ROYAL MAIL DISPUTE: LEAKED ROYAL MAIL STRATEGY DOCUMENT

[outandabout]

it's enforced unpaid overtime and the threats of being suspended for supposedly taking unofficial Industrial Action if staff don't cut corners , work in a dangerous manner , come in early unpaid , threats of willful & intentional delay to the Queen's mail if they don't put in unpaid overtime .

You saw the press coverage over the unworkable walk speeds of 4 mph at ALL times - the sackings for people failing to keep up with such unrealistic targets - it's just got a lot worse .

Computer programmes like Pegasus that have been fiddled and corrupted , time and motion programmes that are unrealistic and unworkable are used to suspend people on trumped up charges that would be laughed out of any Industrial Tribunal . Endless bullying and intimidation from lazy ex postmen in charge with little or no training , no people or motivational skills .

Graduates with poor degrees in " soft " subjects quoting chapter and verse from flawed computer programmes with little experience of the wide world beyond working behind or propping up a bar .

Wagons being filled with mail and taken out for a spin during audits , Managers were only suspended when a acting manager shopped them to the papers . Numerous fiddles and a culture of dishonesty .

The devil is in the detail , RM must be most institutionally dishonest and corrupt to the core firm that I've had the misfortune to work for .

Too many armchair experts who know SFA about RM pontificating - is it any surprise that you get such hostility and suspicion ?

Great post. As someone who does not work for royal mail (and am here because I am interested member of the public who wants to see a great public sector postal service survive) then I agree with your concerns.

When you say "Numerous fiddles and a culture of dishonesty" and "RM must be most institutionally dishonest and corrupt to the core firm that I've had the misfortune to work for" the public completely get this, they just dont know care whether its dodge practices by managers or workers. As far as the public are concerned the managers are just higher paid workers. The public just want all the dodginess stamped out.

We the public do want postal workers to be looked after and paid an honest wage for fair work, we dont want you to be bullied. But many of us think that the reason management are cracking down is because there are many dodgy practices in the lower levels of the organisation too.

Maybe the biggest weapon the workers have is to dish the dirt on any dodgy practices of management, whether its fiddles, or bullying etc.

I dont think it will work if the strike looks to oppose modernisation. I think the postal workers should embrace modernisation, but should fight with acas to get the bad management practices stamped out.

[norbert]

it's enforced unpaid overtime and the threats of being suspended for supposedly taking unofficial Industrial Action if staff don't cut corners , work in a dangerous manner , come in early unpaid , threats of willful & intentional delay to the Queen's mail if they don't put in unpaid overtime .

You saw the press coverage over the unworkable walk speeds of 4 mph at ALL times - the sackings for people failing to keep up with such unrealistic targets - it's just got a lot worse .

Computer programmes like Pegasus that have been fiddled and corrupted , time and motion programmes that are unrealistic and unworkable are used to suspend people on trumped up charges that would be laughed out of any Industrial Tribunal . Endless bullying and intimidation from lazy ex postmen in charge with little or no training , no people or motivational skills .

Graduates with poor degrees in " soft " subjects quoting chapter and verse from flawed computer programmes with little experience of the wide world beyond working behind or propping up a bar .

Wagons being filled with mail and taken out for a spin during audits , Managers were only suspended when a acting manager shopped them to the papers . Numerous fiddles and a culture of dishonesty .

The devil is in the detail , RM must be most institutionally dishonest and corrupt to the core firm that I've had the misfortune to work for .

Too many armchair experts who know SFA about RM pontificating - is it any surprise that you get such hostility and suspicion ?

Great post. As someone who does not work for royal mail (and am here because I am interested member of the public who wants to see a great public sector postal service survive) then I agree with your concerns.

When you say "Numerous fiddles and a culture of dishonesty" and "RM must be most institutionally dishonest and corrupt to the core firm that I've had the misfortune to work for" the public completely get this, they just dont know care whether its dodge practices by managers or workers. As far as the public are concerned the managers are just higher paid workers. The public just want all the dodginess stamped out.

We the public do want postal workers to be looked after and paid an honest wage for fair work, we dont want you to be bullied. But many of us think that the reason management are cracking down is because there are many dodgy practices in the lower levels of the organisation too.

Maybe the biggest weapon the workers have is to dish the dirt on any dodgy practices of management, whether its fiddles, or bullying etc.

I dont think it will work if the strike looks to oppose modernisation. I think the postal workers should embrace modernisation, but should fight with acas to get the bad management practices stamped out.

thanks for being fair - the rot starts at the top and it filters it's way down . To be fair it's a very regimented and old fashioned command and control style of management and there is a lot of pressure . It's not opposing modernization , there is no or little modernization - it's all about cutting costs and six to seven figure bonuses for senior management ( 10 % of profits ) and bonuses between £4000 - 8000 for local managers to cut , those managers have little or no independent authority , everything is dictated from well on high , the former Plasterboard Manager Higson , the FA failure and fiddling Telegraph sales manager Crozier downwards all the way down the food chain .

