An alternative view

[geordieboy123]

3. If we walked away from talks now and served action do you think both of the above will still be on the table ?

Giving notice for strike action in a fortnight's time, which would be called off if a deal was reached beforehand, would concentrate minds on both sides to try to reach an agreement.

We are currently pissing away the ballot result instructing the union to take strike action. With the last strike day taking place in December last year it will, after this further extension for talks, be at least April before we can take further action against RM. The first ballot was completely wasted, at a huge cost to the CWU members, with pointless one or two day strikes. The union was not professional enough to gather the data to allow rolling functional strike action.

I don't care a jot if RM are losing money and go under. If they can't run their business in a way that they can pay their bills (including the pay bill increasing with inflation) then they deserve to go under, however if city analysts believed that this was a likely prospect then I doubt that they would be recommending that people either buy RM stock, or at least hold on to the stock that they have.

Currently, there is almost as much anger towards the incompetent CWU leadership as there is towards the cowboys running RM into the ground. Time for the union to demonstrate that someone actually has a clue about how to get a good settlement for their members, or many of those members are going to decide that their union subs look very poor value for money.

“Incompetent CWU leadership” what would you have done differently then?

[Barnacle]

Who is Martin Walsh?

[theargyspy]

Who is Martin Walsh?

https://www.cwu.org/about-the-cwu/whos-who/

[chrisj]

I am sort of confused about the whole saga now... The CWU have allowed members to think certain things and help feed my of the conspiracy theories but now they are actually saying a lot of things that they were told by Simon and his team right from the start...

The financial situation is the most annoying aspect for me right now! How did the CWU suddenly see the light about the financial situation of the company when they were invited to see the book many months ago and the losses were communicated and we're mounting... Yet, they announce more strikes including striking at Christmas and almost another in February....

Then another ballot for strike action but it was not really a strike for industrial action rather it was a confidence vote for the CWU - they must have known what they know now about Revisions and poor financial state of RM.

Despite all these, they are still bragging and wasting time on Reps and allowances - can Royal Mail even afford to pay us the final final offer at this rate - Martin said that the sh1t is real about the finances; but why has it taken you folks so long. It was bleeding obvious way back when the half year result was announced along with redundancies - it was not just for the financial markets but us too...

Some still doubt why we are making a loss. Your costs too high and less revenue makes a loss - nothing to do with previous years... It is what it is, right now. Efficiency savings not made, volumes down and energy and fuel costs alone is enough to drive down profits. Then add self inflicted wounds through strikes - viola!

[chrisj]

I am sort of confused about the whole saga now... The CWU have allowed members to think certain things and help feed my of the conspiracy theories but now they are actually saying a lot of things that they were told by Simon and his team right from the start...

The financial situation is the most annoying aspect for me right now! How did the CWU suddenly see the light about the financial situation of the company when they were invited to see the book many months ago and the losses were communicated and we're mounting... Yet, they announce more strikes including striking at Christmas and almost another in February....

Then another ballot for strike action but it was not really a strike for industrial action rather it was a confidence vote for the CWU - they must have known what they know now about Revisions and poor financial state of RM.

Despite all these, they are still bragging and wasting time on Reps and allowances - can Royal Mail even afford to pay us the final final offer at this rate - Martin said that the sh1t is real about the finances; but why has it taken you folks so long. It was bleeding obvious way back when the half year result was announced along with redundancies - it was not just for the financial markets but us too...

Some still doubt why we are making a loss. Your costs too high and less revenue makes a loss - nothing to do with previous years... It is what it is, right now. Efficiency savings not made, volumes down and energy and fuel costs alone is enough to drive down profits. Then add self inflicted wounds through strikes - viola!

[richietns]

I am sort of confused about the whole saga now... The CWU have allowed members to think certain things and help feed my of the conspiracy theories but now they are actually saying a lot of things that they were told by Simon and his team right from the start...

The financial situation is the most annoying aspect for me right now! How did the CWU suddenly see the light about the financial situation of the company when they were invited to see the book many months ago and the losses were communicated and we're mounting... Yet, they announce more strikes including striking at Christmas and almost another in February....

Then another ballot for strike action but it was not really a strike for industrial action rather it was a confidence vote for the CWU - they must have known what they know now about Revisions and poor financial state of RM.

Despite all these, they are still bragging and wasting time on Reps and allowances - can Royal Mail even afford to pay us the final final offer at this rate - Martin said that the sh1t is real about the finances; but why has it taken you folks so long. It was bleeding obvious way back when the half year result was announced along with redundancies - it was not just for the financial markets but us too...

