Everyone Should Read This:Phase 3

[brothermagrew]

How about you all actually get on with your jobs? You are a real shower of lazy, uneducated, slow, liars, inadequate bunch of people.

PRIVATISE THE ROYAL MAIL. REMOVE THE UNIONS. GIVE THE BRITISH PUBLIC A REAL SERVICE.

Q. Is that you Adam?

[IWW Fellow Worker]

Is this an example of the spanish practices the public are exasperated about?

Is this an example of the anti-foreigner racism those of us who oppose fascism are exasperated about? You bet it is! Another little Hitler exposed.

[baldrick]

So would he have have been paid more for doing several walks? Is this an example of the spanish practices the public are exasperated about?

You really don't have a clue do you?
No it means that he has covered different walks - not on the same day, but possibly as a reserve/floater
on different days or different weeks, or been assigned to those walks for however long he held them.
You sound like the people on the comments section in the Daily Mail online who blame posties or the CWU
for mail being delivered in the afternoon, when it's a management diktat.
Try to find out the truth before you spout nonsense.

[IWW Fellow Worker]

Is this an example of the spanish practices the public are exasperated about?

Is this an example of the anti-foreigner racism those of us who oppose fascism are exasperated about? You bet it is! Another little Hitler exposed.

no, its a quote from another post where postal workers were talking themsleves of being accused of "spanish practices", I was just reflecting back the same phrase

Shooting bosses was a good practice the Spanish used to get up to. I wouldn't mind it becoming a good British practice. I'd include racists like you when it comes to cheap, dispensible targets. Those plywood ones cost trees whereas you're nothing.

[Hugh_G_Rection]

I work in an office where we are van sharing, absorbing, then they still came back for another 8% savings this year 140 hours, the problem we got is with our own staff, they come in early work throught their break and if finished early come back to office. How the hell do we stop these young kids mainly killing the job? they cant see if they run around that their reward is more work and redundancies

I have the same prob except I now tell them that I will be retired in 10 years time and they will be left with the cesspit they have created and they all have at least 30 years of it to suffer if they dont fight, whilst I will be walikin my dog and sunning myself. They say we will get another job, as if it it easier elswhere. it aint and they dont know whats coming into their lives. We who have had other jobs, do!

[scud8]

I'd be interested in opinions on how the overall problem can be solved. Presumably RM have a budget for providing the delivery service and they are trying to provide the best service they can within that constraint - do the postal workers on here think that is simply impossible, or is there a way to do it that does not create too high a workload?

[chunk]

I'd be interested in opinions on how the overall problem can be solved. Presumably RM have a budget for providing the delivery service and they are trying to provide the best service they can within that constraint - do the postal workers on here think that is simply impossible, or is there a way to do it that does not create too high a workload?

contrary to popular belief we are very efficient and handling more mail per person than we ever have.
A 10% drop in mail but a 30% drop in postal workers!
most people know by now that all those TNT and UK post letters are delivered by royal mail
but what most people don't know is that we
lose about 2p on every letter we deliver for them.
the regulator has set the price we can charge TNT (about 13p i believe)
this is a heavily discounted price that doesn't cover the delivery cost,
these companies like TNT are now able to sell our own delivery service to businesses cheaper than we can !
the bigger TNT gets.. the more mail it sends to us... and the more profit we lose...
thats not competition thats the definition of a parasite (feeding off a host).

[scud8]

contrary to popular belief we are very efficient and handling more mail per person than we ever have.
A 10% drop in mail but a 30% drop in postal workers!
most people know by now that all those TNT and UK post letters are delivered by royal mail
but what most people don't know is that we
lose about 2p on every letter we deliver for them.
the regulator has set the price we can charge TNT (about 13p i believe)
this is a heavily discounted price that doesn't cover the delivery cost,
these companies like TNT are now able to sell our own delivery service to businesses cheaper than we can !
the bigger TNT gets.. the more mail it sends to us... and the more profit we lose...
thats not competition thats the definition of a parasite (feeding off a host).