No wonder , morale is at it's lowest ebb and staff and managers are at each other's throats .

These people have deliberately orchestrated strikes by ordering unworkable cuts ( A bit different from what Mandy would have the public believe ? ) - they are only interested in getting themselves bonuses , being headhunted for nice little numbers with private parcel companies and share options after a sell off .

They are deliberately running the business down to make privatization look " attractive - to do that they need to bully and intimidate staff to soften them up for it . Nothing more than brylcreemed gangsters and two bob spivs ? that would shop their mates for the price of a pint ? .

Lot's of people moaning about the third world railways that are a joke in Europe , sky high bills and poor service from the Utility firms , RM is destined to go the same way

[outandabout]

Cheers Norbert. Im completely against the bullying of workers by management. Details of those practices need to be got out there, indivvidual stories of individual posties, and how they have been treated.

Im sure management will never comment on individual cases, so it would be a great way for the union workers to get sympathetic publicity.

I think if you guys are going to get anywhere, it has to be by selling this fight as being against preventing misery of individual hardworking postmen by protecting them from institutionalised bullying and mistreatment, and not by fatcat union bosses of a powerful union holding the country's christmas post to ransom.

Maybe an advert on TV, or on youtube, a line up of postmen each telling their story, 15-30 seconds each, or maybe a series, a new postie telling his story each day on you tube, dripping away into the media.

I am sure the public will support genuinely unfair practices being forced upon postmen and women.

[norbert]

Cheers Norbert. Im completely against the bullying of workers by management. Details of those practices need to be got out there, indivvidual stories of individual posties, and how they have been treated.

Im sure management will never comment on individual cases, so it would be a great way for the union workers to get sympathetic publicity.

I think if you guys are going to get anywhere, it has to be by selling this fight as being against preventing misery of individual hardworking postmen by protecting them from institutionalised bullying and mistreatment, and not by fatcat union bosses of a powerful union holding the country's christmas post to ransom.

Maybe an advert on TV, or on youtube, a line up of postmen each telling their story, 15-30 seconds each, or maybe a series, a new postie telling his story each day on you tube, dripping away into the media.

I am sure the public will support genuinely unfair practices being forced upon postmen and women.

the fat cats are in charge of RM

[outandabout]

indeed fatcats there too for sure

[Ex RM Manager]

£4-8k bonuses? Wow. I so was doing the wrong job, I never got even 10% of that.

[ExSG]

Outandabout

YouTube would be fine if only for the fact that the moment any member of staff appeared complaining or giving examples of bullying and harrassment he or she would be suspended without pay or even summarily sacked, lose their pension and then be charged with the old classic 'bringing the Post Office into disrepute".

I recall posties who have lost their jobs as a result of being named in a local paper for being up in court - admittedly for a serious misdemeanor - and the fact they are a postman being reported in print.

However, you are exactly right when you say that the message needs to be got across to the public by the postal staff themselves.

[dvbuk55]

£4-8k bonuses? Wow. I so was doing the wrong job, I never got even 10% of that.

Thats why you're an ex manager

[pete the ex-postie]

When you say asked to take on extra work for nothing, do you mean by that to work your full contracted hours for no additional pay, where previously if you worked quickly you could finish early?

If thats the case, its hardly being asked to do work for nothing.

Its no different to workers in the private sector whose similar perks were eroded to nothing in the eighties and nineties.... cant really see why royal mail workers expect to be a special case.

Please feel free to explain if and where I have got this wrong.

When we 'work quickly' it's because we are still able to go home after we have finished delivering our mail. We do it for our benefit - we are only human after all and you would do it too - and personally I would sooner have my breaks at home after work rather than at work, as the day goes quicker when not interrupted - but this means we are often doing the job 'wrong' when out on delivery (i.e. checking address on the move rather than when we get to the door, stepping over low walls - I once broke my ankle doing this when I stumbled after getting a faceful of spider's web complete with spider - rather than going up and down every path, etc). I know people will say that they have to 'work' for eight hours a day (not forgetting coffee, water, cigarette, gossip breaks of course) but those people stretch their work to fill the hours they are contracted to work and if they were ever offered the chance to work quicker and go home early there's be a stampede for the door at 3pm!

Personally, if I ever work over my hours - be it because I delivered slowly due to tiredness, or because I do what a lot of customers like postmen to do - chat to them ocassionally (a lot of older people look forward to seeing their postie as they hardly see a soul for days on end) but know I have made up that time earlier in the week, I will not claim overtime as I don't think it's right to do so. On the other hand, management view it another way - if you've made time in the week you're given extra work. You could say we fell for RM's three-card trick ('Oh, don't worry, just do this extra bit and it'll still be job and finish, just sign on the dotted line please.' ) we still rush around, still finish early so get more work added because we obviously haven't got enough; postmen leave/retire/get sacked and their walk is split up, sorted and delivered by the rest of us on top of our own mail, etc.

