Royal Mail Strike - Quick Question?

[ChrisF]

Ah right, so the courier side of things will deal with that. Fair enough.

I think they're charging £1.99 for UK mail delivery, during the strikes, £2.99 thereafter.

[ChrisF]

Strikers to be replaced by temps. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8312845.stm

[sj33]

I've been staying out of debate about this protest, although I fundamentally support the strikers, it's not hard to see why people are getting a tad tired now. Not that there's any alternative. What does anger me (and is the reason I'm posting) is comments like this from the Royal Mail - "We are continuing to urge the union to halt its appalling and unjustified attack on customer". I sincerely hope no-one actually buys into that spin, regardless of people's views on the strike.

[Grapple Convoy]

A strike to me is like asking for a reward for not doing your job at all!

The most fundamental right of all workers is the right to withdraw their labour. It is this fundamental right that separates workers from slaves.

[Brats]

"We are continuing to urge the union to halt its appalling and unjustified attack on customer". I sincerely hope no-one actually buys into that spin, regardless of people's views on the strike.

But it is that to some extent. As PrayforMojo pointed out, the strike is being structured in a way to have the minimum effect on the workforce's pay but the maximum impact on customer services. That aspect of it does seem unjustified to me.

I can understand a one day strike, but the CWU are actually trying to cause as much disruption as possible to force the RM to capiltulate. The result of this has a prolonged impact for the customer, but they don't appear to show much sympathy for that.

[Fastware]

It may be a one day strike but the mail backlog lasts much longer. Have strikes in recent years actually significantly changed anything for the workers?

[ChrisF]

Lib Dem leader has come out and said that people calling for a strike are "taking the whole country hostage"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8313042.stm

[EDDIE M0NS00N]

Ah right, so the courier side of things will deal with that. Fair enough.

I think they're charging ?1.99 for UK mail delivery, during the strikes, ?2.99 thereafter.

The thing is that they are only offering this because of the strikes so they dont have to pay out with their Release Date Or Compensate guarantee, which is basically like saying "well if you're that desperate & sad & have more money than sense & want it next day then you'll have to pay ?1.99 due to RM strikes" making customers even more angry at RM because they have to now pay for the privilege of getting a new release next day.

Why not just say that "we cant guarantee next day delivery so the RDOC guarantee" has been removed until the strikes end"?

TBH tho I think shopto will lose a lot of the trade they gained with their guarantee because of this strike.

I'm not blaming the RM staff its the guys at the top which have destroyed the Company & are trying to turn ppl against those who work hard on the ground.

[abigsmurf]

There's a lot of bad information thrown around on news sites about the state of Royal Mail.

For example Royal Mail group reported £361m profits for 2008-2009 which is a fair chunk of cash.

However of that only £49 million was attributed to Royal Mail (sorting an delivery). This part of the business has a turnover of £6.5b. To say that's a razor thin profit margin is an understatement. A slight reduction in turnover would turn that into a loss (and the amount of mail sent is expected to decrease further). A big shift would cause incredibly losses.

All parts of a business need to be viable. Propping up a failing business with the other more profitable ones is a bad idea and can lead to accusations of undercutting opposition.

Then there's a £3bn hole in the budget for the pension that needs to be paid off.

There are good reasons why attempts to sell off the government's stake in Royal Mail failed.

[saif]

All parts of a business need to be viable. Propping up a failing business with the other more profitable ones is a bad idea and can lead to accusations of undercutting opposition.

That is interesting in a games forum, seeing as the industry is built on the exact opposite of this.

It also isn't true at all, all of the best, most successful, make losses in certain divisions, it is seen as a basic "cost" of marketing strategically. This is one thing I see more and more and it is fundamentally wrong.
The purpose of the group is to make money.
The purpose of each entity is NOT to make money (note the verb order before anyone jumps in).
The real purpose of each entity is to help the group achieve its aim.

In this case, RM has no competition for elements of its job - "the last mile". It is fairly obvious that the burden of the last mile is what takes costs up - how many delivery offices do they have to sservice the last mile? I hate having stuff delivered by anyone except RM, as if I am not in, either I go to the local sorting office or some random place miles away that services "North London". Of course giving a fundamentally poorer service IS cheaper. Couriers do not have a last mile, they have a "last few miles". I live in an urban area, I cannot imagine how annoying it must be to realise that your delivery office for DHL is 20 miles away.

[Lorfarius]

However of that only ?49 million was attributed to Royal Mail (sorting an delivery). This part of the business has a turnover of ?6.5b. To say that's a razor thin profit margin is an understatement. A slight reduction in turnover would turn that into a loss (and the amount of mail sent is expected to decrease further). A big shift would cause incredibly losses.

But then you have members of RM claiming that management are lying about the amount of mail going through the system. Full trolleys being downgraded in size to muddle numbers with posties claiming the amount of work is increasing year in year out.

[Brats]

The way to tell if the amount of post is going up or down is to look at the turnover for Royal Mail sorting and delivery, isn't it? If RM claim the amount of post is reducing by 10% each year, then the turnover for last year would have been ?7.22bn. If the psoties are right, the turnover would have been less than ?6.5bn.

Where do you find these figures out?

[abigsmurf]

It's not easy to judge the amount of post from the turnover. For one thing prices go up but also the types of postage people use differ ie. cheaper rate business post, special delivery, packages vs letters etc.

You can get the figures from their annual reports and released profit figures

[Number45]

Wouldn't any figures neglect to take third party companies into account? i.e. Those items that are processed through TNT for example, but that the Royal Mail will end up sorting and delivering?

[Lorfarius]

It's not easy to judge the amount of post from the turnover. For one thing prices go up but also the types of postage people use differ ie. cheaper rate business post, special delivery, packages vs letters etc.

You can get the figures from their annual reports and released profit figures

But the problem with those figures is that the workers/union are claiming they are being fiddled. Much more post is going through the system than RM claims.