An update for Royal Mail Group members - Twitter 18:57 23/03/2023

[norris9]

Whatever happened to that Czech takeover? Kretinski.

[redlen]

Křetínský, known as the “Czech sphinx” has made it no secret he is after GLS which is a Royal Mail Group company.

GLS no longer does cross subsidy and a separate corporate entity.

If Royal Mail goes into administration the share price will rocket simply due to the value of GLS. Royal Mail will simply have no choice being under the administrators but to sell

That is why the share price has not moved much in the last six months

[ted_e_bear]

Křetínský, known as the “Czech sphinx” has made it no secret he is after GLS which is a Royal Mail Group company.

GLS no longer does cross subsidy and a separate corporate entity.

If Royal Mail goes into administration the share price will rocket simply due to the value of GLS. Royal Mail will simply have no choice being under the administrators but to sell

That is why the share price has not moved much in the last six months

If that scenario happens would you sell yours assuming you still have them? Or hang on incase they rise even higher as a result of a new lean and mean royal mail parcel company.

I intended keeping mine as a sort of "nestegg" but I might panic sell if they did rocket back up to the previous high.

[redlen]

Opinion not financial advice

As soon as the sale of GLS is made public the share price will rocket,

As soon as GLS is sold the share price will end up in the toilet and people take profit unless a deal on the future of Royal Mail is already in place

Classic pump and dump

[britwrit]

IDS - formerly the Royal Mail Group - owns GLS. The government absolutely does not want the headache of running the national postal service again. They want quiet. They want their poll numbers to go up. That would help neither.

So, yeah. Any bleating about how one part of a company can't subsidize another part will be met with rolling eyes.

[chrisj]

Martin said it is not rocket science what the CWU are trying to achieve but yet no specifics and the tactics have been mostly wrong.

The Union is not in the business of running a private company but I do agree that it's job is to mitigate changes where they affect their members and to safeguard job b now and in the future.

Where in Martin's statement can I find exactly what the CWU want to do as an alternative or how the members can just dge what all these talks have achieved.

* Why would any shareholder want their company to go into administration or want the share price to rank? Even Simon and her s cronies and Rico Back and others before that got free shares as bonuses will not want their capital to evaporate.

** Royal Mail is not the type of company that assets strippers can buy because the government will simply not allow that to happen... The conspiracy theories are just wild and wide off the mark.

Thanks Martin but I don't get the CWU but we wait for your official update where you will tell us what you have been talking about and what you have achieved and what is left to do or he gained.

Lots of words but they are just too vague as most of the Comms have been right from the start.

[fredtheegg]

It is not rocket science Chris, Royal Mail have a business plan which has a total cost sum attached to it. It is unacceptable to the workforce so the CWU have been negotiating to change and mitigate these change proposals and in doing reducing the predicted savings from the business plan.

In addition we want a decent pay rise which is either backdated or with a cash lump sum attached.

This means for Royal Mail they are saying that this potentially means when it goes to the city analyst to see if Royal Mail under the new agreement will still be a going concern going forward that the sum of the business plan is reduced.

That decision is vital and is linked to the independent auditors signing off the accounts and banks continuing to give Royal Mail credit etc.

If that does not happen then we are into a totally new arena of potentially administration.

This has an impact on our dispute as the board will be relieved of their duties and the government appointed administrator appointed who will have no interest in settling pay or mitigate change activity it will be to cut costs while delivering the USO.

This is the reason why the union has stayed in the talks. We not blind to what is happening in the field and units.

We genuinely believe an agreement as imperfect as it might be is better than no agreement. We also believe that the progress we have made on a range of issues including later start times and independent review into the flawed discipline cases are the best ways of resolving those issues.

However we are getting to a point that unless we get that agreement by the end of the weekend , we will have no choice but to take action even with all the risks as we can never accept some of the proposals still on the table.

In addition Royal Mail have a board meeting next Wednesday which is their deadline for any agreement due to their financial statement which has to be made on 17th May and it has to go through auditors etc before.

To say we are at the most serious situation in my 39 years in the job is an understatement and whilst I understand the frustration, do you really believe if we just wanted to be popular by announcing strike action and everything will go away ?

No it is likely that Royal Mail step up their executive action in a desperate last opportunity to reduce costs to satisfy those who they need to keep out of administration.

However we now are getting to that point when we need to test whether Royal Mail need an agreement more than some of their unworkable plans and this includes trials on Mail centres doing delivery offices on IPS and prep.

