Other people's livlihoods are at stake too

[seriouslygrumpy]

I am also losing wages this week. But I won't be able to do overtime to claw my lost money back.
My pension will be affected too as I can't afford the contributions.
My customers are upset. My suppliers are upset. And for what? What will this striking achieve?

If I have a problem with my pay / conditions etc of course I complain BUT my complaining doesn't harm other people's livlihoods, thier ability to put food on the table, jepordise anyone's future returement plans or even inconvenience anybody.

Don't the CWU get it at all? Royal Mail are not suffering becuase of the strikes. The people who use Royal Mail services are suffering becuase of the strikes.

[Stormproof]

I suggest you write or telephone Leighton & Crozier. This IA is to protect our jobs and pensions.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

We don't have a problem with our pay and conditions as they stand, and if Royal Mail left well alone with no pay rise most would accept that and not strike.

If you had read through the threads on here you would see that the pay offer is:



Withdrawal of D2D payments but no the deliveries of them - cost to me a loss of £30 per week. With a 6.7% pay rise over 2 years I will loose £18 per week (Pay rise what pay rise)

They want to bring in total flexibility. This means various things:
When I go into work I cannot be sure of what time I will finish
Also the managers can delay or bring forward my start time by 1/2 hr with only 24 hrs notice

I have to cover other rounds when people go sick (fair enough but I wont get paid for it as they want annualised hours) so I could work 60 hours in 1 week with no extra pay for it and only get paid for 40hours and no thought as to my life outside work.

Did you know that they want us to start work later - this means your post will be later. They also want to collect mail from post boxes earlier. This means that it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that your local box will be emptied once a day - before your mail is delivered.

They want to transfer our pension from a final salary scheme to an averaged earnings scheme - why - because they took a 17 year holiday and the fund is now in trouble. So they want us to pay for their financial mismanagement. Under this scheme it is feasible that people will not get back what they paid in.

We asked the union to negotiate a fairer deal and Royal Mail said no you cannot negotiate that's the only offer and you have to take it.

Given those circumstances we had no option other than to withdraw our labour a right we have in a democratic society.

I am sorry you are getting a short term pain but if we accepted the offer as it stands we will loose thousands over the years and you will see a reduction in the service we provide

You also have to ask yourself if you were offered that deal by the bosses and they were not prepared to negotiate what would you do. I don't think you would roll over to get your tummy tickled. I hope you would try everything legal to get a fair and honest deal.

[Wild Cat]

I am also losing wages this week. But I won't be able to do overtime to claw my lost money back.
My pension will be affected too as I can't afford the contributions.
My customers are upset. My suppliers are upset. And for what? What will this striking achieve?

If I have a problem with my pay / conditions etc of course I complain BUT my complaining doesn't harm other people's livlihoods, thier ability to put food on the table, jepordise anyone's future returement plans or even inconvenience anybody.

Don't the CWU get it at all? Royal Mail are not suffering becuase of the strikes. The people who use Royal Mail services are suffering becuase of the strikes.

I take it you are a small business?

There is a lot you can do,you have a union called the federation for small business so you can lobby them to take action in the form of witholding taxes,protest marches to Westminster like we are doing,you could drive your white vans down to whitehall and block it up!!! I don't think it is right the way councils treat small business.

We are being s**t on by the Government and Big business the same way as you are and we need to join forces and fight for the small man or there will be rule by the Global Elite and we will not stand a chance.

So I am sorry to all the customers who are being affected but we have no choice but to do this as to choose not to take action will ruin us and the postal service you rely on for life.

It is because the union has defended postal services that you still have a cheap reliable service at all.If you go to other countries they have a more expensive and worse service.

[seriouslygrumpy]

Valid points all, however it's stalemate at the moment with everyone losing. How long will it continue?

I frequent another message board and reports are coming in that lots of Royal Mail workers have called in sick today. The local delivery office manager came to collect the mail today as he had no other staff to send.
It can't be a coincidence.

[seriouslygrumpy]

I wrote to the CWU on Sunday evening and recieved a reply last night (Wednesday) from a Steve Jones.
It was rather condescending to say the least.
I won't embarass him by posting it here, but suffice to say he should take his head from out of the sand for a few minutes. The CWU need to realise that the "problems" he describes are the same for most self employed/small business owners around the country. If we complain about these things it doesn't affect other businesses or the general public.

This strike action will not acheive anything positive. What has it achieved so far? To be honest I don't expect and answer to that question becuase there is not ONE good or positive thing gained.

