool of surplus labour created in part by the global financial downturn (brought on by the very class of people who Mandleson would have the Royal Mail sold to)

That's an unfair generalisation - you get good and bad people in every group you sample

[metallideth]

Originally Posted by Runt

If the Royal Mail can't afford to keep running the way it is and modernisation is NEEDED then I really can't see what this strike hopes to achieve "we're demanding something you cannot give us" - what a waste of time. I'm sure there are better ways to negotiate in this situation....or better people to be aiming their frustrations at than the people they work for, like maybe the people who opened it up for competition in the first place and then put caps on postage costs.

What does 'modernisation' mean? As far as I can see, it's a total fucking weasel word; I might as well flick through my copy of 1984 to check that it didn't make it's first appearance in the English language there. The irony is that everyone in this thread has actually nailed what it means in practical terms - job security is fast becoming an impossibility for most people, politicians have been and still are playing covert ideological football with one of the last remaining public utilities in the hope that it will burst, machines are becoming preferable to human beings. Which is bullshit and dehumanising. So I don't understand what is wrong with the CWU trying to stand up for dignity in the workplace.

[I'm Your God Now]

Originally Posted by metallideth

What does 'modernisation' mean?

Hiring Cyborgs.

[Dec]

Thread's a trainwreck, however, have not stopped lolling at this particular doozie:

Originally Posted by TSR

That's an unfair generalisation - you get good and bad people in every group you sample

If anyone can figure out how this belter of a statement in any way relates to the matter at hand, you're a fucking genius.