Poll : Are we all ready for a National Strike?

[SierraOscarBravo]

One only needs to look at the rapid demise of the coal industry and the loss of thousands of jobs to see the consequences of taking industrial action and being led into oblivion by militant union leaders.

Hurling abusive terms around at those of us who will never support this course of action simply reflects the childish school playground attitudes of those who are sadly deluded into thinking that a "them and us" attitude will provide the best outcome.

Those of us who have had a life and alternative careers outside of the Royal Mail can understand why the business must change and must change fast. The poster who sneered that he couldn't care less about the public as they won't support industrial action anyway speaks volumes about the mentality of those prepared to cut off the hand of those that feed them. Without the public (our customers) we would be nothing. Make no mistake once the public stops sending mail like Christmas cards and parcels through Royal Mail because our posties have opted to hold them to ransom, there will be no going back. Once that business transfers away from Royal Mail to other companies it will be lost forever and far from protecting jobs it will result in massive job losses.

So if that is what you want then go for it. Bravo for you in getting one up on Royal Mail. When the business is then forced to shed jobs in the aftermath of your industrial action don't come crying on here about how you have been treated.

[osgoody1970]

whilst I agree with you regarding the miners, we now import our electricity from france!!! so that's where you want to go?? as regards militant union leaders, not in the CWU,not in my experience, over 40 years in the business, what we are now seeing, is militant bosses in royal mail, not the other way round!! this country has always supported business to the detriment of our unions, the street has to be two way, not just in favour of bosses, that's why, we have the most draconian trade union laws in Europe and they want more!!! your posts cause me much frustration, whilst your in favour of dumbing down terms and conditions for the ordainary worker, the people at the top give themselves massive pay increases and shares, not to forget pension incentives, I think Moya got as much pension for two years with royal mail as I got for 40 years, that has to be wrong, i'm all for rewarding people at the top, but lets put it in perspective, if a boss is on great money and rewards for doing well, it should not stop there, so should the shop floor worker, who is driving that profit, i'll never forget the boss of costa coffee, saying he couldn't afford to pay his staff the minimum wage of £6.50p an hour, whilst paying himself £200.000 a week!!!! and that's the way, its gone recently, no wonder corbyn did so well in the election, so many people were left behind in the last two decades, especially in housing!!!so in conclusion, if you work hard, you should be paid well, not minimum wage, which is the aspiration of royal mail, and boy oh boy, the delivery postman work hard....trust me.

[Phantom]

One only needs to look at the rapid demise of the coal industry and the loss of thousands of jobs to see the consequences of taking industrial action and being led into oblivion by militant union leaders.

Hurling abusive terms around at those of us who will never support this course of action simply reflects the childish school playground attitudes of those who are sadly deluded into thinking that a "them and us" attitude will provide the best outcome.

Those of us who have had a life and alternative careers outside of the Royal Mail can understand why the business must change and must change fast. The poster who sneered that he couldn't care less about the public as they won't support industrial action anyway speaks volumes about the mentality of those prepared to cut off the hand of those that feed them. Without the public (our customers) we would be nothing. Make no mistake once the public stops sending mail like Christmas cards and parcels through Royal Mail because our posties have opted to hold them to ransom, there will be no going back. Once that business transfers away from Royal Mail to other companies it will be lost forever and far from protecting jobs it will result in massive job losses.

So if that is what you want then go for it. Bravo for you in getting one up on Royal Mail. When the business is then forced to shed jobs in the aftermath of your industrial action don't come crying on here about how you have been treated.

There is a fine line between what the industry needs and what the business wants - at the moment we are running on what the business wants and they want to boost profit, they don't care about anything else, they are not interested in you or me as an employee whether you're a OPG or a manager the bottom line is profit at ALL costs - now the decisions taken by the company are not great and most of us if we had our own businesses would not run them in the same way as RM is being run, no two days are the same especially in delivery but we have a set time to do the job in, some days it can be done and others it can't. If we use the example of lets say a duty delivers 1000 items a day, every day of the week then you could set a time to it but it doesn't work like that and this is RM's downfall. Everything else in RM has a rate, we have IPS rates, Prep rates, Walking speed rate, Break time, Start time and finish time but we do not have a set items per day rate, we could do but Management choose not to.
I cannot sit back and watch a company I've worked for go down drain for a sake of a few senior executives who want to milk it dry for their own gain and then piss off and retire, you might want to do that but I don't.