[Herodotus]

Seriouslygrumpy I sympathise with your position & we do not expect all comments on here to support our actions. You are most definitely entitled to your opinions ..... but they are naturally coloured ..... by how the strike affects you. What have our actions achieved, you are asking. Well ..... slowly & that is very slowly ..... the country is being made aware ..... that a move is afoot to totally ruin what was the finest postal system in the world. It does not only affect the 130,000 plus workers involved ..... although that must be our main concern ..... it affects the future of the postal system as a whole. This is not a strike merely about an increase in pay! The vast majority of sensible CWU members ..... however militant ..... would accept no pay rise whatsoever IF the 22 odd strings attached were removed. If this strike gets the media to cover the fact that the Royal Mail is being run down & ruined by complete & utter managerial incompetence ..... then that will be a great achievement!

[antcpfc]

I'm sorry but if the strike had no effect there would be no point.I have a life outside the post office and I am entitled to be able to plan in advance for my family duties (picking kids up from school etc). How would you feel if you did not know what hours you would be finishing from one week to the next.If I wanted to be completely flexible I would have picked a job that involved that.And dont say I can always leave as I have worked here 23 years and do not see why I should go because of two jumped up twats who could not run a bath.

[plodsie]

I wrote to the CWU on Sunday evening and recieved a reply last night (Wednesday) from a Steve Jones.
It was rather condescending to say the least.
I won't embarass him by posting it here, but suffice to say he should take his head from out of the sand for a few minutes. The CWU need to realise that the "problems" he describes are the same for most self employed/small business owners around the country. If we complain about these things it doesn't affect other businesses or the general public.

This strike action will not acheive anything positive. What has it achieved so far? To be honest I don't expect and answer to that question becuase there is not ONE good or positive thing gained.

I'll tell you this: If we don't fight what is going to happen then we are SERIOUSLY in dire straits. I don't really think you comprehend what exactly is going to happen if the management get their way. It could be the death knell for hundreds of small businesses who rely on an early post and a decent collection time. It could also be the death knell for Royal Mail. We have a management who have no vision, no ambition, and no idea of how to treat the workforce or their union, with respect.
As to what has been achieved? Before the strikes Leighton and Crozier would not even talk to our union, now they have, and it was because we did go on strike.
I think you should appreciate what we are doing instead of criticizing us, we are losing pay so that people like yourself will still have a decent mail service. If we didn't then you would get the service that you deserved for closing your eyes to the bigger picture.

[andy2007]

I wrote to the CWU on Sunday evening and recieved a reply last night (Wednesday) from a Steve Jones.
It was rather condescending to say the least.
I won't embarass him by posting it here, but suffice to say he should take his head from out of the sand for a few minutes. The CWU need to realise that the "problems" he describes are the same for most self employed/small business owners around the country. If we complain about these things it doesn't affect other businesses or the general public.

This strike action will not acheive anything positive. What has it achieved so far? To be honest I don't expect and answer to that question becuase there is not ONE good or positive thing gained.

Unfortunately, we generally get the same type of response from the upper levels of the CWU. The local ones are usually very good, but please don't take the condescending reply personally.

As to what we think we are achieving. Well, Leighton and Crozier have moved their position several times during this dispute. Admittedly, it's only to offer us more money. But the problem is, that as you will find out within a week or so. The deliveries will be later, and they have many more changes in mind that will reduce the efficiency of the service.

Also, they want to drastically cut our working conditions. It doesn't help, that the Media is obsessed with the proposed increase in wages, and portraying us all as Luddites.

The fact is, that we have been mythering for modernisation for a decade, that I know about. But the type of "modernisation" that Crozier and Leighton have in mind is poorly thought out, will seriously damage the service, with or without Strike action. And worst of all, would cost a fortune to reverse the damage, if they get everything in place.

Obviously, it's nice to be offered more money. But the fact of the matter is, that I only know of a couple of people, who would have even considered Striking over money at my Office. From what I have read since joining Royal Mail Chat, it has become obvious that the same can be said for the majority of us. So they would have been outvoted at the Ballot anyway, if it had just been about money.

However, the fact that they have increased the offer, dispite telling us at the start of this: That they wouldn't negotiate under the threat of Strike action, and that there wasn't any more money available. Means that there is reason to hope.

I admit, that it is incredibly unlikely that either side can win this outright. But all we want, is a compromise, which will allow us to provide a good service, and have acceptable working conditions.

I am truly sorry for the problems that we have caused to you, and everyone else (except Leighton and Crozier). But we believe that this is the only hope of even HAVING a consistent Postal Service, regardless of location. And we as a Country, can't afford to loose that.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

I wrote to the CWU on Sunday evening and recieved a reply last night (Wednesday) from a Steve Jones.
It was rather condescending to say the least.
I won't embarass him by posting it here, but suffice to say he should take his head from out of the sand for a few minutes. The CWU need to realise that the "problems" he describes are the same for most self employed/small business owners around the country. If we complain about these things it doesn't affect other businesses or the general public.

This strike action will not achieve anything positive. What has it achieved so far? To be honest I don't expect and answer to that question becuase there is not ONE good or positive thing gained.

