hubbahubba wrote:fishtank wrote:vila465 wrote:remember that while one mail centre will stay open,there will be many people who will transfer to that office,and in many cases most of these people who transfer will have 20 years plus in seniority.Therefore the workers whose office stays open will be happy,but have to accept that there will be many new workers from other offices who have more seniority,which is bound to cause friction when the relocation eventually starts happening.
It might not be two that close,maybe one will close...Royal Mail want two closed but i don't think anything is carved in stone....yet.
Maybe the union will play a blinder and convince RM there is a need for at least two.
I am not overly confident but you never know.......
knowing the current state of the union,at national level at least,after union intervention RM will probably shut all three,after which billy boy would claim a victory as "there was no other option"!!!!!
I have to say the leadership of the CWU is extremely disapointing to say the least. Things started to seriously go downhill when the CWU lost a ballot for industrial action in the autumn of 2003. Amazing to think that Allan Leighton(by a whisker) swayed the workforce into a no vote, though it mattered little because industrial action did take place anyway in London and various other parts of the country.
In that instance, the management were smarter, presented their case far more convincingly and left the union with the proverbial egg on face.
The CWU have marginally improved the PR side of the operation, but when it comes to the media, the management are still head and shoulders(much to my regret) better than the union. In the last round of industrial action in the autumn of 2009, we saw Billy Hayes and Dave Ward regularly across all the media platforms. They flogged the same old horse every time they spoke and gave the impression they knew little about the issues affecting the Royal Mail and its workforce. It would have been of great benefit to all of us if they had answered the questions put to them, instead of rambling on about Northern Rock, which bore no relation to the issues at stake.
Billy Hayes and Dave Ward have no mandate as far as I am concerned to remain at the helm of the CWU. Let it be said politics in whichever form it takes is about Government and Opposition. The former is of course the management and the latter is the union presenting a viable alternative. The CWU have never done this and though many union members enjoy a good round of management bashing, quite alot of it merited, there comes a time when you have to strike a balance and the leadership of this union fall way short of delivering the changes needed to drive the Royal Mail forward.
The problem is the CWU is far too left wing in its thinking. They have shown this by supporting Ed Balls in the race to be Labour leader. I like Ed, he was one of the better Cabinet Ministers in the last Labour government, but leadership of a political party is about reaching out to all sections of the country. Strident left-wingers do not win elections and I very much doubt that Ed Balls would buck the trend. Furthermore, the likes of The Sun and the Daily Mail, the two most popular tabloid newspapers, would kick lumps out of him, a terrible indignity, something Neil Kinnock remembers only too well from 1992 and such a fickle readership would repeat the feat with interest! The country ended up with John Major as Prime Minister and the grave danger of the Royal Mail being privatised root and branch by Michael Heseltine. Thankfully, with only a small majority of 21, many Tory MPs in marginal seats and their electorate showing no appetite for change in this sphere, the Government was humbled into the ground. Unfortunately, the position in 2010 is somewhat different, the coalition of Cameron and Clegg is committed to Royal Mail privatisation and it will be nigh on impossible to stop them doing it, especially with the two parties combined enjoying a comfortable working majority. The CWU is hardly flavour of the month with the general public and any concerted campaign to get them on side to stop the Tories and the nodding dogs doing the unthinkable would quite honestly fall on deaf ears. The public have enormous respect for the Royal Mail but they have no time for this union and its leadership, because of the serious industrial unrest, most of which could have been avoided with a demonstration of restraint.
The last round of industrial action in 2009 was an unmitigated disaster for the CWU. I voted no because I wanted to keep my powder dry for the prospect of the Tories being elected into office and all that was to follow. Instead, the CWU led us into an abyss and up the garden path at the same time. Everything we supposedly went out on strike for is fast becoming the norm in mail centres and delivery offices across the network. The bonus obsessed management is totally out of control and quite honestly are running mail centres and delivery offices into the ground. It is a style of management which I feel is obscene and totally unacceptable in the face of stiff opposition from the likes of TNT and for that matter Postcomm, a warped, cynical bunch of toerags, whose knowledge of the postal industry is debatable to say the least. I am still waiting for Postcomm to actually issue a directive which you can take seriously.
The CWU missed the boat big style in not concentrating their minds on Postcomm, as well as the dreadful management the Royal Mail is saddled with. Instead, we get day in day out, politics of envy, followed by more politics of envy, and for good measure, another load of politics of envy. As I said earlier, quite alot of it is merited, but it is all so predictable and the bosses see it looming over the horizon, even before it is said. The time for change is now and I hope to see the CWU abandon its left-wing leanings and we turn to the moderates within the union to lead our dedicated workforce in a much more professional manner. If for instance, a completely different CWU ballotted for strike action over Downstream Access, I would vote yes without hesitation. Some of you might say, big deal, why strike over that? I'll tell you why, because it has seriously damaged our income streams, leading to tinpot mail centre managers and financial control managers, cutting budgets across all shifts and they have left no stone unturned. Our dedicated workforce is having to work three times as hard, whilst the management stand back, laughing their socks off at us and counting the bonuses they receive for delivering those wholly unrealistic targets.
That is one issue, there are many others, not one of which include pay rises, lump sums and so on and so forth. They are about the real issues which affect our workforce on a day to day basis and the sooner we get to grips with these issues the better. It will not happen though with Billy Hayes and Dave Ward in charge. Royal Mail staff have been failed miserably by these two in particular. I realise many of you will see it differently and I fully respect that. The evidence though from the mail centre I work in, which I see on a daily basis, is overwhelming. It is an awful environment, badly demotivated staff and a feeling of resignation is all too prevalent. The management get away with murder and the union have been careless, complacent and downright incompetent in allowing it to happen.