[fishtank]

There is no shame in fear but to attempt to transfer that fear to others is pretty despicable. There are highly paid people whose job it is to keep Royal Mail going, a major part of that job is to ensure that the workforce is engaged, committed and productive.

That obviously isn't the case in royal mail and if the staff (not the union) vote for industrial action the blame for that lies squarely at the feet of business and its failure to treat its staff with respect. If the business suffers due to industrial confrontation only someone with no idea of cause, effect and responsibility would blame the staff. This politically driven illiterate ideology that strikes are the fault of the union and its members completely removes any responsibility from the employer to maintain good industrial relations. Do engaged, committed and productive staff vote to strike?

[Bert66]

There is no shame in fear but to attempt to transfer that fear to others is pretty despicable. There are highly paid people whose job it is to keep Royal Mail going, a major part of that job is to ensure that the workforce is engaged, committed and productive.

That obviously isn't the case in royal mail and if the staff (not the union) vote for industrial action the blame for that lies squarely at the feet of business and its failure to treat its staff with respect. If the business suffers due to industrial confrontation only someone with no idea of cause, effect and responsibility would blame the staff. This politically driven illiterate ideology that strikes are the fault of the union and its members completely removes any responsibility from the employer to maintain good industrial relations. Do engaged, committed and productive staff vote to strike?

[SierraOscarBravo]

There is no shame in fear but to attempt to transfer that fear to others is pretty despicable. There are highly paid people whose job it is to keep Royal Mail going, a major part of that job is to ensure that the workforce is engaged, committed and productive.

That obviously isn't the case in royal mail and if the staff (not the union) vote for industrial action the blame for that lies squarely at the feet of business and its failure to treat its staff with respect. If the business suffers due to industrial confrontation only someone with no idea of cause, effect and responsibility would blame the staff. This politically driven illiterate ideology that strikes are the fault of the union and its members completely removes any responsibility from the employer to maintain good industrial relations. Do engaged, committed and productive staff vote to strike?

Bury your heads in the sand if you wish but industrial action will only come about if union members dictated to by their bully boys masters vote for it. Whatever your beef is with management throwing a hissy fit and downing tools is not the way to deal with things.

The coal industry like many of our industries were decimated by the politically driven actions of militant trade union leaders who succeeded only in putting thousands of their members out of work. Union leaders today are raking in 6 figure salaries so the notion they are representing you is utter piffle.

[daveyeff]

the more I read of SOBS post, the more I believe, he has to be a manager!!!surely no postperson would believe what royal mail are after, is acceptable, if dialing down terms and conditions in the workplace, is the way forward and its all the unions fault for demanding far too much has to be delusional!!!!

I was thinking the same, but probably a senior one at that!!. even lino;s and DOMs are going to have their pensions raped and T&Cs savaged. who in their right mind would think this is acceptable?? he still hasn't answered a posters question of what he thinks we should do, if he thinks we shouldn't strike??....just accept RMs gigantic piss take??? f**k OFF.

[Daniel-san]

i agree with striking and battling for whats right for us but....
Two weeks, even One week with no pay would severely destroy me & my family

This is a hard decision for me.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

There is no shame in fear but to attempt to transfer that fear to others is pretty despicable. There are highly paid people whose job it is to keep Royal Mail going, a major part of that job is to ensure that the workforce is engaged, committed and productive.

That obviously isn't the case in royal mail and if the staff (not the union) vote for industrial action the blame for that lies squarely at the feet of business and its failure to treat its staff with respect. If the business suffers due to industrial confrontation only someone with no idea of cause, effect and responsibility would blame the staff. This politically driven illiterate ideology that strikes are the fault of the union and its members completely removes any responsibility from the employer to maintain good industrial relations. Do engaged, committed and productive staff vote to strike?

