Royal Mail Strike - Quick Question?

[Dirty Sanchez]

Does anyone have any figures for the % of mail that comes through the door that ends up straight in the bin?

All my statements/utilities etc are managed online, during an average month I probably get one maybe two pieces of paper through that are of any use, both of which could be delivered electronically.

Most of the crud coming through my door is not initiated by me, it's speculative mass mailing. An incredible waste of resources.

The obvious difference is package mail, but even then it's only a handful per month.

As consumers we could close the whole system down by refusing to accept the junk mail. Personally I'd be quite happy to pick up my mail from a central depot, like I do with my shopping, or have a weekly service as I do with my bins.

There seems to be a need for a fundemental change to how we use the mail service; anyone who has worked in an office over the last 20 years will be aware of the massive reduction in paper in the office, this must have had a knockon effect with inter company mail?

[EDDIE M0NS00N]

Delivery people are striking tomorrow... Other parts of the business are striking today.

Fairplay on the RM strikers. It looks like they've tried to condense what looks like a 2 day strike into & 1 days worth of sorted/delivered post strike really when you think about it.
Those sorting it/arent delivering strike today, so theres no point the posties delivering tomorrow as there wont be anything sorted.

They've really tried to make this strike as least inconvienent as possible to the customer.

Fair do's boys!!

[averybluemonkey]

Yeah was a long time ago, what have the miners got to do with this? No one has even mentioned them.

Just because something may have happened 30yrs ago why would it happen now? Managers would be sent to prison for the things you mentioned, i'm pretty sure they don't want that.

Without sounding rude, i work for Royal Mail so i think i'm in a better situation to say how things are done, post isn't destroyed it's just delayed by a few days, a lot of it will be delivered on saturday. So an e bay seller has said something went missing, can you really take that as gospel?

Everyone seems to have these ideas on how Royal Mail works and goes about things but unless you work there you have no real idea. I don't know how other companys go about their daily business so i don't try to make out i do, like some of the posts in this thread.

Once again in my post I DID NOT say you were wrong did I. I made an original post, you said it was wrong and questioned where I got my information for that original post so I then made a post explaining why I said what I did. And also detailed some of the public opinion in my area. I didn't contradict you and I didn't say I knew how the Royal Mail was run. Again if you read my post I didn't say the eBayer had said something had gone missing but that he thought it might, I was using this as an example of yet another person who'd warned me of this.

My reason for mentioning the miners was that in that instance striking was justified, whereas in this instance I don't think it is as anyone unhappy with working for Royal Mail has alternative lines of work available locally so can simply leave.

[ChrisF]

3 more days of strikes next week... starting 29th... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8320971.stm

[Skull Commander]

Bollocks. My Tekken pre order is now in jeopardy for launch day next week then.

[cutmymilk]

I sent a parcel today for £7. Was told that if I didnt pay more it may not get there "for 2 weeks" because of the possibility of strikes next week. Thats a bloody cheek, asking me to pay more for a half respectable service.

[Grapple Convoy]

Bollocks. My Tekken pre order is now in jeopardy for launch day next week then.

People's livelihoods are more important than some sodding videogame, dude.

[Skull Commander]

People's livelihoods are more important than some sodding videogame, dude.

Did I say otherwise? Get off your high horse.

[saif]

Brats, to be honest, the numbers (5% drop in revenue) could easily mask greater workload. I am an (financial) auditor, I know how these numbers are checked and what they mean.
Revenue can go down as a result of more work, as you yourself noted, at a lower cost. If TNT are paying a mere 13p per item for delivery (one third of the normal revenue), then they are getting a third of the revenue for doing the same work (in terms of delivering weight). And it would not need much to do it either.

Lets say TNT take 10% of their volume and they used to get £100m per week in total. Now they get £90m + £3.3m, Total revenue of £93.3m giving a drop of 6.7%, doing the same work.

