Message From The Frontline

[Geezer]

http://www.hellmail.co.uk/postalnews/te ... 6&zoneid=3


15 December 2009 by John Cawse - OPG Delivery - Plymouth - © Hellmail.co.uk



I was intrigued by two series of quotes from the BBC's Panorama programme, "Can't Deliver, Won't Deliver".

"The Royal Mail's management say they are making much better use of their workforce. They've cut 60 000 jobs over the last seven years, roughly a quarter... and they point out their profits are rising". Reporter Vivian White

"We want our people to be efficient- we want them to work all the hours that we pay them for... that doesn't mean that we want them so hard-pressed that they can't do their job properly......and us throwing the price of a stamp down the drain by being inefficient". Paul Tolhurst, Operations Director, Royal Mail.

I'd like to know a few things.

If I had set up a business, I would want to perpetuate that business by ensuring I was number one in the market. I wouldn't allow anybody to use my enterprise for their own gain, unless there was something in it for me. And, I would pay myself handsomely for my efforts, making sure I had as much security and reward as I could squeeze out of it.

Of course, I would make damn sure my customers had every faith and confidence in it, and that they thought they were getting a better than adequate deal and service.

So, RM management wants us, its workers, to work every minute of every day without let-up, and shrink our wages to boot as well as short-change us on our pension agreements, and accept a "do as you're told" attitude using bullying and intimidation, and at the same time paying lip-service to health and safety legislation. No? Well, let me assure you this is what's happening; and I think everyone knows it, but not many are saying so.

And what's it all for?

Why does our business not reward us for doing more work than ever? Why have our pension funds been robbed from us? What motive is there behind the new management ethos?

Why are we 160 000 or so employees having to pay our "competitors" costs from our own wages?

Why is our management caning us rather than defending us, by which I properly mean our business, against enforced and unnatural competition? Why is it allowing external pressures to force us to surrendert what is our main revenue-generating activity? Why is it not fighting back?

Oh, I know you think I'm a dinosaur, a red under the bed with outdated ideas about the realities of modern life. I know you have a tough time of it, and think then that so should I.

I know you believe what managers tell you, because they wear nice new suits and you see them on telly, but really, just stop and think for a moment...

We had a superb Postal service in this country. It was called The General Post Office when I was a kid. It had an integrated monopoly on all postal items- from a historical perspective of some 350 or thereabouts years- seeing changes and differences all through its long and honourable tradition.

Then, someone had the idea of privatising it. It was around about 1990 that I became aware of the political and economic aspects of what by then had become Royal Mail. The Conservatives of the period were in government but the opposition from the public was such that the idea went on the back burner, and has since only been raised now and again to test the water- latterly of course by Lord Peter Mandelson.

He finds himself in a similar position to Michael Heseltine's all those years ago. "Well, I gave it a go, but the buggers won't let go of it just yet", he might have thought, or words to that effect.

So- Mandy has his pride, of course, and we still have Royal Mail. Not for ever, though, if Peter gets his way. When "market conditions" become favourable, and a third party can be found who will be happy to buy, he will sell, or somebody with the legal power to do so will.

And of course, this is the motive that management has. The business will be run in such a fashion that "market forces" are aided and abetted to facilitate that sale- the service will be annihilated (it pretty much has been already for most of the populace in case it had escaped your attention), and the business raison d'tre has all but replaced any notion of it. There's no sentiment in business, it's not like we care about people any more, keep up will you.

I have seen my wages become less within the space of a year. My earnings potential used to be far greater than anything I might expect now. (Incidentally, during the course of the year working overtime was actively discouraged to the point of scorn, and over the christmas period so far, because we are now so short-staffed it is being almost demanded). My pension was once something to look forward to, now it is a frightening prospect looming large on the horizon like a huge black hungry bird with great talons.

When the business has been so disembowelled that what is left is barely no more use than a corpse, then the people who are in control will say that the workforce isn't good enough, the management isn't good enough, and the public will agree and everyone will be relieved that a saviour, I mean private investor, has come to its rescue and show it the way to riches; only this time the opportunity fior the riches to be shared round between the customers and the employees, the ones who truly matter lest ye forget, will be lost for all time.

Verily unto thee, dear friends, I say, a Happy Christmas to you all, and a cheerful, Happy New Year; just not for the customers and staff at Royal Mail.

© Hellmail.co.uk (15 December 2009)

[Geezer]

A Good Article on Hell Mail

Surly Not !

[norbert]

A Good Article on Hell Mail

Surly Not !

they let a few good ones in to look fair but it's essentially yellow spiked news . Mrs White will be writing a rabble rousing one soon