not footy related but heads up if posting stuff this xmas...or in the future royal mail are now run by a company called IDS and are due to be taken over by a czech millionaire who owns part of gazprom and whose wife is even richer than he is! anyway, the company is actually ripping up every agreement made over donkeys years and including agreements post privatisation, up to 10k redundancies on a far lower rate as per agreement but offering a 6k "bonus" if accepted within 10 days to panic us, was 2yrs, now 9 months pay, but then employing new staff on lower pay their and their own t&c which is fair if just joining and knowing the craic but please don't blame us posties if your stuff don't arrive, we have had an imposed overtime ban by management this last 3 weeks and it's chaos letters left for for days, any standard packets thrown to 1 side and instructed to deliver priority stuff 1st then post whatever mail you can, also we must prioritise the junk mail above regular letters has even expired leaflets cannot be returned i know some will say get with the times and deliver it, but the death of a 500 year ish royal mail happened 9yrs back but most actually take pride in their job, dump and run parcels and letters every few days will be the normal, even match event tickets if not paid for in a premium will vanish, the customer will pay more long term anyway further planned strikes are fri 9th, sun 11th, weds 14th, thur 15th, fri 23rd, sat 24th
I see next step is they want to stop Saturday deliveries it’s not good and I certainly don’t blame the postie who delivers my mail for the current situation
I see next step is they want to stop Saturday deliveries it’s not good and I certainly don’t blame the postie who delivers my mail for the current situation
I always keep a close eye on the stock market and financial results, and have been curious about the recent Royal Mail strikes and reasons behind them. I really sympathise with the posties, but fear they’re clinging on to a union that really have no idea what to fight for, or how to deal with a privately owned company. With letter volumes forecast to be down to less than a quarter of what they were 25 years ago, increased competition on parcels, and a serious lack of investment in Royal Mail under government ownership, it’s hardly surprising to hear they’re struggling. From what I’ve read, and mega Covid year profits aside, GLS has been the real winner in the groups portfolio and is regularly recording profits, while Royal Mail is a hindrance that’s losing a hell of a lot of money - according to the latest set of results at least. Unfortunately, I guess something has to give, and the quickest winner for any big company will be to look at those at the bottom of pay scale and make cuts - typically because it’s the most populous part of the workforce. It’s just awful that this is happening in the middle of a cost of living crisis which is putting immense pressure on that same group of people.
Stopping Saturday deliveries, apart from special delivery mail, always seemed the most sensible idea to me when I worked there. The bulk of letter mail is rubbish and not really time sensitive. If they just delivered first class mail daily and the rest say twice a week there would be an orderly way of running things. Instead of streamlining sensibly RM hierarchy stuck rigidly to a 6 day universal service which is unaffordable and instead allowed the system to crash. When I left five years ago mail was getting left in the office every day, new estates were not put on any routes as they were all too big already so ALL mail for them just sat in the office for days/weeks. Basically the government don't give a toss about RM but want to ptetend they do while top management who just want to hang onto their jobs, next QUANGO appointment, knighthoods or whatever collude in the lie, the underfunding, the forcing of staff to sign up to unworkable practices just to tick boxes. RM has been destroyed by government disinterest, terrible quality middle and upper management and Chairmen/women who don't care as long as they get through their few years tenure covering up the failure and move on to their next big job elsewhere. It's a disgrace.
I worked as a Postie for 10 months, it's so badly run it has to be seen to be believed, I'm glad I got out when I did, I know how hard the average Postie works and I genuinely feel for them.
Do you mean Consignia?. Before my time there mate but it was scrapped as the new name within two years of launch as Royal Mail returned to being ....Royal Mail. I honestly can't tell you how badly RM is run and I left in 2017. Quality of management...dreadful. They simply exist to tick boxes and scramble to pretend all the mail has gone out when in reality it hasn't. Enforce health and safety regulations which are all fine but make delivering the mail within time frames completely impossible. Then crack down on those not completing within time frames. The state of the vans. When I started in 2008 they were renewing vans after four years use. By the time I left that had gone by the board and most of ours were totally clapped out, regularly breaking down and going into the RM garage which was too understaffed to fix them properly. I could go on and on. A great British institution run into the ground.
I nearly started work for them in 2004. I had the interview and gave them my bank details you name it. I then found out it wasn't job and knock. As in I could come in and prep my round but couldn't start the round until after 9am. If I wanted to make my money up I'd have to agree to post flyers/junk mail and full -time was only 31.5 hours with optional overtime on your day off to make your time up.
I started in 2008 and it was job and finish all the time I was there. If you were quick you could finish early probably on any bar two days but going quick inevitably starts to cause problems with knees and hips. I only just got out in time or my hips would have been totally shot.
I got out in July 6 months before i was due to retire, i was lucky i could afford it ( but i worked hard to get the money ) i just hated leaving mail and it not going out on your day off especially Saturday and Monday after your long weekend. Just short of 40 years to boot. Good luck to the lad's and lasses.
I did just short of 40 years and when i started it was 4 o, clock start it's now 7 to 730 and they are wanting 9 to 5.
Should never have been privatised in the first place really. I mean I'd personally say that about a lot of industries, but when you're privatising something that even the USA runs as a national service I think you have to look at yourself!
now offering parcelforce (who are part of the group) a £300 bribe to work through the strikes next week but many self employed owner drivers! honestly the amount spent/wasted in our office alone on agency workers is quite criminal as now, they put an overtime ban on whilst still paying agency staff at more cost and to be honest and no disrespect to them, they haven't a clue, mr bean would look good i accept that letter delivery could be dropped to 5 days, but what then in a years time, 4 days and then every other day, try telling that to an old lady that a card posted saturday may not get delivered until thursday, and before anyone says that's what happens now anyway, blame the board for giving away around £500m to the shareholders earlier in the year posting record profits, awarded themselves massive bonuses and spent millions making inept delivery office manages redundant then announce a £1m per day loss when it came to our negotiations, and blaming strikes for it, we ain't been on strike for a few weeks either due to the tory laws and still blaming it! i do know a few slackers but the majority take pride in the job and the service we provide and it will be missed in a few years
No public service should have been sold off. Ever! However, we now live in a country where foreign governments are making millions from our public services. Money our own government could be using to constantly improve and invest in the country. Instead, those profits are being used to subsidise public services in other countries. Even DPD (probably considered to be one of the best parcel carriers in the UK and streets ahead of Royal Mail) is owned by La Poste - the French state owned postal service. The government ran Royal Mail for long enough and happily took money from the business when it was profitable, but they failed to invest in any new infrastructure and automation technology to mitigate the forecast decline in letters and growth in parcels. The minute they realised they’d left it too late and had no money to spend, they sold it off. There’s nothing to suggest they’d do any better bringing it back under public ownership. If anything, I’d expect them to push for an even lesser USO to cut costs.
