Times - Stand up Posties & deliver your message

Stormproof · Post by **Stormproof** » 12 Oct 2007, 06:41

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 641499.ece

Call me old-fashioned, but can I just say, taking everything into consideration as reasonably as possible: Victory to the Striking Posties! I realise that this is unlikely to be a popular view of the postal dispute. In a world where we are all supposed to think as individual consumers, the default reaction is to moan about the strikes delaying our junk mail and gas bills. Our Labour Prime Minister, eager to be seen as the consumersâ€™ champion, has told the greedy strikers to be grateful for what they are given.

But when a national strike is about as rare as a Penny Black, there must be something seriously wrong for up to 130,000 moderate workers to walk out together. And what is at stake here is a postal service that is rather more than a business model in British life.

The Post Office remains one of the few institutions that still helps to bind communities together. Unlike the anonymous Fed-Ex guy, the local postie is likely to be your neighbour, or the father of your childâ€™s classmate. Many people still know them by name.

Of course these ties have been weakened. All the more reason to try to cultivate what remains, not trash them. There are loud complaints about plans to close local post office counters, so why donâ€™t we also stand up against the threat to posties? It is already a hard enough job to do. I know, because I was that postal worker. Almost 30 years ago I spent nine months in a Surrey sorting office. It was arduous work, long on hours and short on rewards, where postmen needed overtime just to pay the bills and the grind was broken only by graveyard humour, dirty stories and the occasional outbreak of violence.
Background

Many British posties will recognise the sentiment of the Los Angeles postal-worker-turned-novelist Charles Bukowski, who in his forties decided he had â€œtwo choices â€“ stay in the post office and go crazy . . . or stay out here and play at writer and starve. I have decided to starveâ€

tyconuk · Post by **tyconuk** » 12 Oct 2007, 07:49

Some more of the truth, sorry alot of truth is coming out
its about time!
pity that we have had too lose up to 8 days pay!
and maybe more!
Thanks for a great article Nick Hume

dididw · Post by **dididw** » 12 Oct 2007, 09:55

ive just replied to the have your say under the article...I hope it will be used.

robmacca · Post by **robmacca** » 12 Oct 2007, 15:00

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this article - what is more surprising is that it came from The Times and not The Guardian!

Sadly, the comments so far from the public are not very favourable towards posties.

Time to leave a comment..............

mh80 · Post by **mh80** » 12 Oct 2007, 15:04

robmacca wrote:Thoroughly enjoyed reading this article - what is more surprising is that it came from The Times and not The Guardian!

Sadly, the comments so far from the public are not very favourable towards posties.

Time to leave a comment..............

Thats what I thought!! The Times? Not seen many comments so far anywhere that are favourable to posties tbh

meweavy · Post by **meweavy** » 12 Oct 2007, 15:08

mh80 wrote:
robmacca wrote:Thoroughly enjoyed reading this article - what is more surprising is that it came from The Times and not The Guardian!

Sadly, the comments so far from the public are not very favourable towards posties.

Time to leave a comment..............
Thats what I thought!! The Times? Not seen many comments so far anywhere that are favourable to posties tbh

thats because they dont know the full details.all they are concerned with is getting thier post,nothing else.

and if royal mail are letting on to the rags that we are only striking because of a pay rise,they are going to carry on thinking that way..

IWW Fellow Worker · Post by **IWW Fellow Worker** » 12 Oct 2007, 15:44

A Rupert Murdoch paper taking the side of the workers? They'll sack the editor any day now.

F0zziebear · Post by **F0zziebear** » 12 Oct 2007, 15:45

The Post Office brings communities together. Royal Mail letters collects and delivers millions of items of direct mail, some communications and parcels.

When will people finally realise there is a difference between these two businesses/services.

The Post Office is unlikely to make money and should be protected as a public service and supported as such, but run in a way that it looks and feels modern.

Royal Mail still provides a public service, but propped up under a huge commercial operation. Can we stop trying to be both at the same time, and generally failing to be either!

venger · Post by **venger** » 12 Oct 2007, 16:00

Nice article, but again comments left by joe public are disheartening.
Now it seems not only am I a workshy postie who finishes early and earns great money and I work 50% less hours than most, but I am also unskilled.
Somebody hand me a noose.

"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen"
What about this for a change?
"If you can't stand the heat, fix the thermostat"

vigilante · Post by **vigilante** » 12 Oct 2007, 16:04

They don't see the full picture and some don't want to.
Fed with hearing that we are unskilled labour and well paid for it!!!!
When they have to pay three quid for a delivery to a rural or have to pick their mail up they might understand!!!-----------too late!
It gets to me that they will not see past their view that we are greedy antogonists.
One day they will see, when we are like the gas, electricity, phones---a faceless company not concerned with the public
perhaps what we tried to fight for.
As i have mentioned-----TOO LATE.

ROYALMAILCHAT

Times - Stand up Posties & deliver your message

Times - Stand up Posties & deliver your message

re: Confusing the Post Office and the Royal Mail

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