I do understand the structure at that level, but I wasn't aware of the figures. Presumably the regulator does think RM could provide the delivery service to companies like TNT and at least break even (regulators usually work on allowing a level of profit based on the capital employed in the business, but I'm guessing that the tax payer has provided all the capital in RM!) - so why does the regulator think this is possible?

One thing that has always puzzled me is the demarcation point between competitive carriers and RM. How sorted does mail have to be when it is passed to RM for final delivery - do they simply turn up with bags of unsorted mail in each of the main sorting offices, or is it more granular than this?

Reading various comments on here today it does sound like RM is wasting a lot of money on various layers of middle management to handle bureaucratic working practises, leaving not enough money to staff and equip the front-line services. All this stuff about flexible working seems to me to be missing the point and the big issues are cultural. I hated the stuff about managers having to sit down with CWU reps every week to discuss staffing - I can see why it is necessary in the current adversarial culture, but it wouldn't be needed if there was any level of trust between the different sides.

[savo]

Chunk : Thats the best description i have read about the way TNT/UKMAIL parasite is slowly killing the host ( RM ).

eventually the parasite will resemble the monster in Aliens, and it will burst out of the stomach of the host, having drained all life from it

[chunk]

Mail has to be regularly stacked ie all facing same way in boxes or trays.
tray should ideally all be for same town.
For example a gas company prints out its bills. A computer does this by address so they come of the printer in sorted stacks!
TNT pick them from the gas company in a van and take the straight to the nearest mail centre.
that could be all they do to earn a huge profit from the transaction.

[scud8]

TNT pick them from the gas company in a van and take the straight to the nearest mail centre.
that could be all they do to earn a huge profit from the transaction.

Is this true? I thought they had to transport them the bulk of the way to the destination as well.

Is this relationship forced by the regulator, or does RM have the ability to renegotiate. I would have thought it entirely reasonable for RM to stipulate that they would only accept one drop of mail from TNT in each sorting office per day, that all the mail must be destined for addresses served by that sorting office and that it must all be ready bundled per address - otherwise what is TNT doing for their money?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

TNT pick them from the gas company in a van and take the straight to the nearest mail centre.
that could be all they do to earn a huge profit from the transaction.

Is this true? I thought they had to transport them the bulk of the way to the destination as well.

Is this relationship forced by the regulator, or does RM have the ability to renegotiate. I would have thought it entirely reasonable for RM to stipulate that they would only accept one drop of mail from TNT in each sorting office per day, that all the mail must be destined for addresses served by that sorting office and that it must all be ready bundled per address - otherwise what is TNT doing for their money?

From TNTs DSA Page http://www.tntpost.co.uk/Mail/00Downstream_Access.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What is Downstream Access?

Since the market re-regulated in 2004, TNT Post has been able to carry mail on behalf of organisations in competition with Royal Mail but need to use their postmen to deliver TNT Post mail to the 26 million households in the UK. This process is known as Down Stream Access or 'final mile' delivery.

TNT Post collects, sorts and processes your mail before delivering it directly to a Royal Mail Inward Mailing Centre for onward delivery to the household by their postmen.

Depending on the TNT Post service chosen, the time between collection and delivery will vary but all of our services are day definite and once your mailings are handed over to Royal Mail, 95% of deliveries are made the next day.

[luddite123]

I'm sorry that most of you can't see the truth.
It's a fact that delivering the mail is by most standards, a relatively unskilled job, and as such, it is a low paid job.
You need to get your heads round the following:-
Things are going to change.
Being a postie will not be the cushy number it has been over the years.
There will be less post men.
Your pay and conditions will come closer to that of the private courier firms.
You will have to work all the hours you are paid for.
New machinery will be used.
You will not get paid more money for the same hours or the same money for fewer hours.
You will not get a better pension than the rest of us.
It may be hard to accept, but at some stage, you will, have to join the real world.
If you were all to work with the post office, and embrace a modernized system, you will be unbeatable, had this all taken place a few years ago TNT would not be doing any of your work now!
I sympathize with you, but at the moment you are heading on the same course as the miners.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

I'm sorry that most of you can't see the truth. .

