Postal Strike Looms

[jafferpants]

What makes you think the pension fund is short of cash? Not trusting the word of folks who tell you traffics down, I hope. Cos every day that one is blown out of the water,or maybe it's just on my walks

Believe me i can assure you the figures on the deficit are true and my info comes straight from the horses mouth.

[Night Tonic]

I'm not trying to take pot shots at you Belial. I'm trying to get answers. We have just over 50 in our office and none of them will support strike action without a good idea of what could be achieved. We didn't gain much from the last one and without alternatives to what RM are proposing, what would be the point in striking? If a strike was hinged on Gordon Brwn coughing up, then no one in my office would walk. That may well go against your firm beliefs but any industrial action has to have some basis of common sense to it. Without a plan, we'll see exactly the same scenario as the yes vote last time.

[BELIAL]

Never crossed my mind that you were having a personal dig, would'nt be much point really. Does however strike me as equally pointless posting all is lost ,we are helpless and powerless to resist RM's attacks on our terms and standard of living. I simply disagree with you ,and cannot understand what motivates a postal worker who is having his hard earned cash pilfered bothering to write that any fight back would be futile,how does that improve your position?
I'm impressed that you can state with certainty the future voting intentions of everyone in your office.Myself, I can't make such a bold claim ,but I am happy to say that the overwhelming mood in my office is that we fight this all the way.
Disagree with you also about not gaining much from the last action,without striking our pay rise would have been 0%,and all change would have been imposed by EA. True ,I'd be lying if I said I was completely happy with the outcome or our leaderships actions and I do think with a little more tactical awareness and a few less obvious blunders we could have gained a lot more.
There is an alternative to what RM are proposing, it's a simple one, they can take their thieving hands off our pension fund,you know ,the one they agreed provide you with when you accepted RM's offer of a contract of employment. They wrote the terms of that legally binding contract and it can only be varied with our agreement,unless of course contract law ceases to exist but then you would have no commerce.

As for a plan,well you could lobby govt ,send petitions but it's fairly obvious that there is only one effective course of action. As workers the only real power we have is to withdraw our labour and it is very effective because it hits those with much more political influence than us where it hurts, and big money talks often and loudly.
Now you could shrug your shoulders or wring your hands in despair and just accept the pension being looted but "common sense" tells me exactly what result those actions will achieve.

[Night Tonic]

Withdraw your labour with what solution? Its a simple enough question buddy. What do you do with the deficit??? Who pays for it??? If you have no solution to that then you have nothing to counter RM's proposals. Strikes me that grass roots are well and truly in the mud.

[BELIAL]

Agree with Jemima. Fine blowing the solidarity trumpet - if anything vaguely tuneful comes out. If we're to stand ANY chance of success we have to have a concrete counter-proposal. Relying on walkouts alone and THEN deciding what to do - huh, they'll laugh at us. RM will just switch on the coffee machine and dig in again. Brown won't cough up - anyone that thinks the government will stick its hand in its pocket is living in cloud cuckoo land. The fact that they should is irrelevant - they just won't. It would set a precedent for all those with bombed out private pensions that are still putting pressure on government to get their money back.

If anyone has a plan that is realistic and likely to succeed then fine, but not heard one so far - not even from CWU HQ. All we have so far is a ballot which asks whether we like it or not - but nothing else.

You truly are a bit of an enigma.

To paraphrase" no point trying to do anything; there's absolutely nothing we can do about anything:it's all hopeless, we're all doomed"

Yet you still muster the enthusiasm to post your pearls of wisdom,don't know how you find the energy,or why?

now now ,belial .insulting rather than arguing your point makes you sound like a bit of a cock....and i said sound like not suggesting you are one

if im a non union bod as i am ,and have been slagged off for it here many a time with ridiculous statements like give back your pay rise ,want your cake and eat it...if there's another strike is it perfectly acceptable seeing as i would not as a royal mail employee been consulted or asked to vote either way to still attend work and do my round as long as i stick to my own job? just a question

as for striking for better pensions,well again i may upset the apple cart but this is the first job ive ever had where i get a contributory pension and being new i gain to lose nothing..the majority of the country voted labour in,campaign bought and paid for with your union dews .as duly elected representatives they taxed (as we all knew they would)the crap outta pension funds ..that and that alone caused the pensions meltdown for all. royal mail are now forced to make changes.think we all agree on that.why assume this is the very worst offer they could have made.no matter what offer they came out with the union would say its awful,its what they do..what if this is the very best they could offer i bet you'd still be calling for a strike....ps this is also the only job where i could retire at 60.so no big lose there either.

7.76ph plus bonuses plus early retirement on full pensions plus RM paying twice as much as you for your retirment.so many more extra benifits.when is it enough for shoving paper though holes in doors.answer for you guys....no matter how much its never enough

Enigma is not a term of abuse.
To be honest with you ,if I thought for a second that you were capable of any sort of rational debate and not your usual self absorbed right wing rant I might be tempted to enter into a dialogue.
However it's not the case and my time really is too valuable to waste in conversation with the likes of you ,so sorry but I can't be bothered

[dvbuk55]

There have been proposals put forward during the "consultation" period, none of which have been taken up by RM. The work place ballot commencing later on well today actually - which was due to unforeseen circumstances - hasn't yet materialised, so despite all the solidarity tub thumping on here the Union apparently aren't all that bothered - and perleeeeease don't say we are the union.

[tpost]

I think the cwu threw away any chance of stopping these pension changes when they signed this deal. Even pro union guys in my office feel let down by our leadership. Yes they will vote to reject the pension changes but any further action it will be a no vote. An idiot could see what would happen by decoupling the pension issue from the pay deal.
To many younger staff just don't care or only worry about paying the next bill to strike.