We are not striking to "Achieve anything positive" merely to stop a pay rise that makes me in reality (not in theory based on IRP or inflation rates) £18 a week worse off. I am striking to stop Royal Mail interfering in my private life. They want to be able to change our working times on a day by day basis with only 24 hrs notice and 7 days if they change by more than 2 hrs. The want to be able too tell me to start early or and stay longer at work with little or no notice, how can I plan a life around that.

They want to close a pension scheme which will costs posties £1.5 Billion after they took a decade long holiday from paying into it.

In essence all we basically want is for them to negotiate changes not impose them and for our pay and conditions to stay the same.

[p379]

We don't have a problem with our pay and conditions as they stand, and if Royal Mail left well alone with no pay rise most would accept that and not strike.

If you had read through the threads on here you would see that the pay offer is:



Withdrawal of D2D payments but no the deliveries of them - cost to me a loss of £30 per week. With a 6.7% pay rise over 2 years I will loose £18 per week (Pay rise what pay rise)

They want to bring in total flexibility. This means various things:
When I go into work I cannot be sure of what time I will finish
Also the managers can delay or bring forward my start time by 1/2 hr with only 24 hrs notice

I have to cover other rounds when people go sick (fair enough but I wont get paid for it as they want annualised hours) so I could work 60 hours in 1 week with no extra pay for it and only get paid for 40hours and no thought as to my life outside work.

Did you know that they want us to start work later - this means your post will be later. They also want to collect mail from post boxes earlier. This means that it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that your local box will be emptied once a day - before your mail is delivered.

They want to transfer our pension from a final salary scheme to an averaged earnings scheme - why - because they took a 17 year holiday and the fund is now in trouble. So they want us to pay for their financial mismanagement. Under this scheme it is feasible that people will not get back what they paid in.

We asked the union to negotiate a fairer deal and Royal Mail said no you cannot negotiate that's the only offer and you have to take it.

Given those circumstances we had no option other than to withdraw our labour a right we have in a democratic society.

I am sorry you are getting a short term pain but if we accepted the offer as it stands we will loose thousands over the years and you will see a reduction in the service we provide

You also have to ask yourself if you were offered that deal by the bosses and they were not prepared to negotiate what would you do. I don't think you would roll over to get your tummy tickled. I hope you would try everything legal to get a fair and honest deal.

Good on ya mate thats all the info that should be in the national newspapers but they still publish shite on behalf or Royal Mail which just makes postal workers look greedy bastards and its only the pound signs were interested in well its not Classic example a postman has been told to start not asked at 10.00am 2hrs later than normal now he cant pick up his child from nursery what was the option from his DOM who had held a WTL session a week previous we are a caring employer we can reduce your hours or leave this is the sort of shite we put up with day in day

[L Tommo]

I am also losing wages this week. But I won't be able to do overtime to claw my lost money back.
My pension will be affected too as I can't afford the contributions.
My customers are upset. My suppliers are upset. And for what? What will this striking achieve?

If I have a problem with my pay / conditions etc of course I complain BUT my complaining doesn't harm other people's livlihoods, thier ability to put food on the table, jepordise anyone's future returement plans or even inconvenience anybody.

Don't the CWU get it at all? Royal Mail are not suffering becuase of the strikes. The people who use Royal Mail services are suffering becuase of the strikes.

Ello.... Ok just a few points.... 77% OF posties voted in a democratic ballot to strike under the conditions RM put upon us... RM want to move in by exc action ways of working that will cripple every worker that is here in RM... The service will be worse by all RM's forced actions... We all suffer... The Public.. The small business... US THE POSTIES...... BUT THIS IS THE ONLY COURSE TO TAKE WHEN YOU ARE BEING BULLIED FORCED AND ROBBED OF MONIES (PENSION FUND) THAT RM AND THIS GOVERMENT AND LAST NEVER TOPPED UP... THERE ARE MANY POINTS OF OUR STRIKE NOT JUST SNIPPETS FROM THE SUN OR BBC NEWS....

DO YOU THINK WE LIKE STRIKING???? REALLY????? NO WE DONT.. BUT IT IS OUR ONLY WAY TO BRING LIE-GHTON AND CRAZI-OR ROUND THE TABLE TO TALK... THEY DONT WANNA KNOW..... SO IF YOU WAS IN OUR POSITION WHAT WOULD YOU DO??????


ITS ALL OF OUR SERVICE WERE FIGHTING FOR NOT JUST FOR A FEW QUID MORE....

[ROCKY]

well to be honest people may think the strikes have no positive results but are we not on about the ninth final nothing more to add no more we can do offer from rm

[Herodotus]

Oh ..... they've said it about nine times ..... have they? I wish you'd told me sooner! I shall drop my trousers & take it up the Grecian Jacksy ..... this very second! I do sooooo hate being boring & not taking the hint