Post Strike Workload

[YourBoy]

All Thompson has to do is charge more for letters and small parcels and move us to a 5 day letters service instead of 6.

Putting up the price of stamps (again) may reduce the income from that stream as more people would turn away from sending letters.
The price we charge is regulated anyway.

Moving to a 5-day letter service would cost a lot of jobs. 1/6th of the workforce = 20 000 (worst case scenario.)
What do you think that would do to the CWU's finances? You could possibly destroy the CWU before Thompson.

I agree, putting up the price of letters may have worked 20 years ago, but letters are like VHS tapes, they're a dead format other than a few exceptional cases (proof of address mail), and of course, junk mail send-outs which all can be done without sending out a paper letter. Putting up the price of stamps again will be giving that nail in the coffin the final strike with the hammer for that revenue stream. It may ease the strain in a labour sense at RM, with fewer people sending letters (less work to do within the RM network), but it certainly wouldn't increase revenue.

RM used to have an imperative competitive edge over all the other UK delivery services, that was until those other services began utilising convenience stores, fuel stations, and now Post Offices as drop-off and collection points, then RM lost that edge.

Many years ago, as a recipient I used to prefer it when something was being sent to me via RM as opposed to ay Hermes, DPD, or Amazon, as A) I knew roughly when to expect the postman to show up, and B) If I missed the delivery, I knew that I had a local RM DO not too far away from me and that the parcel wouldn't be taken back to some depot 25+ miles away from my home. That was many years ago, and now I couldn't care less who is delivering something to me because they all provide really good tracking to the point that most allow you to see when the driver is on their way to your house, along with options to leave at a local store/pick-up point if you're not going to be in.

So as a retailer, knowing that fact, you too wouldn't particularly care that much who you use to ship your products to your UK-based customers, and really it would come down to who is the most economical and reliable.

[chrisj]

In a nutshell! Some folks don't know much about this company!

Well put! Things are not that rosy in the garden of Eden. The Pandemic was a boon! The world economy and that of UK is a dire strait - that is the reality of today!

[Murdoch]

I'm not an employee of RM but have used them for 15 years for my business (posting to over 100 countries) and all of my adult life for personal posting (25+ years)

If there are major delays this week then I will for sure switch over to Evri until this period of striking has come to an end and things start to come back to normal with parcel transit.

My customers don't have any patience for a strike, they will literally tell me (as a business owner) to ditch RM and use someone that's not striking, in a derogatory manner to boot.

I'm very loyal to Royal Mail and the UPU (for international shipments) so I will always go back to RM, but I feel that I may need to switch over to Everi for my UK customers, so that (as a retailer) I don't look completely inefficient against the likes of Amazon who of course have their own delivery network that does not perform strikes as they are not part of a trade union.

My sort of reasoning will sadly will explain a lack of business parcels in the coming weeks/months for RM.

RM will always be king with international parcel/letter post as they are pat of the UPU, but I do fear for their domestic presence at this stage.

I hope it all pans out for you folks at RM and I can side-step having to temporarily switch over to Evri for UK parcel delivery.

I'm getting quite a lot of support from customers on the doorstep. But you are correct, ultimately people want their stuff and will use other couriers at least in the meantime. Nobody wants these strikes to continue, the company is losing business, and we are losing money on a personal level during a "cost of living crisis", I'm sure most of us want an agreement ASAP.

Striking is a fairly blunt instrument, but it's all we have. Pressure needs to be applied to both sides, both the CWU and Royal Mail to encourage them to resolve this dispute. I don't see much movement at all at the moment, which is discouraging.

[richietns]

I'm not an employee of RM but have used them for 15 years for my business (posting to over 100 countries) and all of my adult life for personal posting (25+ years)

If there are major delays this week then I will for sure switch over to Evri until this period of striking has come to an end and things start to come back to normal with parcel transit.

My customers don't have any patience for a strike, they will literally tell me (as a business owner) to ditch RM and use someone that's not striking, in a derogatory manner to boot.

I'm very loyal to Royal Mail and the UPU (for international shipments) so I will always go back to RM, but I feel that I may need to switch over to Everi for my UK customers, so that (as a retailer) I don't look completely inefficient against the likes of Amazon who of course have their own delivery network that does not perform strikes as they are not part of a trade union.

My sort of reasoning will sadly will explain a lack of business parcels in the coming weeks/months for RM.

RM will always be king with international parcel/letter post as they are pat of the UPU, but I do fear for their domestic presence at this stage.

I hope it all pans out for you folks at RM and I can side-step having to temporarily switch over to Evri for UK parcel delivery.

I'm getting quite a lot of support from customers on the doorstep. But you are correct, ultimately people want their stuff and will use other couriers at least in the meantime. Nobody wants these strikes to continue, the company is losing business, and we are losing money on a personal level during a "cost of living crisis", I'm sure most of us want an agreement ASAP.

Striking is a fairly blunt instrument, but it's all we have. Pressure needs to be applied to both sides, both the CWU and Royal Mail to encourage them to resolve this dispute. I don't see much movement at all at the moment, which is discouraging.

The company's been pleading poverty for ever we dont need all the changes Simons saying how do these people get rewarded for failing then blame the actual workers.