Some still doubt why we are making a loss. Your costs too high and less revenue makes a loss - nothing to do with previous years... It is what it is, right now. Efficiency savings not made, volumes down and energy and fuel costs alone is enough to drive down profits. Then add self inflicted wounds through strikes - viola!

Your missing a tiny point out RM took 800million out instead of investing even half of it then straight away pleaded poverty thats whats kicked this whole thing off,obviously this year is totally different.

[Nickvilla20]

I am sort of confused about the whole saga now... The CWU have allowed members to think certain things and help feed my of the conspiracy theories but now they are actually saying a lot of things that they were told by Simon and his team right from the start...

The financial situation is the most annoying aspect for me right now! How did the CWU suddenly see the light about the financial situation of the company when they were invited to see the book many months ago and the losses were communicated and we're mounting... Yet, they announce more strikes including striking at Christmas and almost another in February....

Then another ballot for strike action but it was not really a strike for industrial action rather it was a confidence vote for the CWU - they must have known what they know now about Revisions and poor financial state of RM.

Despite all these, they are still bragging and wasting time on Reps and allowances - can Royal Mail even afford to pay us the final final offer at this rate - Martin said that the sh1t is real about the finances; but why has it taken you folks so long. It was bleeding obvious way back when the half year result was announced along with redundancies - it was not just for the financial markets but us too...

Some still doubt why we are making a loss. Your costs too high and less revenue makes a loss - nothing to do with previous years... It is what it is, right now. Efficiency savings not made, volumes down and energy and fuel costs alone is enough to drive down profits. Then add self inflicted wounds through strikes - viola!

Maybe if people at the top like Thompson we actually willing to negotiate properly and wasn’t moving the goalposts every five minutes and deliberately winding the staff up online then maybe the dispute wouldn’t have got this far.

This dispute was always about breaking the union and replacing everyone one with people on minimum wage.

[chrisj]

Big grossing products like International items and Specials are not what they used to be - hacking and customers using alternatives? Reports from MCs that specials are down - some big customers are moving away... Long running dispute create uncertainty for our big impt customers and mere announcement of strikes scare or drive some of them away

[norris9]

I think we should just be going down to a 5 day letters service now....

Ofcom don't care about the failures at Royal Mail over the past 2 years.
The government isn't doing anything.
Royal Mail management have screwed the business so hard.
Mail is going down.

Just go to a Monday - Friday service.... get the government / ofcom / union / royal mail all together and agree to it, but Ofcom actually need to enforce the 5 day service is being complied with, and that offices are properly staffed.

It's better than having a dysfunctional system throughout the whole country where rounds are too big and mail is being brought back daily. We are/will be running a ridiculously inefficient, poor service if things continue like they are right now.

I'm not even sure that we'd need to lose that many staff if we went down to 5 day letters. I mean, how many posties are we understaffed by right now?
With the amount of posties that leave this company each month you could just lose staff over time until we have the numbers required to deliver a 5 day USO, without the need for redundancies.

[richietns]

Big grossing products like International items and Specials are not what they used to be - hacking and customers using alternatives? Reports from MCs that specials are down - some big customers are moving away... Long running dispute create uncertainty for our big impt customers and mere announcement of strikes scare or drive some of them away

So why isn't Simon sorting a Deal out asap instead of mucking about in front of sellect committees lieing.

[citypostie]

I think we should just be going down to a 5 day letters service now....

Ofcom don't care about the failures at Royal Mail over the past 2 years.
The government isn't doing anything.
Royal Mail management have screwed the business so hard.
Mail is going down.

Just go to a Monday - Friday service.... get the government / ofcom / union / royal mail all together and agree to it, but Ofcom actually need to enforce the 5 day service is being complied with, and that offices are properly staffed.

It's better than having a dysfunctional system throughout the whole country where rounds are too big and mail is being brought back daily. We are/will be running a ridiculously inefficient, poor service if things continue like they are right now.

I'm not even sure that we'd need to lose that many staff if we went down to 5 day letters. I mean, how many posties are we understaffed by right now?
With the amount of posties that leave this company each month you could just lose staff over time until we have the numbers required to deliver a 5 day USO, without the need for redundancies.

Totally agree, 5 day letters 7 day parcels. I don't suppose the cwu will argue against it now they have agreed that royal mail is financially screwed, that took long enough didn't it? If we are going to just go along with everything now, what was the point of striking and all those people getting suspended in the first place?

