Coventry mail centre closes

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articl ... tre-closes" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Royal Mail (RM) is on a mission to streamline the business at all costs as it abandons its role as a public service and becomes profit orientated. This has had a drastic impact on workers in Coventry's Bishop Street mail centre, which will close at the end of the year.

First workers were told they could take voluntary redundancy, but that was withdrawn for many. Apparently Royal Mail couldn't afford it, even though it made a £404 million profit and paid £3.5 million for Adam Crozier's departure. Instead many Mail Centre staff are forced to do an 80 mile round trip each night to the new mail centre in Northampton.

Royal Mail try and defend the move saying it has supplied workers with a generous travel package, but this will be withdrawn after three years - leaving workers burdened with high fuel costs. Those that don't drive will have little choice but to leave Coventry and relocate to Northampton or leave RM.

A Coventry postal worker

[maisymoo04]

here we go again folks another one bites the dust as freedie mercury said,that f@@@@@ adam crozier makes me ill you horrible rat :cfo well at least he has gone

[Night Tonic]

Not the fact its not needed then?

[baldrick]

Not the fact its not needed then?

You shouldn't call :cfo 'it' - but you're right, he certainly isn't needed, or missed.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Not the fact its not needed then?

Thats an opinion isn't it rather than a fact. The problem being that the opinion of the decision makers at RM want less MCs and the CWU while not agreeing with that opinion, certainly seem to have neutered any opposition with the acceptance of 2010.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Not the fact its not needed then?

You shouldn't call :cfo 'it' - but you're right, he certainly isn't needed, or missed.

[Tman]

Thats an opinion isn't it rather than a fact. The problem being that the opinion of the decision makers at RM want less MCs and the CWU while not agreeing with that opinion, certainly seem to have neutered any opposition with the acceptance of 2010.

It's a fact (rightly or wrongly) that RM don't see the need for so many MCs; whether putting so many eggs in so few baskets is sensible remains to be seen, although the decline in mail volumes and greater levels of automation make change inevitable, one way or another.
Quite how the CWU could/would have fought closures long-term isn't clear though. The SWP Crewe Mail Centre? The independant Postal Workers Guildford MC? Oxford Collective Commune MC?

[Night Tonic]

Put perfectly. Mail centres will close. Nothing new there. Things change.

[maisymoo04]

NIGHT TONIC AM NOT SAYIN IT IS NOT NEEDED PAL IF IT WERNT FOR CROZIER SAYIN CHANGE THIS CHANGE THAT WE WOULD HAVE BEEN OK, WE WERE MAKIN PROFIT BEFORE THIS 2ND CHANGE CAME INTO PLACE

[baldrick]

I would agree that letter mail going through MCs is probably declining, and is increasingly automated,
but this might not have been the case if Crozier hadn't agreed to a ludicrous DSA scheme where RM subsidises the competition.

[Night Tonic]

and if he hadn't agreed? Think you're in cloud cuckoo land here. RML were required to open the network for other operators and refusing would have incurred a fine by the EU. I'm sure some people think influence in the UK ends at Dover.

[maisymoo04]

ok royal mail our sayin losin 10% in letters every year, so in 10 years no more post BULL SH** GREEDY FAT CAT MANAGERS SAVE THIS SAVE THAT,that cu** crozier got 2000000 look at the naughts guys million and what did we get a paycut because of all the 55000 so call postman and postwoman could not be arsed to vote NOW WHOS IN CLOUD CUCKOO LAND :cfo

[POSTMAN]

and if he hadn't agreed? Think you're in cloud cuckoo land here. RML were required to open the network for other operators and refusing would have incurred a fine by the EU. I'm sure some people think influence in the UK ends at Dover.

Not a few years too early they weren't.

[BELIAL]

RML were required to open the network for other operators and refusing would have incurred a fine by the EU.

Sorry to point it out but that statement is utter rubbish.
RM were required to open the network and subsidise private profiteers by postconn at our governments request. Nowhere in the EU postal liberalisation directive does it stipulate that DSA must be introduced.
Simply providing these alternative operators with a license to carry out a letters delivery service within the UK would have fulfilled the requirements of EU law.
(It does make you wonder why, if RM was and is such a "grossly inefficient ' operator , the 'competition' needs RM to subsidise their businesses .)
So nobody could have been fined by the EU for not introducing DSA , but the UK govt could be fined at a later date for maintaining a state monopoly.