I am sorry that you have not read the rest of this forum,

It's a fact that delivering the mail is by most standards, a relatively unskilled job, and as such, it is a low paid job. .

This strike is not over pay - never mind what the media says.

You need to get your heads round the following:-
Things are going to change..

They are already

Being a postie will not be the cushy number it has been over the years..

It aint cushy now 10 bags a day up to 16 Kgs in weight and walking up to 9 miles a day.

There will be less post men..

We recognise that all we want to do is discuss it with the bosses and come to an agreement, just as they promised they would do in the Pay & Mod 2007 agreement

Your pay and conditions will come closer to that of the private courier firms..

Ah the old race to the bottom, no thanks, you pay peanuts you get monkeys. You pay a fair wage and have decent conditions you get a dedicated and proud work force.

You will have to work all the hours you are paid for..

Already Do and in some cases work beyond those hours for no pay

New machinery will be used..

When they paid for them years ago but still we dont see them being used.

You will not get paid more money for the same hours or the same money for fewer hours..

Oh right we will never get an agreed reduction in the working week, or any more pay rises.

You will not get a better pension than the rest of us..

We don't want that we just want the pension we paid into for years, but RM did not - thats whats created the pensions crisis in RM, along with Brown changing the tax rules.

It may be hard to accept, but at some stage, you will, have to join the real world..

I walk in it every day.

If you were all to work with the post office, and embrace a modernized system, you will be unbeatable, had this all taken place a few years ago TNT would not be doing any of your work now!

Why not modernise RM management at the same time. A modernised work force, with modern practices and modern machines needs a Modernised Management in place otherwise you have the situation we are now facing. Why is it always the workers fault and never the bosses.

I sympathize with you, but at the moment you are heading on the same course as the miners.

Why they did not have a democratic vote we did. Thatcher stockpiled coal, cant do that with post. If you mean we will end without a job or a RM - well that's what we are trying stop. RM want a casualised work force, less delivery offices and less Mail centres - so in effect we are damned if we strike and doubly damned if we don't. RMs plans will mean a permanent loss of service to the customer.

[scud8]

I did a bit more digging on revenues/costs (I'm in bed with 'flu at the moment, so nothing better to do) - good source of info at ftp://ftp.royalmail.com/Downloads/publi ... udited.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

Using 2008-9 figures, it costs RM 14.5p per item of downstream access mail (ie. mail delivered on behalf of competitors) vs revenue of 13.2p per item (so a loss of 1.3p per item. Interestingly this compares with an average cost of 31p per item for RM provided services (1st class/2nd class stamps and meters, various business delivery services etc.), which does suggest that RM has to do a lot less work per item of downstream access mail than other mail (ie. less than 50%).

One thing I didn't understand was the big discrepency in costs for handling stamped vs metered mail - stamped mail costs 46.8p per item on average and metered mail only costs 31p per item to handle. Why such a big difference - does it really cost 15.8p more to check that a letter is stamped corrected rather than metered correctly?

It's interesting that all of RMs analysis looks at costs per item, but presumably the cost of the last mile delivery service depends both on the volume of mail and the number of delivery addresses (ie. every item has to be sorted and walks have to be planned to pass every address). Looking at it the other way, there were 18,354m items of mail delivered in 2008-9, so an average of 705 to each of 26m addresses - which suggests it costs an average of £102 per year to provide a last mile delivery service for each address (assuming the downstream access costs are representative of last mile delivery costs for all mail). This seems like a pretty low number to me as it suggests the average 3.5 hour walk must be passing at least 2-300 addresses - and urban walks far more - so more than an address per minute. Does this number sound about right to the postal workers on here? If so, then it sounds to me like the regulator has simply got his figures wrong!