Royal Mail

[1984]

Anyone else get their post just fine today? According to the new no ones meant to get any today unless I have misheard.

[General Lighting]

its a free country so not every worker is obliged to go on strike and its illegal to intimidate those who do, so some post may well have got through.

I was surprised to receive a parcel of electronic circuit boards this week via Royal Mail despite the strike - although its even possible it was delivered out of goodwill as they are for important telecoms equipment destined for an old folks home..

[1984]

its a free country so not every worker is obliged to go on strike and its illegal to intimidate those who do, so some post may well have got through.

I was surprised to receive a parcel of electronic circuit boards this week via Royal Mail despite the strike - although its even possible it was delivered out of goodwill as they are for important telecoms equipment destined for an old folks home..

must be lucky haven't noticed a single delay to the post over the whole thing.

[joshd96320]

still operating as usual in these parts i think GL

[1984]

probably over hyped by the media, how very unusual.

[General Lighting]

There is less post but its not a total shutdown - there wasn't even a picket at Ipswich sorting office last night. Bear in mind most residential people don't get that much through the post compared to 10 years ago, as stuff like bank statements etc can be viewed online.

There were a lot of courier drivers in town today looking lost...

[joshd96320]

There is less post but its not a total shutdown - there wasn't even a picket at Ipswich sorting office last night. Bear in mind most residential people don't get that much through the post compared to 10 years ago, as stuff like bank statements etc can be viewed online.

There were a lot of courier drivers in town today looking lost...

i get quite a lot of parcels / letters, couple of slight disturbances nothing out of the ordinary but i was extremely impressed when some orders from blue aran were delivered by fedex instead of royal mail coz of the strike - quick and great tracking raaa

[DaftFader]

there was about 48 thosand on strike today .. 30 thosand of which were covered by casual workers highred in acording to the metro

[DJCliffy]

And more strikes next week. Tossers.

[General Lighting]

I think the 30 000 was the casuals that RM was planning to recruit and no way could they get people in that fast even if they dragged people out of the job centre into the sorting office..

TBH I think a lot of businesses made contingency plans for larger packages and these days most letters are not as time-critical as their contents can also be sent electronically - even cheques can be replaced by electronic payments - foreigners laugh at us British still using paper cheques and manual bank deposits.

Where the strike will hit harder is when/if it becomes more prolonged. For all royal mail's faults its small parcels service was cheapest at the price point and as effective as its competitors, and businesses who want the same level of service will have to pay extra. At the moment many are swallowing the extra costs but they may not all be able to afford this.

[DJCliffy]

Does anyone know why this strike is actually happening? I know one issue is they (CWU) are against modernisation but how exactly do RM want to modernise the service?

[General Lighting]

Does anyone know why this strike is actually happening? I know one issue is they (CWU) are against modernisation but how exactly do RM want to modernise the service?

its actually surprisingly hard to tell from either side because they are both being stubborn and not telling the public all the facts!

from what I've gleaned over the years monitoring this problem (which has been ongoing for a decade or so), apart from plans (defeated in Parliament) to privatise it, one thing I've seen mentioned for some years (which they have already implemented to an extent) is that they want to slim down the amount of large sorting offices and replace them by regional hubs.

For instance Reading sorting office was supposed to be closed with all mail going via Swindon, creating the bizzare situation where posting a letter from Caversham to Henley on Thames (5 miles apart) would mean it travelled 50 miles - hardly environmentally friendly, and with much more chance of the letter getting lost..

And to make the targets they would increase posties hours and reduce the headcount. Some of the modernisation has already been forced through, which is why there are no Sunday collections of post and only one delivery...

what makes it worse though is the present government hasn't got the balls to accept the Post Office is a public service with a universal service obligation and unlike private couriers profit must be a secondary motive - and the opposition government plans to privatise it anyway - but perhaps thats also the publics fault as people now seem incapable to accept that public services mean spending a bit of taxpayers money and vote for governments what want to privatise everything...