Before you open your next lot of mail, take the time to see whose name is on the top right hand corner. DHL, TNT, City Link, UK Mail and so on. Those companies may boast about their modern sorting machines but who's delivering their mail? If Sergeant-major 'Shut-up' Crozier is left at the helm for much longer, RM will shrink to a size small enough for one of our competitors - whose business we are helping to grow - to be able to afford to buy us out - complete with all the modern sorting machines that OUR efficiency is paying for and, before long, people who complain about postal strikes and the cost of a postage stamp will look at the orange, brown or whatever-coloured uniformed individual shuffling from door to door, still delivering mail addressed to previous occupants that their long-missed postie would have put a 'Gone away' sticker on, and sent back, before he left the sorting office because (even though it took longer that simply delivering it but, then again, he is their postie and he cared enough to do it) and think 'You know what? I can see now why they went on strike!'

I am what I most people would consider a moderate postman (off work today simply because it's my day off) but I will be standing outside the Bexley sorting office (and I don't care who knows where I work) at 5.30am tomorrow, because I DO care!

[relichunter]

wat can i say about the leak
im disgusted that our members are not supporting the strike
it mbe a non loser but we have to do wat is rite
especially after seeing a union rep on 100,000 a year not wanting mail junk
ive had no strike pay in 30 years yet the officials get 1,000s a week give us somer please we got families
i been in the job 30 years not a penny in strike pay yet u lot get paid in 1,000s
least give the members some hope i pay nearly 3--00 a week for what
lest u give me an answer im working during the strikes

[TrueBlueTerrier]

wat can i say about the leak
im disgusted that our members are not supporting the strike
it mbe a non loser but we have to do wat is rite
especially after seeing a union rep on 100,000 a year not wanting mail junk
ive had no strike pay in 30 years yet the officials get 1,000s a week give us somer please we got families
i been in the job 30 years not a penny in strike pay yet u lot get paid in 1,000s
least give the members some hope i pay nearly 3--00 a week for what
lest u give me an answer im working during the strikes

4 things:

1. The Sun got the wrong Dave Ward. He does accept "Junk Mail".
2. The rep on £100,000 is Billy Hayes but actually its slightly less.
3. All the Officers on the PEC and BH and DW give a days pay as a donation to the welfare/strike fund every time they call us out.
4. You either believe in the cause for strike or you don't. If you let the Sun and other media sway your views I and others can't help that.

Lastly what did you mean by non-loser, did you mean you have been lucky and your days off have been on strike days. If so did you donate

[relichunter]

i am insensed to write a gain#
i do a rural delivery and i like my customers
ill do anything for them as they are aged and sometimes need help
i thort r mail was a caring company so why shud i be got at by mangement if i cant do absorbsion when i am caring for the community
it seems that r mail wants to be streamlined and the community can go to hell
if r mail wants us community posties to ignore our customers so be it so if we see an older person person suffering do we leave them to suffer as we have mail to deliver
im so sorry ull say i got to do mty delivery
i was a manager for 12 years and i never seen so much imnaptitude in magership
i took weeks in weeks out on courses now its a 2 day course
i got 9 diplomas as a manger in managing they aint got one
i dont have no respect for my managers at all
they havnt earnt that respect yet
blimey im infuriated

[relichunter]

god im infuriated by the unions last rply
ok hes on 95,00 50o is that better
ive never had a penny in 30 years strikes
and if thats ur attitude to a union member then im quitting
if thats ur way of keeping members then 4 get it
at least im saving 12 pound a month and as far i can see no support
and so the postwoman on his delivery told a lie then are u calling her a liar
so that post box the sun piccied isnt his
blimey and im supporting this strike so everyone else are liars then

[dvbuk55]

god im infuriated by the unions last rply
ok hes on 95,00 50o is that better
ive never had a penny in 30 years strikes
and if thats ur attitude to a union member then im quitting
if thats ur way of keeping members then 4 get it
at least im saving 12 pound a month and as far i can see no support
and so the postwoman on his delivery told a lie then are u calling her a liar
so that post box the sun piccied isnt his
blimey and im supporting this strike so everyone else are liars then

You know these diplomas you have - they weren't from online colleges in Tennessee were they?

[relichunter]

i think i saw it all wen a union spokesperson asked me if i had give to the union fund if it was my day off
ive never had a penny in 3o years and why shud i give wen im losing money
the only thing the union are losing money is im out of it big time
ill be ringing the pay people to stop my conmtributions immedaitely
blimey ive never seen bad in my 30 years
u lost a big supporter here bye