[Night Tonic]

No answers then Belial. Look, if we're all to back strike action (and you seem so determined to do so), we need a plan, not some half-baked amateur idea scribbled on the back of a fag packet tucked in the bottom of a drawer. Forget trying to reply with some nonsense about political bias and come up with the goodies!!!

With the last strike we had a purpose and a reason. What you're saying is lets all walk and THEN figure out what we do next. Well round of applause for that one!

[Night Tonic]

I think the cwu threw away any chance of stopping these pension changes when they signed this deal. Even pro union guys in my office feel let down by our leadership. Yes they will vote to reject the pension changes but any further action it will be a no vote. An idiot could see what would happen by decoupling the pension issue from the pay deal.
To many younger staff just don't care or only worry about paying the next bill to strike.

Yup exactly. Its all very well spouting about walkouts and the withdrawal of labour but you're taking on an all ready determined RM with an army of legal advisors not Joe at the Red Lion who shuts his pub too early.

[traww]

As i see it RM have decided to go ahead with their way just to test the water, but this time i think they will not want to take it as far as IA.

My guess is that that RM, the CWU and Brendan Barber will eventually enjoy beer and sandwiches (prawn no doubt) at ACAS and thrash out a compromise of one sort or another.

One thing is for sure though, the senior management of RM will get big fat golden handshakes and a decent retirement income.

Sorry, but this is what really riles me about the NEW Labour government, the rich continue to get richer at the expense of everyone else - what ever happened to social justice and redistribution of wealth?

[BELIAL]

Withdraw your labour with what solution? Its a simple enough question buddy. What do you do with the deficit??? Who pays for it??? If you have no solution to that then you have nothing to counter RM's proposals. Strikes me that grass roots are well and truly in the mud.

Sorry thought I made it plain enough, to repeat , no cuts to the pension. Got it.

This yo yo deficit RM seems to be fooling a lot of people with, maybe, needs closer inspection before people simply accept it as gospel.

The so called deficit is in part arrived at based on figures provided by actuarial assumption,or put another way, think of a number,then guess.

The so called deficit is calculated on the assumption that the pension fund closes tomorrow, ie no further contributions whatsoever and all benefits are paid immediately. Realistic?

It's looking like this fabled deficit is a statistical mirage.

As for the excuses offered ,your living longer- who is? blue collar workers on low incomes with inferior housing and diets{generally speaking} with a physically draining job and anti social hours
Poor investment returns- well the FTSE is at a five year high ,banks are posting record profits despite sub prime write downs, property has never been valued so high,so just where have they been putting our money to achieve such poor returns. Whatever,thats their problem I don't intend to let them make it mine.
Likewise ,tax changes meant enforced contributions holiday for 17 years ,govt caused this so called problem, they can sort out their own mistakes I do not want to pay for their cock ups.

Who pays for it? The same people who pay for it now, us earning money for RM. All RM's proposed changes are an attempt to reduce their contributions, they admit it. It's not hard, we earn the money they want more of it as profit instead of paying you what they promised.

Enough counter arguments for you?
Grass roots thrive in mud,be lost without it.
I'm not your buddy, don't know you well enough

[Night Tonic]

The so called deficit is calculated on the assumption that the pension fund closes tomorrow, ie no further contributions whatsoever and all benefits are paid immediately. Realistic?

No since RM have already said that it will take 17 years to clear the deficit, EVEN allowing for the changes proposed. I guess you could choose to disbelieve the deficit if you like, but lack of acceptance doesn't make it any less real or less of a problem. They're not closing it down either. Most of my colleaues have money tied up in the pension and ofcourse they're pissed off, ofcourse they're angry, but few of us see ANY benefit in strike action. The most likely scenario, and RM will have already allowed some degree of slack, is that a few amendments are made to lighten the load - much like lasttime.

Hayes latest bulletin only mentions a step up in it's 'campaign' if this goes through, which in laymans terms is the equivalent of pestering the Trustees and being noisy. A strike without any plan of action/outcome won't go down with the vast majority of members and the CWU would be on a hiding to nothing. They've done it once and even if the grass roots are keen on confrontation, the vast majority won't be. Thats realistic.

[DirtyHarry]

I'm no expert, but if the government can throw 55 billion pounds at a privately owned bank that got into trouble through it's own fault, then the
government can spend 5 billion rectifying a mistake that wasn't of our making. The government owns RM, they have a duty of care for their employees,
and that includes our pensions. If the government make plain their negligence, I'll be out on strike. I cannot, I will not, just lie down and allow the
crooks, both in Old Street and Westminster, pilfer my money, God knows, when the time comes, I'll need it a feckin' helluva lot more than they will.

[snoopy777]

night tonic - you kicked arse on that one. well done.

same views in my office

[Night Tonic]

Cheers tho not my intention.

I do see Belial's perspective on this, and DirtyHarry but its the one question comin up most in our office - what real alternatives there are. Its not enough to say lets walk when we actually have no better suggestion. I note the comment about Northern Rock but lets get real here, the collapse of NR threatened to completely destabilise the economy and create a financial domino effect and with that many private pensions down the pan, no one will be looking to chuck money into ours. Its a great idea but it won't happen. Any chance of a 'workers uprising' is long gone too - last vote sealed that. I just don't buy this 'strike and they'll give in' idea - doesn't hold water, and there will be far more hold that view than not.

If these questions are adressed we stand a far better chance of having a common goal - but not a strike with no thinkng behind it. Thats just folly.