[DaftFader]

I think the 30 000 was the casuals that RM was planning to recruit and no way could they get people in that fast even if they dragged people out of the job centre into the sorting office..

TBH I think a lot of businesses made contingency plans for larger packages and these days most letters are not as time-critical as their contents can also be sent electronically - even cheques can be replaced by electronic payments - foreigners laugh at us British still using paper cheques and manual bank deposits.

Where the strike will hit harder is when/if it becomes more prolonged. For all royal mail's faults its small parcels service was cheapest at the price point and as effective as its competitors, and businesses who want the same level of service will have to pay extra. At the moment many are swallowing the extra costs but they may not all be able to afford this.
there was pics of cues of temps out side royal mail buildings in the paper ... i know it was 30 planned .. dunno how many turned up tho ... but there are alot of people looking for work atm

[General Lighting]

there was pics of cues of temps out side royal mail buildings in the paper ... i know it was 30 planned .. dunno how many turned up tho ... but there are alot of people looking for work atm

its possible these are the usual christmas casuals (albeit somewhat early) - but I worked for RM twice as casual staff and in my region it took about 1-2 weeks to process the application due to security checks etc. I suppose its possible these have been stood down to speed up the process but that isn't going to do the reliability of the mail any good.. :yakk:

[DJCliffy]

I might see if theres any temping work at my local sorting office this xmas. Could do with the extra cash. And god forbid if any of em call me a scab.

I shall be waiting for em outside with a giant sponge.

[General Lighting]

had a look out of curiosity and it appears your area has already been modernised and the nearest sorting office actually recruiting casuals is now in Stevenage (maybe not particularly local!)

[DJCliffy]

Probably a good thing, they kicked me out of the local one for being a stoner. Doubt they'd let me back in lol!

[DaftFader]

Probably a good thing, they kicked me out of the local one for being a stoner. Doubt they'd let me back in lol!
yeah to right! .. you might steal my post you bloody druggy!!! .... think i'll put you on death row .. DIE SCUM!!!

[General Lighting]

there's vacancies also in Berkhamsted (for some reason they didn't come up first time round) but its probably the same one cliffy got slung out of in the first place :laugh_at:

[DaftFader]

my acurasy on pop lvl's in certain geog locations might be a bit off ... but i am sure the missing posties in Berkhamsted count for a small % of that 30 thou :laugh_at:

[DJCliffy]

yeah to right! .. you might steal my post you bloody druggy!!! .... think i'll put you on death row .. DIE SCUM!!!

As an Englishman i have my rights. Oh wait no i don't. Can i at least have a last meal?

[DaftFader]

As an Englishman i have my rights. Oh wait no i don't. Can i at least have a last meal?
as long as it's the undelivered mail that your eating .. sure you can :wink::laugh_at:

[DJCliffy]

as long as it's the undelivered mail that your eating .. sure you can :wink::laugh_at:

Cool. Hopefully i'll find a few undelivered mephe packages and eat that. :crazy_dru

[DaftFader]

Cool. Hopefully i'll find a few undelivered mephe packages and eat that. :crazy_dru
you'll burn in hell for that ya know!

[DJCliffy]

you'll burn in hell for that ya know!

I've been to Hell. I can handle it.

[DaftFader]

I've been to Hell. I can handle it.
have you been to heven? .. i have ... i couldn't handle that either :s

[Nadz]

Notice how the media are all just banging on about whether or not a couple of days strike here and there is going to bring the country to a complete standstill, and talks a lot about government intervention, the union and royal mail but hardly tells you what the workers are actually striking for? fucking wankers. sad to see how much less workers solidarity there is these days.

[Horny Angel]

There is less post but its not a total shutdown - there wasn't even a picket at Ipswich sorting office last night. Bear in mind most residential people don't get that much through the post compared to 10 years ago, as stuff like bank statements etc can be viewed online.

There were a lot of courier drivers in town today looking lost...

No post here yesterday.

Postal delivery workers were on strike, buses drivers were on strike and at 6pm the fire fighters went on strike....oh what joy!!!