Bury your heads in the sand if you wish but industrial action will only come about if union members dictated to by their bully boys masters vote for it. Whatever your beef is with management throwing a hissy fit and downing tools is not the way to deal with things.

The coal industry like many of our industries were decimated by the politically driven actions of militant trade union leaders who succeeded only in putting thousands of their members out of work. Union leaders today are raking in 6 figure salaries so the notion they are representing you is utter piffle.

You may consider this abuse, but Militant Union bosses are not the only blinkered ones. The Union and Royal Mail are playing hardball, and you want the workforce to roll over and live in poverty when retired (I won't I have 3 pensions not including RMs) and to save the business take a pay cut for more work, when the CEO has taken an extra job and has had a pay rise of £300k. I am frankly sick of us being described as grabbers and militant when we ask for something in return for our hard work, but when the bosses do it they are praised and lauded.

There won't be a strike if both sides compromise, but RM won't compromise without a strong ballot backing them. A strike is not inevitable, but a ballot is.

[fishtank]

union members dictated to by their bully boys masters

You don't know much about the CWU do you?

[fishtank]

i agree with striking and battling for whats right for us but....
Two weeks, even One week with no pay would severely destroy me & my family

This is a hard decision for me.

It's not going to be that way, even if it gets to the point of a strike it will only be one day a week and probably not every week, that's how it's been in the past few national strikes and the union is not stupid enough to repeat 1971 and have members starved back to work on poorer terms than they started with.

[jetblack]

One only needs to look at the rapid demise of the coal industry and the loss of thousands of jobs to see the consequences of taking industrial action

You are getting cause and effect the wrong way round there. The 1984 strike was to protect the industry from pit closures (that were already planned by the Conservative Govt. - see the Ridley Report of IIRC 1978 - for largely political (not economic) reasons)
And whilst that particular strike was unsuccesful (and those working through the strike in Nottinghamshire didn't help), lets not forget the vast improvements in mineworkers terms and conditions over the century preceding 1984 that were as a direct result of industrial action - including, but not exclusive to, strike action.

[daveyeff]

while we are on this topic, is it end of july/beginning of august the CWU have given RM to come up with an acceptable offer before we are balloted, or the end of august?...teebs, fish, dingo, anybody??

[bertieboy]

One only needs to look at the rapid demise of the coal industry and the loss of thousands of jobs to see the consequences of taking industrial action and being led into oblivion by militant union leaders.

Hurling abusive terms around at those of us who will never support this course of action simply reflects the childish school playground attitudes of those who are sadly deluded into thinking that a "them and us" attitude will provide the best outcome.

Those of us who have had a life and alternative careers outside of the Royal Mail can understand why the business must change and must change fast. The poster who sneered that he couldn't care less about the public as they won't support industrial action anyway speaks volumes about the mentality of those prepared to cut off the hand of those that feed them. Without the public (our customers) we would be nothing. Make no mistake once the public stops sending mail like Christmas cards and parcels through Royal Mail because our posties have opted to hold them to ransom, there will be no going back. Once that business transfers away from Royal Mail to other companies it will be lost forever and far from protecting jobs it will result in massive job losses.

So if that is what you want then go for it. Bravo for you in getting one up on Royal Mail. When the business is then forced to shed jobs in the aftermath of your industrial action don't come crying on here about how you have been treated.

OK Moya, you've made your point, or, alternatively, send this in to the Courier, you're guaranteed 'Star Letter' status .

[britwrit]

i agree with striking and battling for whats right for us but....
Two weeks, even One week with no pay would severely destroy me & my family

This is a hard decision for me.

It's not going to be that way, even if it gets to the point of a strike it will only be one day a week and probably not every week, that's how it's been in the past few national strikes and the union is not stupid enough to repeat 1971 and have members starved back to work on poorer terms than they started with.

As everyone knows who's been through this before, we'll have weeks of the CWU threatening to ballot. Then once the ballot comes back, more weeks of threatening to do a one-day strike. Then the we'll supposedly make progress in the talks, and the business will extend the remit we got in the ballot....

Maybe we'll see something in early October. But that's just a guess.