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Unofficial mail strikes

Started by Wake, 30 October, 2003, 03:34:20 PM

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Wake

As you may have seen and heard in National Media, Royal Mail is currently experiencing a number of wildcat strikes. The disruption of postal services is widespread. Thargs subscription droids will continue to process and mail out all subscriptions on time, but chances are, that your subs copies will take longer than usual to arrive. We know how much you all rely on your weekly dose of thrillpower and, like you, hate it when the thrill suckers strike. Despite the problems of the Post Office, Denise and the rest of the droidlets continue to beaver away on your behalf. Your patience is appreciated.

Mudcrab

NEGOTIATION'S OVER!

Quirkafleeg


Matt Timson

No!  Sack them all- especially the ones with dodgy shirts and ludicrous artistic sense!
Pffft...

Mudcrab

"Up the workers!"

:o)
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NEGOTIATION'S OVER!

Oddboy

Better set your phaser to stun.

Quirkafleeg

Just been on the news.. they are talking about starting to seal postboxes tomorrow and the backlog could take 'weeks if not months' to clear

Oddboy

Just in time for the X-mas card season, you mean?
Better set your phaser to stun.

Matt Timson

I'm telling you- the fools will be striking themselves out of jobs.  It's not like the good old days when there was no real competition.

There's a very real possibility that the Royal Mail could go under and it won't be your humble postie who's first in line for the payouts if that happens...
Pffft...

Demon Chicken

Proudhuff the ball is in your court! Defend your fellow posties.

opaque

It's when other places start joining in it'll get worse.
Nationalise it, pay them a decent wage and allow it make make a loss. Better to provide a vital service centrally than risk it screwing everything up like it seems is going to happen.

Goosegash

Can I just ask, have any other non-subs had trouble finding the prog this week? I've been to two newsagents I know always have it, but with no joy. Is it something to with the postal strike, or have all branches of Smiths decided that stocking "Jackie Chan Adventures" is more viable?

Gives me an excuse to start subscribing, anyway.

PSI

Yep, I had a problem with mine. My newsagent puts it by for me and it only came in this afternoon.

Has anybody got to the bottom of why the posties are actually striking? Not the ones in London (isn't that something to do with London waiting?) I mean the ones in Kent, something to do with a worker who was sacked but has now been reinstated and that is still not good enough.

Anybody?

Dudley

There's a very real possibility that the Royal Mail could go under and it won't be your humble postie who's first in line for the payouts if that happens...

Just to chuck in a bit of inside info - I had a long talk with the head of DeutschePost UK, and according to him there is no interest (either from DP or SwissPost or AnPost or even TNT) in taking over consumer delivery.  They're all poised to grab a big slice of business postage (the stuff I deal with), but consumer post in the UK is too badly run, they'd have to guarantee to deliver to small islands as well as the juicy London contracts, and both Tory & (spineless) Labour governments have made it clear that they feel they'll have to side with the consumers in any struggle over rights.  And none of these companie think the game's worth the candle.  He could have been giving me corporate bull, but it didn't feel like it.  You get occasional fly by night operations, but nobody has the investment available to replace Royal Mail.

Proudhuff

I haven't been around to hear the ins and outs of the London stuff, my understanding is that managers in London have taken the rejection of a stike vote as a sign of capitulation and are now pushing thro even more drastic measures, the thing is, the conditions are crap, the pay low and the managers mindset is split between overt Thactherism and 1950s school teachers, put you hand up to go to the toilet etc.

Other info: no company wants to deliver to households theres no money in it, especially the rural areas, sink estates, urban sprall etc, this should be a public service, modernised? of course, but it will never pay its own way and the customers would never pay what it costs in real terms.
Royal Mail has been given 'streching'finanical targets but isn't allowed to charge more for its services. So its cutting staff numbers and increasing the work load on the remainder. The thing is, as previously this needs Govt intervention, it was Lord Sawyer last time, and an understanding that, like the maintanence of the railways, delivering all the National's mail can't be done with a profit mind set.

For years money that was raised by Royal Mail, this was hundred of millions each year, when it had a monoploy was taken by all govts to pay for tax cuts and other pet policies and never invested back in the infastructure, no business could operate like that private or nationalised, eventually something had to give.
No doubt the Telegraph readers and the people who grow up with Thatcher have no idea of what a Public Service ethos is, but that is what is needed here, before the Postal service ends up like the railways.
Over and out...

Quinta Brigada
 


DDT did a job on me