TNT has competitors as well, lets say in total, RM lose 30% of their market (all in bulk business post) AND the total post delivered goes up 20% (massive rise). Now their revenue is (70 + (30*1/3))*1.20
That gives a total revenue of £96m, delivering 20% more mail deregulated.
4% revenue drop, same costs (pretty much - sorting is relatively scaleable). The question is delivering 20% more mail going to cost more than sorting 30% less mail. From a layman's POV, delivering is a lot more labour intensive and will be costlier.
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On top of that, business mail, and the stuff the new players are taking on are the low hanging fruit, the items that are easy to process, and so with good margins.
Smurfy gave the RM margins, universal service will have poor margins as you cannot rid the customer base of those that are expensive.

Who here wants post in London to be cheaper than elsewhere? Millions of people are easier and cheaper to post to. Flip that, who wants villagers to pay more per item of post? You live in a town rather than a city? Poor economies of scale, we cannot squeeze an efficiency out of that, market say price up!

That works for many things, but services that we give an equal price to do not have an equal cost to service.

If RM receive 39p per stamp, and they have such low margins, it must cost 38.something *on average* to post that item. I'm in London, it does not cost that to send to me, RM make, say, 5p by delivering to me. Consequently my friend in the lake district is a bit isolated, sending stuff to her must cost more than that 39p.
Theoretically, TNT would like to send to me in London and undercut that 39p. Great, love it. They cannot afford to do that and also send to the Lake District at the same price, so they don't.
RM then have to service the lake district at 39p making a loss. They have also lost the only profitable bits (urban areas) so they are left with the "bad" customers. That is pure asset stripping.

That is why I agree with the strikes, RM workers are trying to secure a decent service for the British people, not British and foreign capital, British people.

[djjimbob]

...most people don't have a union to back them like we do so most can't fight for their rights in the workplace, over the years companies all across the country have been on strike including banks, councils etc but we seem to get all the stick for trying to protect ourselfs.

You need to sack the CWU off to be honest.

Here is what the CWU agreed to in the 2007 Pay and Modernisation Agreement:

"It's all about managers, reps and employees working sensibly with a bit of give and take, applying equally to all"

That is in the contract, verbatim! Who agreed that? The union.

In the countless number of ways that that sentence can ben interpreted, it's no wonder they are trying to shaft you.

[stevie vip 99]

You need to sack the CWU off to be honest.

Here is what the CWU agreed to in the 2007 Pay and Modernisation Agreement:

"It's all about managers, reps and employees working sensibly with a bit of give and take, applying equally to all"

That is in the contract, verbatim! Who agreed that? The union.

In the countless number of ways that that sentence can ben interpreted, it's no wonder they are trying to shaft you.

Yeah a contract was agreed, that is one of the major problems, higher management are trying to bring in changes and working practises that were not agreed on

[averybluemonkey]

" most people don't have a union to back them like we do so most can't fight for their rights in the workplace, over the years companies all across the country have been on strike including banks, councils etc but we seem to get all the stick for trying to protect ourselfs. "


Just to say I've seen the way unions work from the other side. The ones my family encountered were vicious, vile organisations. They always sided with the employee regardless of the reality and the facts of the situation. They can rip people's lives apart with a force and ferocity that is scary. The only thing worse than having your employees threaten to sent their family and mates round to your house to kick your head in, in front of you family is when you are then accused of workplace bullying and disciplined by higher up managers who are, perhaps understandably, terrified of the legal power these guys can bring to bear.

[Ginger Tosser]

I'm tempted to post my broken lens to get fixed during next weeks strike, maybe it'll get lost in the backlog. Mind you they tend not to loose many Specials, still worth a punt as I could get a better lens with the insurance money

Quick question to Steve_VIP, any posties get threatened with the sack if they went on strike? As my sister in law did, she's only been their for a year or so (and is a union member). She did strike, but hopefully nothing else will happen (can't remember which DO she's at).

[PrayforMojo]

She has no need to worry if she's been there that long. I've never known anyone getting the sack for striking if they're under contract, not even non-union members. If she's worried she should have a word with her rep who should put her mind at ease.

[eastyy]

is there any post tommorow ?