[Bob Cooney]

If you forget about what RM may or may not be lying about nobody honestly can deny that the workload coming through the door is the lowest we've seen for 20 years and has been in free fall since last summer.

Whose fault that would be is pretty irrelevant because in anyone's book that decline in workload spells financial trouble in any company that cannot cut its costs to match.

I'm not an RM apologist or a manager and I blame the board and management structure entirely for the predicament we're in but that doesn't change the reality of the situation.

Can anyone genuinely see letters volume increasing ever again?
Given the bleak economic outlook are parcels going to grow significantly?

Unfortunately we need to face this reality and not pretend the business is booming and nothing should change.

Lowest for 20 years ? Your talking mince from 2000 until 2008 letter traffic nearly doubled and then started to decline after the financial crash.

In the early 90s there was over 200,000 staff and the total items delivered per each postie over a year compared to now is what ?

The root of this problem is the privatisation of natural monopolies.6 billion access letters delivered last year.No other 'business ' has to allow its competitors to use its network and staff and not charge for that at decent profit.

If a 5p increase on what RM charge for DSA was imposed by the regulator it would bring in £300 million the only reason that is not being demanded by RM is partly due to investor corporations having assets in both RM and Amazon , UK Mail , DPD etc ( Blackrock / Vanguard ) and special arrangements with government which is part of a 40 year plan to move state assets into the private sector.

So what do out leaders do? Invite Brendan Barber to oversee talks a man who was a facilitator for the New Labour project which continued to privatise natural monopolies ( air traffic control etc) and why Thatcher said Blair was her greatest achievement he also said Jack when Gordon Brown demanded we return to work as we had no good reason to be on strike.

[richietns]

I think we should just be going down to a 5 day letters service now....

Ofcom don't care about the failures at Royal Mail over the past 2 years.
The government isn't doing anything.
Royal Mail management have screwed the business so hard.
Mail is going down.

Just go to a Monday - Friday service.... get the government / ofcom / union / royal mail all together and agree to it, but Ofcom actually need to enforce the 5 day service is being complied with, and that offices are properly staffed.

It's better than having a dysfunctional system throughout the whole country where rounds are too big and mail is being brought back daily. We are/will be running a ridiculously inefficient, poor service if things continue like they are right now.

I'm not even sure that we'd need to lose that many staff if we went down to 5 day letters. I mean, how many posties are we understaffed by right now?
With the amount of posties that leave this company each month you could just lose staff over time until we have the numbers required to deliver a 5 day USO, without the need for redundancies.

Totally agree, 5 day letters 7 day parcels. I don't suppose the cwu will argue against it now they have agreed that royal mail is financially screwed, that took long enough didn't it? If we are going to just go along with everything now, what was the point of striking and all those people getting suspended in the first place?

They should of had a full weeks strike like many were saying on here,the talks aren't over yet we could still be striking next month.
If they go to five day they will definitely get rid of more staff its just another way of cost cutting I doubt they would keep the same staffing levels just because the dutys are to big better to have more to do as appose to less thats how it is now the uso is dead now.

[redlen]

We do not know who is being reasonable/unreasonable with specific demands.

As they say, you start high, then come to a compromise that works for both sides in any dispute is the norm, but this is different.

It is obvious the CWU has gone over Royal Mail financials and it is not looking good. They have now confirmed this. Putting up the cost of postage again has had a negative impact on bulk carriers with the current trade dispute. The letter side is now predominantly business with rebate mail.

Personally, as a domestic customer never send a letter as use the Internet for my financial statements and pay bills. The financial organisation often charges people who still wish a hard copy bill a premium. The domestic letter business is dead and a cost negative. latest quarterly results show a 25% decline in the volume of letters sent since before the pandemic. Forget what they have done in the past and concentrate on the present. The damage has been done. Until we reform the USO as a statutory obligation, Royal Mail has its hands tied with expenditure as a service obligation.

The greatest expenditure with Royal Mail is its wage bill. Anybody who works in a Mail Centre will tell you traffic has fallen through the floor.

Alternatives have not been discussed, such as a temporary wage freeze even with the current cost-of-living crisis from the top down.

People need to accept economic reality rather than bravado before there is no Royal Mail left, as we currently know it.

[Bob Cooney]

Once again people persuade themselves its their fault and that we have to face "economic reality " and the attacks on everybody from middle class downwards using nflation and fuel prices is not a coordinated attack but just economic reality.

That's not to say this union or any other union can mitigate/ these attacks on their own but at least know why and how your getting screwed