Eddie Stobart

[bedfordrl]

In one of those odd coincidences, last night I saw an episode about Stobart and was surprised to see that they own Southend Airport , today I opened the Trucking magazine and Lo ! there is an article on Stobart.
Stobart have taken over the Tesco transport workforce in the Doncaster distribution centre and within a month put all of the drivers on a 90 day notice of termination of employment, what a nice company....not!.
I quote "According to Unite ,the transport force was transferred from Tesco to ESL (Eddie Stobart Ltd) in August and then on September the 5th the new employers issued a notice of termination of employment ,with no promise the drivers will be re-employed once the 90 days is up."

Now, if Stobart are in the market for world domination in logistics I suppose they could be waving their beaks in our direction, suppose they do run for taking us over in privatisation and win and then put all of us on a 90 day termination ,what fun that would be eh?

[Martin Walsh]

Of course Royal Mail have considered using Stobart to save on empty legs etc. in terms of concern the most relevant is that Royal Mail are considering setting up an alternative work force on poor terms and conditions to compete in the packet market and media services.


Long term privitisation I would rule out what they did to the milk industry franchising delivery offices or even delivery routes. Look at parcel force where 40% are owner drivers.

[dvbuk55]

Of course Royal Mail have considered using Stobart to save on empty legs etc. in terms of concern the most relevant is that Royal Mail are considering setting up an alternative work force on poor terms and conditions to compete in the packet market and media services.


Long term privitisation I would rule out what they did to the milk industry franchising delivery offices or even delivery routes. Look at parcel force where 40% are owner drivers.

Well if that was the case it would be the end of the world as far as delivery officers are concerned and of course I am sure that the CWU has a strategy in place to make the most of it - recruiting the new lower paid staff on the same subs, because it certainly wouldn't be to protect and serve the existing members and that's for sure. A sort of quid pro quo with RM - let us be the negotiators for the new staff and we'll make sure they toe the line..................pretty much same old same old.

[NWpostie]

If you put out of a job after 90 days is that legal, what are your redress and also would you be entitled to immediate unemployment benefits if this came about ?

[fishtank]

in terms of concern the most relevant is that Royal Mail are considering setting up an alternative work force on poor terms and conditions to compete in the packet market and media services.

Exactly what evidence have you seen for this other than hearsay?
Obviously no formal proposal has ever been put before the union,if it had i would expect to have been at the gate by now since we would basically have nothing to lose.
In fact even if something like this was just mentioned in passing at a meeting by anyone more senior than a line manager i would have expected members to have been officially informed of such a major change in direction for the business.
So if Royal Mail are really "considering setting up an alternative work force on poor terms and conditions" why have the union done absolutely nothing about it or even bothered to inform the membership?

There isn't much point in punting out 100 joint statements or arguing about delivery revisions if the whole thing is built on lies.

[Martin Walsh]

Fishtank believe what you want. It is a serious concern. The union is calling a national briefing within the next two weeks to discuss this threat and competition , privitisation including a protential fire sell of 25% of the company and where we are with the current agreement.

It does not take a genius to realise that TNT setting up a bypass operation, that 50% of the market now captured by DSA.

That the growth in packets even more so in the south is meaning that more hours are being kept in delivery offices that royal mail are thinking and talking about a two tier delivery force.

The union will oppose this by all means possible hence the briefing?

Of course you can choose to dismiss it if you want.

[dvbuk55]

Fishtank believe what you want. It is a serious concern. The union is calling a national briefing within the next two weeks to discuss this threat and competition , privitisation including a protential fire sell of 25% of the company and where we are with the current agreement.

It does not take a genius to realise that TNT setting up a bypass operation, that 50% of the market now captured by DSA.

That the growth in packets even more so in the south is meaning that more hours are being kept in delivery offices that royal mail are thinking and talking about a two tier delivery force.

The union will oppose this by all means possible hence the briefing?

Of course you can choose to dismiss it if you want.

Will that be a Joint briefing, do you think? Tell us exactly how the proposed organisation of the two tier system would operate? And really do we not already have a two tier system with full time and part time staff - the ratio of which has STILL not been disclosed. Parents used to frighten their children with tales of the bogeyman, masturbation would make you go blind and/or deaf......well some of us are made of sterner stuff - I do wear glasses but my hearing is perfect and if I saw the bogeyman I'd kill him and as a union leader I would face the problem head on and bring in a bogeyman of my own.

[NWpostie]

It does not take a genius to realise that TNT setting up a bypass operation, that 50% of the market now captured by DSA.

.

And we gave them the foothold to do so, slitting our own throats in the process, we know who we can blame, if successful I guarantee our revenue will drop like a stone then universal service will be the first to go,
Royal Mail prior to 1994 will be regarded as the "Golden Age" of Royal Mail which I was quite happy to work for in spite of its niggles, wasn't a bad company to work for and was quite secure and you wasn't slave driven,
I was quite happy with the way things were ticking over before 1994, no major dramas, things got done, no quibbles, manageable workload, people were still nice to you and you had an early start.

Everything that happened after 1994 was a death by a thousand cuts

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Disturbing on so many levels.

Why are we only hearing about it now.
Why are we only hearing about it unofficially.
If its such an important matter why are they waiting 2 weeks to get a national briefing.
If its so important why aren't they engaging the membership direct.
If they are going to have a "fire sale" if its part privatisation why has nothing been heard in the national press.
If they are going to have a "fire sale" of property why has nothing been said before.

