Research: Strike

[danf1]

Hi everyone, I'm a postgraduate sociology student and I am doing some research into the ongoing industrial conflict at Royal Mail. I am particuarly interested in how the media have covered the dispute and the experience of changing working practices and the strike from the point of view of the postal workers. I am going to be posting some topics so that people can start discussions on them. Any help that anyone can give me will be greatly recieved and any information that is passed to me will stay anonymous. If anyone has any questions regarding the research or would like to say anything else to me, please feel free to send me a PM. Thanks.

What does anybody think about the prospect of more strike action? Is it inevitable or can/will it be avoided?

[robd]

Only my opinion,
But i realise a lot of people were angry,bemused,disappointed when the strikes were called off.
However,when you step back,i think you have to realise the union as a whole had become very dis-jointed,far
to much responsibility had been delegated onto local officers,and regions were simply isolated by RM to clearly
dis-afilliate the CWU completely.
This has been supported by RM's affirmation that this is a 'London' issue,and merely the resistance of a minority of
militants.
Essentially what i'm alluding to is,if the strikes had protracted could the CWU have been certain of maintaining the
members support on a unilateral basis.
What we have is the next best thing,an opportunity to have some say in our futures,and have a union in the workplace,this is an enviable position,and not everyone has this luxury.
More importantly,we still as you say have the option to re-instill the strike action.
Is it avoidable? Personally i would say no,what it will take is a complete overhaul of management structure,which won't happen overnight.
Royal mail have suggested the busiest day will be mon 14th Dec,so the CWU,despite facing huge criticism,may have got this one right,clearly a strike now will have a much greater impact than if we had continued,however unpopular this will be with the public/buisness community.
I will let others explain the reasons for striking,whatever happens we will see thousands leave this once great institution,and having seen RM's plans,personally i have nothing to lose by going out again.

[Wessex]

I'm sure any researcher would be happy to supply their bona fides.

[danf1]

I'm happy to supply any information that you request which is relevant and if you have any questions of me or my research then I will be happy to answer them.

Hope this helps to clear things up. I am a postgraduate student in the Sociology Department at Aberdeen University and my interest in being on this site is for the reasons I have stated above. My research is neutral and objective and I should emphasize that I am not interested in sensationalizing the issue in any way.

If there is any other information that you would like please ask. I am also happy to reply to PM's if you would prefer to correspond that way.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Does anyone else think there could be something fishy about this guy :cfo :mfo

On face value and private PMs............... No.