privatization

[halfull]

id like to get some thoughts on what this will mean for us postmen. my dom told me in his opinion the business would go down the roads of franchise where we would have to buy our own van & work self employed & be responsible for an area 52 weeks of the year like other delivery firms in this country & especially across europe! i really dont like the sound of this kind of thing as terms & conditions would be non-existant! i hate to say it but when we are privatized & these fat cats who are only bothered about £'s take over the job & pay as we know it will be gone forever. Any thoughts??

[arnold cheshire]

id like to get some thoughts on what this will mean for us postmen. my dom told me in his opinion the business would go down the roads of franchise where we would have to buy our own van & work self employed & be responsible for an area 52 weeks of the year like other delivery firms in this country & especially across europe! i really dont like the sound of this kind of thing as terms & conditions would be non-existant! i hate to say it but when we are privatized & these fat cats who are only bothered about £'s take over the job & pay as we know it will be gone forever. Any thoughts??

if that happens im off

[halfull]

id like to get some thoughts on what this will mean for us postmen. my dom told me in his opinion the business would go down the roads of franchise where we would have to buy our own van & work self employed & be responsible for an area 52 weeks of the year like other delivery firms in this country & especially across europe! i really dont like the sound of this kind of thing as terms & conditions would be non-existant! i hate to say it but when we are privatized & these fat cats who are only bothered about £'s take over the job & pay as we know it will be gone forever. Any thoughts??

if that happens im off

that was my initial reaction but even though that would be the end of the royal mail as we know it what else is out there at the moment? the royal mail will just join the rest of the country in being completely f****d!

[wandle]

my dom told me in his opinion the business would go down the roads of franchise where we would have to buy our own van & work self employed & be responsible for an area 52 weeks of the year like other delivery firms in this country

If that was a workable idea, why would RM need to be privatised for it to be brought in ? Surely one of the intelligent people on the board of this great company (ha!) would have thought of it by now, and tried to bring it in already ?

Of course, public company or privatised one, whoever tried to bring it in would have to do so in the face of strong opposition from the CWU, and brand it 'the deal of the millenium'.

Oh bugger. Looks like we're fooked

[halfull]

my dom told me in his opinion the business would go down the roads of franchise where we would have to buy our own van & work self employed & be responsible for an area 52 weeks of the year like other delivery firms in this country

If that was a workable idea, why would RM need to be privatised for it to be brought in ? Surely one of the intelligent people on the board of this great company (ha!) would have thought of it by now, and tried to bring it in already ?

Of course, public company or privatised one, whoever tried to bring it in would have to do so in the face of strong opposition from the CWU, and brand it 'the deal of the millenium'.

Oh bugger. Looks like we're fooked

im afraid if we are owned by private money you will find the cwu wont have much say at all! if we go out on the stike when we decide to come back in they will have just got someone else to do the job and we will be in the dole cue.

[POSTMAN]

Half full,you shouldn't listen to your DOM,and the CWU will still be here after privatisation.

[halfull]

Half full,you shouldn't listen to your DOM,and the CWU will still be here after privatisation.

i hope your right,but alot of you people have only worked for the royalmail since leaving school bless your hearts will have a mighty big shock when the government nolonger own the company & the people who do are driven by one thing! profits. at the moment the cwu at local level have a huge say what goes on in each office but if the business gets broke into different franchises this involvement at local level will fizzle out. anyone who has seen huge company's or even small ones get privatized will understand what happens,it wont be pretty & it wont take long which is even more worrying! i suppose we will just have to hope for the best!

[wandle]

im afraid if we are owned by private money you will find the cwu wont have much say at all! if we go out on the stike when we decide to come back in they will have just got someone else to do the job and we will be in the dole queue.

Surely, if it was that easy to sideline the CWU completely, the Government would have got Leighton or one of his predecessors to engineer a national dispute that lasted until we all caved in and returned to work only after signing-up for new and less generous terms and conditions ? The Thatcher government did basically just that with the mineworkers all those years ago...

Incidentally, the Postal Services Act talks about staff owning 10% of the shares, so some of that 'private money' may actually be our own shares

[fishtank]

The CWU will probably be sidelined but it will be a gradual process not an overnight thing.
To be honest it's still in the hands of the Union but they'll have to show the membership that they aren't just there to rubber stamp management proposals.
It will depend a great deal on who owns us next year and what kind of model they want to use.
I think the part-time model is pretty much unavoidable,the level of savings is too big to ignore.
Unlike BT it's mostly unskilled so casualisation is also a given,none of that helps a union.
Throw in a possible staff association and you can start to see where this is going,this is going to be a scary ride for all concerned and the only thing guaranteed is that nothing is guaranteed.

[krussel]

I think ultimately the franchise thing could happen but I could see that taking some time.
I think what we would see in the shorter term would be the break up of postcode sectors which would be run by different companies.

I think they would be auctioned offto the highest bidder with the larger city sectors going first as there is a higher profit within those areas. What would suffer is the smaller rural areas of the country where I could not see a 6 day deliver service being offered but perhaps 3 times a week.

Either way the first thing to go will be the sat delivery as that will become a premium paid service.

Wages, i feel they would stay about the same for those already employed for maybe a few years but slowly decline due to very little increase.

[dvbuk55]

I think ultimately the franchise thing could happen but I could see that taking some time.
I think what we would see in the shorter term would be the break up of postcode sectors which would be run by different companies.

I think they would be auctioned offto the highest bidder with the larger city sectors going first as there is a higher profit within those areas. What would suffer is the smaller rural areas of the country where I could not see a 6 day deliver service being offered but perhaps 3 times a week.

Either way the first thing to go will be the sat delivery as that will become a premium paid service.

Wages, i feel they would stay about the same for those already employed for maybe a few years but slowly decline due to very little increase.

No change there then kruss

[doorstepped]

franchise's will only happen on the most money making walks ie: industrial estate's, high street walks etc.

no one will ever take a rural delivery on a franchise as they will never make any money out of it.

seen this happen at Omega securicor before it got taken over, only 4 rounds were franchised, two town centre rounds and two industrial estate rounds, the others were just normal paid rounds.

[halfull]

anyone who thinks one business or person will buy the royal mail is very silly or under prepared for what is coming our way! lots of different rich people(business's) will own different parts of the royal mail & the union will have a headache dealing with all the different parties with a piece of the pie! Example: eddie stobart buy up the lorry part of the royal mail,the drivers of the large lorries will then work for eddie stobart on their terms & conditions! thats the prospect we will face, the union will fizzle out within 12 months & if they think of calling a strike its quite simple what will happen,you wont have a job to go back to cz the now private owned company will just employ someone else! like i said for those who have only ever worked for the royal mail this will be a look into the world of every factory,shop,building site etc in england! It will be quite simple, do this or you wont have a job! thats the real world in the private sector people.

[dvbuk55]

It is highly possible that various elements will indeed be sold off, if not immediately then very soon after. The Stobart scenario is very plausible, mail centres another area which could prove lucrative, in comes machinery out goes the manpower and I think that there would be a great deal of saving to be made. Deliveries are the ones who are going to feel the brunt of the private mail franchises, hived off to the highest bidder regardless of the quality of service. It won't happen overnight but it isn't a long way from the possible.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

T
Throw in a possible staff association

To be honest I think World Class Mailing is that by the back door. Too much favouritism, make working, corporate language, self important tasks and Bull shitting and not enough real world application for it to be anything else in my opinion. It just strikes me as a ready made association to step in and take on the Unions role when the timings right.