Those calling for action you will likely get your wishes but remember there are no options now without serious risks.

Very worrying. We are certainly not against change. The worrying thing for me is the amount of money spent on the Superhubs and if that can be justified. Only time will tell on that one

[redlen]

If the business went into administration and back under the tax payer the shareholders will be compensated as a buyout the same as Rail Track.

Believe the current share price being £2.30

Any buy out will be at the level of flotation which is £3.30

Nice profit for the corporate investor guaranteed

The Government has already given the green light for Křetínský to buy GLS

[smartin1982]

For me, not enough has been said about Thompsons bonus structure terms.
It came out that it’s been changed to being based on ‘shareholder value’ and Value means to me being able to buy at a good price.
You only have to look at what he and the execs have done to the company, forcing us to strike, and when he was paid £140000 bonus and his extra shares bonus.
I’ve said this for a long time, it’s all deliberate.

[chrisj]

If the business went into administration and back under the tax payer the shareholders will be compensated as a buyout the same as Rail Track.

Believe the current share price being £2.30

Any buy out will be at the level of flotation which is £3.30

Nice profit for the corporate investor guaranteed

The Government has already given the green light for Křetínský to buy GLS

How many of the big shareholders acquired all their shares at below £3.30?

Many shareholders will still be at a loss if sold at £3.30!

Anyway, you are guessing very widely about the compensation levels - it might even be below the current price at the time of dissolution.

* It will not be easy to just slice off GLS from Royal Mail and when the s*it hits the fans, no one except the eventual buyers at a penny will gain out of the debacle.

[chrisj]

Martin's statement is worrying and contradictory... Strikes are no longer a good option according to him but at the same time, those that wants a strike might get the way; but at a cost!

Talks about Royal Mail remaining a going concern is worrying but at the same time, the Union are in the way of royal mail in terms of saving money or their business plan?

So if no strikes then what?

Let Royal Mail get on with it!

[hans solo]

I would rather sink the bastards

[Duesouth]

Martin's statement is worrying and contradictory... Strikes are no longer a good option according to him but at the same time, those that wants a strike might get the way; but at a cost!

Talks about Royal Mail remaining a going concern is worrying but at the same time, the Union are in the way of royal mail in terms of saving money or their business plan?

So if no strikes then what?

Let Royal Mail get on with it!

I think Royal Mail have already implemented most of the stuff that the union were dead against. I think what the union want is to stop the unachievable workloads, people that have been suspended in the past fast track those people back into work and find a resolution (not easy).

In my office and I'm sure in others all changes have been made, unachievable workloads, etc. I don't care how much mail or parcels I have to deliver we all have a start and finish time and its up to management to balance the work load amongst everyone.

[needadvice]

Everyone is entitled to work to time. It only becomes illegal if everyone is organised or told by someone to work to time I think? If everyone just took it upon themselves to not do overtime there would be no problems. I like many others do this without problem.

At last, a poster who has an understanding on the subject matter, and not personal opinions

Following the rules to the very letter, but seeking to be as disruptive as possible – literally, “to produce chaos so that it will not run as it should” – then that did constitute a breach of contract. This is where the malicious intent aspect that we mentioned earlier comes in.

Lord Denning

There are many way of wording it without any issues. Such as don't feel bullied to work past your time. We don't need A, B, C instructions

[DGH]

Work to rule constituted a breach of contract confirmed in court with ASLEF- Lord Denning

Still not recognising what you implied and trying to quote a court case, without the full ruling so we can dig into it, means you still think you are right so i think we can end this discussion. You have nothing to base your argument on except a Google search, therefore you know nothing. The End. I look forward to seeing your employment law practice opening soon.

Denning was speaking specifically about malicious 'work to rule'

Lord Denning said 'rules must be construed reasonably'. not literally. You can't be unreasonable in your following of the rules. Neither should you seek 'to produce chaos so that it will not run as it should'.

However making sure you start and finish on time, taking your full breaks and following RM procedures scrupulously (without being wilfully obtuse or unnecessarily slow about doing those things) is absolutely fine and in no way construable as a breach of contract.

So were you to lock your trolley every time you stepped away from it to deliver to a house, that would be unreasonable and malicious. Were you to lock it every time RM tell you to (leaving unattended for up to ten minutes - say when delivering a cul-de-sac or block of flats), you would not be being malicious, you'd be following company policy.

Equally were you to try 18 different houses to 'deliver to a neighbour', that'd be unreasonable. Attempting one or two where you felt you had scope would be fine.