Royal Mail Strike - Quick Question?

[SuperDanX]

Would special delivery items be affected by a national strike? I know up to now they havent been.

[ChrisF]

I, for one, fully endorse the use of postal strikes as a means of putting these "postal gold" firms out of business.

[abigsmurf]

A lot of Royal Mail's problems seem to come down to having too many people working there. They spent all this money on equipment to make the company more efficient but what's the point if it means they don't save any money? People are sending fewer and fewer letters, the technology has improved sorting drastically and yet the union expects the staff numbers to stay the same regardless.

[Salsa Party Animal]

We might send fewer letters but we also buy more things online and more junk mail marketing.

Royal Mail need to get these machine in and sort the mail for us and then make cuts especially in management who are usually ex postie who can't hack the job and all they do is spend time on computer and drinking coffee.

I agree the price are too low. I would increase all the post by 10p especially downstream access.

The workload is ridiculous especially for full timers. Who have to do 2 hours of IPS (Internal Post Sorting) everyday.

I would like to balance the workload and make all the jobs 35 hours a week and keep the same pay.

[Decider-VT]

A standard first class large letter (any dvd based media) costs around 70p, so I dunno what those prices are.

Anyway, with all respect to everyone, I'm gonna step away from this thread well in advance. It's gonna get nasty in here eventually and I don't want to get involved in that.

It'll be a shame if you do, since your comments here have provided us with a view that is not widely reported. It seems unlikely that anybody here would be personally nasty to you because of the impending strike, even if hostility towards postal workers is in line with common public opinion at the moment.

[mackemansj1]

I guess i know why my fifa hasnt turned up yet or my psn cards from zavi.

[Jebus]

...and yet the union expects the staff numbers to stay the same regardless.

That'd be what the press and Royal Mail want you to believe, yes. It's simply not true. We HAVE changed, in numerous ways.

Legendary makes a good point regarding managers, most of them come in late, then are gone before you finish your delivery. It's not on.

It'll be a shame if you do, since your comments here have provided us with a view that is not widely reported. It seems unlikely that anybody here would be personally nasty to you because of the impending strike, even if hostility towards postal workers is in line with common public opinion at the moment.

I really appreciate that post to be honest, but I remember last time too much, I've been dreading the vote being a yes, some people still won't talk to each other in our office after last time.

If anyone needs any help with anything, I'll gladly chat via PM, but I've seen far too many posts on forums recently (though NOT on here as yet) having a real go, I mean a REAL go at posties for their GAME not turning up. One on the shopto forums made me want to kill, and I don't get that often!

As I say, always open to being PM'd on the subject.

[Roddie]

I hadn't realised there were more RM strikes going on; probably a bad time to have ordered some records from eBay...

From my experience working there, I couldn't believe how easy most of the staff had it. They were getting paid pretty well considering it's an unskilled job and even then, they would take plenty of long breaks (and smoking breaks) and, more often than not, would leave before the shift ended (without losing pay).

[Salsa Party Animal]

If you want to buy record or games do it now and don't leave it after next week.

[ChrisF]

On the news it was saying that Amazon have pretty much ditched RM due to the last lot of strikes... so they could be a safe bet for games etc...?

[Flabio]

Amazon use citylink for almost everything now. Who must be loving it.

[abigsmurf]

Amazon use citylink for their express delivery and Parcelforce for the budget delivery they use royal mail for standard.

[merf]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/08/argos-ebay-desert-royal-mail

I know the staff have their grievances but if this is the effect then strike action is going to backfire big time.

Of course this story is possibly being promoted by Royal Mail management as a scare tactic.

[Spatial]

I have to admit I've not been following the ins and outs of this but I don't think the representatives of the union are doing the posties much favours in getting their point across.

Clearly the workers all feel strong enough to go on strike, so there's clearly issues that need sorting. But I watched a guy on the BBC News yesterday from the CWU who, when questioned by the presenter about how this was going to really hurt businesses and the public using the service, he just kept repeating that the current changes being implemented by Royal Mail were also going to hurt the public and businesses.

But when pressed he couldn't give an answer as to how - it made the Posties side of things look wafer thin and that they were trying to dress this up as something it isn't.

Where I live doesn't seem to have been hit too bad by an strike action going on right now but I can imagine this is going to be an absolute nightmare for online stores at Xmas if they don't make alternate arrangements.

[Flabio]

Normally yes, but everything that's turned up here from Amazon the last few weeks has been through citylink, regardless of delivery charge.