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Are the royal mail committing suicide?

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R1Geezer | 13:34 Fri 09th Oct 2009 | News
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With Amazon, Ebay and others moving to other deliverers, are the Unions cutting there own throats? Ok so they're pi55ed off with some of the management decisions but they won't have a job at all if the big customers move, now, will they? Is this typical left wing dogma cutting off noses to spite faces?
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There is more to this than meets the eye .

What's happening here is that the Unions are gearing up for a showdown with the tories - ( if and when they get in ) - who will be pushing through whole or part privitisation of Royal Mail .
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showdown my ar5s, al the union rules that gave them power were removed by the iron lady herself. No sign of Noo labour bringing them back, they ain't that stupid. The unions are easily put to the sword these days. Unions had a place 100 years+ ago, now they are counter productive.
Showdown with your ar5s or not - the fact is that the union members have voted by a large %tage, by way of the legal mechanism for strike action .

If they are called out then that will be a a showdown , confrontation or whatever you want to call it -( the phrase you want to use is immaterial ) with Royal Mail / the Government , of whatever colour .

I simply state that there are deeper issues at play here .
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that's just it bertie it won't be a showdown, their functions are diplicated elsewhere, if they went on strike for any more than a few days everything will get delivered by other carriers. It's like a chip shop closing in a parade of chip shops, no one will give a thrupney they'll buy their chips next door.
It's a simple fact that if management actually knew anything about the job involved, instead of relying on spreadsheet projections, theory, and - in my view - devising ways to bump up their bonuses even further (Royal Mail managers and especially upper management are probably the highest paid in the public sector) then this would not be happening. Management demands are unworkable, unsustainable, and are in complete defiance of pre agreed standards and practices. They are incredibly Dickensian in their views of how to treat people.

The ordinary posty at the bottom is just being dumped on again and again, all the time losing money, rights, and priveleges, while they get richer off our backs. The argument that mail volume has gone down or that we have time to do more is rubbish, and we have had enough of taking it.

The government (for doing nothing about what is a public service after all) and the management are totally to blame for the friction and to date have not accepted requests by the union to discuss the future jointly. The union, with the majority backing of members, is using the only tool we have to fight back, the right to strike. That doesn't mean there will be any strikes.

In all honesty, what is wrong with standing up for what you believe in rather than rolling over and taking it? Why is it that the unions (not just Royal Mail - look around and it's other concerns too) can get slagged for this, accused of it all being down to them, and that the "other" side is in the right?
Other carriers do not want to deliver letters except at a ludicrous price.

The Unions have not lost the Amazon contract, the management have.

There could be an element of the Unions bringing this long running dispute to a head because they know the Tories will sell it off at a fraction of what it is worth to a French or German Company.
Shame there weren't some stoppages at Rover when Phoenix took over

Someone might have looked into what the management were up to.

Don't know much about the Post office rights and wrongs but I don't have much faith that the management has a plan to actually put them back on a profitable footing.

It always seems to be a desperate round of cost cutting or price rises- you can't survive like that you have to generate more income and there doesn't seem to be the vision to do that.

You can't expect the Government to step in and prop up the Royal Mail indefinitely

Looks like a desperate lack of leadership
The Royal Mail is profitable

They made a group-wide operating profit of £321m in the year to 31 March, up from £162m in 2008.
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Firstly let me say that there is no doubt that RM needs to modernise .
Frankly the the unions and management should be locked away in a sealed room - with only oxygen being pumped in - untill they come up with a way of working with each other , for the long term benefit of the business .

However RM problems have been exacebated by the Postal Rugulator , who has seen fit to open up the British Postal market to foreign competition , without any recipricol action from foreign postal markets .
This has resulted in the likes of your DHL\'s and others, riding in and cherry picking the profitable bits of the market , without suffering the same effect in their \'home\' markets .

RM is then left to provide a universal postal service .

No carrier in their right mind is going to take over from RM , with it\'s current obligations .
If you reside in the sticks or the outer hebrides , you are going to have to pay more for your post to be delivered
Most people realise what Rupert Murdoch did to the television industry when he took over sport from the main channels and added an enormous premium raising the costs to go through the roof.

If parcel deliveries are to go the same way then expect much of the same. By the way Murdoch also owns TNT the parcel delivery service and a competitor of the Post Office.
The bad old inefficient G.P.O used to delive a letter to my door at about 0830, and then again at around 1300.
The new and improved G.P.O manages one delivery any time between 1030 and 1400 now, maybe the staff have a point.
I don't want to see the G.P.O privatised, privatisation has been an unmitigated disaster for this country.
One example of a management lie is 'We will do away with the second delivery' as you are all aware they didn't, they did away with the first delivery which is why you are getting your mail so much later. Another classic is 'Timed Delivery' whereby a customer (usually a business) pays a premium to have their mail delivered at say 8.30 am. unaware that the majority of the mail does not arrive on our benches until after that time, they are consequently paying to receive the previous days mail. Just a couple of quick examples for you, we are not striking for more money we are striking to protect your service. Incidentally it is quite acceptable to 'cut off' i.e. not deliver packets if we don't have the time but God help us if we don't get our Door to Door (Pizza leaflets and other 'junk mail') delivered in time. I could go on but I've got to go and deliver said pizza leaflets.
RI Geezer-So What is your question ? '' Are {is ?} the Royal Mail commiting suicide ?'' or ''are the Unions cutting there own throats ?''
I just want a reliable postal service.

I don't care whether it is provided by Royal Mail or by somebody else.

If it is not to be the Royal Mail donosaurs - management and union - then so be it. We know what happens to dinosaurs in the end.

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