The really disturbing thing, at least to me, is that there seems to have been no lesson learned from 2010 in the dissemination and control of information, in fact it seems as though the one controlling information in the background is Royal Mail, again. The pattern seems to be repeating itself, paint the worst picture possible to "engage" or scare the workforce so that when an agreed settlement is reached it can be sold as a victory. After the 2 strike periods whilst I have been at RM, I would have thought the CWU could have come up with a counter strategy, or have they completely bought into the "Joint statement" ethos and are scared to speak out in fear of ruining the new understanding.

I am seriously worried now.

[Martin Walsh]

It will be a CWU briefing where Branch secretaries ,divisional reps, area reps and Branch Secretares will be present.

Royal Mail have been in talks with the Government and off comm. The fact that Off comm have announced a consultation on Saturdays and the maintance of the a second class service should not have gone unnoticed either.

Off comm are saying that Royal Mail are too inefficient and they will keep allowing TNT to introduce a delivery service. TNT can undecut Royal Mail every single time and they know it. The Goverment are supportive of Nick Well the TNT chief.

Now let's think about this a TNT worker is on £8 an hour for working in London no pension , miniumn leave , miniumn sick leave , no shift allowance .

Royal mail know that at the moment they have lost 6% of the mail to TNT in 26 weeks.

Higson already has argued that packets which could not fit in a letter box should go via a different avenue as it was increasing attendance calls and keeping hours in delivery offices.

The company would like to recurit people on similar terms and deliver the growth and then manage the decline in the USO.

Look ar BT where agency staff have for years been on inferior conditions.

The CWU will discuss a major policy at the briefing , it also knowledges that you cannot ignore the concerns of the workforce in their own offices and are in discussions on stopping the crazy way absorption is being carried out as well as a review into the work plan. Oh and for you Dvbuk the split of full time and a part time.

Now to say there is a full time , part time split of conditions is wrong. Everyone is paid the same hourly rate and gets the same conditions based on their conditioned hours.

[fishtank]

Of course you can choose to dismiss it if you want.

I'm not dismissing it,i have an open mind over it as i do with anything posted on here without evidence.

What i do know is that,if true the only possible source is Royal Mail senior management so my first response would not be to throw my hands up in horror but to question why exactly such a controversial "end game" plan had been communicated unofficially to the union.
If i were Royal Mail and really serious about something that destructive to a union's membership levels the last people to know would be the union.

I would at least want to fully scope out the pros,cons and overall logistics involved before kicking off a war that might even be pointless if the changes wouldn't work in practice.
That's only if i was serious of course,if i just wanted to put the union on the back foot over forthcoming negotiations i would just throw it out there and hope someone took the bait.

What really interests me is whether you believe it or not.....

[dvbuk55]

The CWU will discuss a major policy at the briefing , it also knowledges that you cannot ignore the concerns of the workforce in their own offices and are in discussions on stopping the crazy way absorption is being carried out as well as a review into the work plan. Oh and for you Dvbuk the split of full time and a part time.

Now to say there is a full time , part time split of conditions is wrong. Everyone is paid the same hourly rate and gets the same conditions based on their conditioned hours.

Lets just say its taken a helluva long time for the CWU to recognise that there are not just concerns BUT serious concerns in the direction the business and indeed the CWU have embarked jointly. It also doesn't take a genius to recognise that BT2010 is a disaster. As for the FT/PT split it is so long overdue you would have to question the validity of any figures produced by RM. I don't recall there being any suggestion that the conditions of staff was different, just the hours worked and paid. You must have a very limited experience of part time staff conditions dingo because there are hardly any south of Watford - if you think they are treated the same as full timers.....................

How many times have we heard on this website - "grow a pair" - well 150 better gird their loins and start including the workforce in the battleplan.

[numberone]

In one of those odd coincidences, last night I saw an episode about Stobart and was surprised to see that they own Southend Airport , today I opened the Trucking magazine and Lo ! there is an article on Stobart.
Stobart have taken over the Tesco transport workforce in the Doncaster distribution centre and within a month put all of the drivers on a 90 day notice of termination of employment, what a nice company....not!.
I quote "According to Unite ,the transport force was transferred from Tesco to ESL (Eddie Stobart Ltd) in August and then on September the 5th the new employers issued a notice of termination of employment ,with no promise the drivers will be re-employed once the 90 days is up."

Now, if Stobart are in the market for world domination in logistics I suppose they could be waving their beaks in our direction, suppose they do run for taking us over in privatisation and win and then put all of us on a 90 day termination ,what fun that would be eh?

OMG.....I used to work for tesco middlewich they did the same to us . I was a truck driver, they sold us out to stobart four years ago....220 of us. Nothing nice to say about the experience except we managed to get our redundancy (24yrs) woo hoo . Postman now. oh well.

[Lincox]

Dingo, how can you say that there is no difference in conditions between full and part timers? Many part timers are that because this company will not upgrade their hours to full time because the company is saving a fortune keeping them on part time contracts and giving them overtime which does not then roll over into other benefits such as holiday pay, sick pay, bonuses etc. This despite joint statements that suggested the company would look to increase contractual hours where it was justifiable. When are any of the joint statements that would be beneficial to the workers going to be put into force, and what has happened to the requests for information on individual cases of bullying and harassment. Have the union now approached senior management with these cases and when will we hear the outcome?

[NWpostie]

Now let's think about this a TNT worker is on £8 an hour for working in London no pension , minimum leave , minimum sick leave , no shift allowance .

£8 an hour will not go far in London, benefits would pay more or move out of the city, only illegals and the desperate will take it and even then "when you pay peanuts you get monkeys" those with less to lose are the ones likely to pilfer mail and parcels for extra money.