EhvanHSV

Special Delivery costs

Paul Bacon

Ta, thats not bad really. Obviously more than normal post but its not like the country will grind to a halt

mrwolves

Taken from another website i go on....

I work for Royal Mail, the strike is gonna cripple me too to be honest, but we're doing it for a reason, and the reason isn't pay.

A big problem is the pension fund, I'm sure you've read it in the papers that RM have said to claim a full pension they want us to work 5 years longer. Also, there's still a big deficit in the pension, as in, they haven't been putting in what they should.

Job cuts, they want to cut a 200,000 work force by 40,000. These can be 'consolidated' by cutting people's hours down from 40, to 30 or 20. Generally in the form of Buy Downs (sort of, half redundancy, you give up half your job, and they pay that half off). I can tell you for a fact, as a part timer desperate to get full time, that any full time jobs that become available, are wrote off as savings or re advertised as 1 part time vacancy, enabling them to save money.

Now the best bit, flexible working. They want to firstly, make everyone on monthly pay, as opposed to weekly. Now, if you're full time, and contracted to say, 170 hours a month. They will tell you when and where you're doing those hours. If you work in Wolves, sorting letters indoors from 6am-2pm, they may say, 'tomorrow, you're working in Dudley from 5am doing a walk because we've got enough staff in here to cover what we're going to get and they have someone off sick.' Also, you could find yourself doing 60 hours one week and 20 hours the next. We'd be at their complete beck and call.

As of next monday, they've bought in executive action, drivers who I work with, who work 11am till 7pm, and have done for years (after trying for ages to get decent hours to spend time with their families etc) are having their hours moved to later times. Some will have to do 2.30 till 10.30pm, they have absolutely no say in this matter. They've also moved some of the delivery staff to a later start time.

The changes proposed are just not viable for a large percentage of workers. For example. Take an average family, couple of young kids, someone has a main job, and on the evening, the partner works at Royal Mail, adding to the income, and there's always someone to look after the kids. That's straight out the window because the one working at RM doesn't know if they'll be called in early, sent to another office or not required at all.

The proposed changes are MASSIVE changes, which in any other business would be integrated over time, but RM wants to get them in right now and to hell with the effects it has on the workers. If 10% of the workforce leaves because they can't continue, the big wigs only have to look to cut 20,000 jobs instead of 40,000. To 'compensate' for these changes to our lives, not just our jobs, they've offered 2.5%, which is I believe just over the rate of inflation. So we're out. (The pay offer would be snapped up if it wasn't for the strings attached. If you like, could send you a copy of a document detailing the proposals!!!)

Keyser

yes, how dare employees reject an offer from management which completely rewrites their current working conditions! The sheer CHEEK of it!

RM management are an utter joke (Adam Crozier ffs!!) I hope the staff get what they want, they've been butt-f**ked on this and strike is their last option.

'MON BROTHERS

pjburrage

That's pretty much the case with any work based pension fund at the moment. People are living longer, fund has to pay more out than previously, so to get a similar level when the current workers retire, they will need to work longer. Simple really.

EhvanHSV

Couldn't have put it better myself. People seem to think it's just about money, or being made to work our hours (which happens anyway? ) and such, it's not. It's very real worries, not just about getting 3.1% instead of 2.7% or whatever the feck ever, but about keeping our jobs. I generally disagree with strikes; they're too leftie, too Arthur Scargill, too 1970s. This one I've voted for and taken part in, because frankly when even the management are polling to go on strike then you know the business is going to ****.

zink

do the postal service accept that there needs to be change?

EhvanHSV

Change in what?

Nick OGS20

oh arse. posted a couple of things that i'd flogged on ebay yesterday second class recorded, are they not going to arrive until next wednesday?

bad feedback ftl

EhvanHSV

If you're lucky. Think more likely to get there Thursday or Friday, especially if they're second class. When we go back from a strike we generally ignore the second and clear the backlog of the first, and then hit the second. There'll be 4 days' backlog from this, so it might take longer than that.