I agree with all of RM's proposals bar 1

[banner]

This is the reason Urban Pirate is so far adrift with his take on this. There is no pay rise. There is £375 to offset a tiny piece of the huge reduction you are being asked to take in your overall employment package, and you are being asked to commit to a job where you have no idea what your finish time will be. If that is not a reason to strike for a better outcome I don't know what is.

I agree and urban Pirate is a RM Troll, 1st class, gold medal, Moyà bitch.

Classy. Calling people names on the internet make you feel hard mate?

As for what the person above said about being a shareholder. Yeh we are shareholders who deserve a say in how the business is run. But as a collective we hold a minority stake. Probably greatly diminished as allot of people sold their initial batch already. WE DO NOT OWN THE BUSINESS! There also seems to be people who begrudge RM for making profits and wanting to make even bigger profits. Businesses exist to make profits and its their prerogative to increase profits if they can and RM can by doing what they propose. What RM isn't is a charity that purely exists to offer you employment. I do agree that they could and perhaps should offer a better pay package considering profits. But are these profits promised year on year? Who knows as its to early to tell. So it would be silly for RM to offer such a thing based on very little info.

The pay offer is reasonable. I even said i suspect a final offer will be slightly better but not greatly. Times have changed, the job must change. Im not saying I like any of what is happening but I am being a realists.

Ultimately its this. Its about leverage. We have very little. Dont like it? Go elsewhere then? Oh, you cant find anywhere that will A. employ you, and B. offer you anything close to what RM are offering? RM management know this and they know they will crush any rebellion as people will be forced to trickle back to work and except these changes.

They couldn't care less if you like it or not. The big bad world doesn't care about your feelings. All this crying about what the job used to be and what it will become. Cold hard truth is the majority are wholly replaceable fairly easily. So il stick with my original post. What they are offering is reasonable.

Can't say I disagree with any of this either.
I'm a current employee.
Royal Mail made 335 million profits ( the 700 is Royal Mail Group inc GLS etc)
335 million profit for a company as large as RM with such a huge network and 50% of the parcels market share is actually pretty poor.
When you joined the company you didn't sign up for life.
The world is ever changing and the CWU and many of the workforce are simply living in the past.

I voted NO and nothing anyone has written on this message board has made me even have a second thought.

I feel Terry Pullinger is leading his members into a battle that will not be won.

I feel Royal Mail will fully utilize a strike around christmas.
1) The public will turn against us.
2) Royal Mail will say any agreement we had has ended with strike action.

Remember 2008 - as Dingo said because you had gone out for 8 !!!!! days the CWU felt there was no appetite left to challenge RM over stitching up post 2008 employees pensions.

Be prepared for going on strike and coming back in to changes.
Pipeline will move.

The business will start to be broken up, or has been hinted by CWU, Royal Mail will use their huge cash flow to buy up some parcel companies and scale down this business = job losses.

I do actually understand where RM are coming from.

What can they do if the workforce and the union refuse to accept changes to the pipeine ?
Back down - that would be a very weak company.

No - any company will find another way.

Royal Mail will find another way - with or without you.
And please, please stop this "customers want there mail in the morning" talk - the bulk of them don't care.
Letters are an ever decreasing necessity now - packets are the future.

There are thousands of couriers working for companies on inferior terms to RM employees that will jump at delivering parcels for Royal Mail
Ever thought of that.
Strike at chtistmas and they probably will.

Get on with it or leave. Stark, cold reality.

ATB
Graham

This is a very hard right economic perspective which I do have some sympathy with but there are some aspects that you don't address.
One is that you are still lumping Royal Mail employees in with other courier firms when there are stark differences. No other courier employee delivers letters and walks 10 + miles in all weathers. Yes, plenty of them can deliver parcels but have nowhere near the local knowledge that posties have and cannot deliver small parcels because it wouldn't be economically viable. I would never make the mistake of underestimating these facts nor do I over estimate things, we are not doctors or teachers and the world won't fall apart without us.

All companies have to think about surviving in the real world but no business will survive if it doesn't take its staff with it during any changes. We all have experience with cowboy companies that employ poor quality employees and we know what that is like. I think the public would be concerned with cowboys controlling all the letters and small packets.

We need a yes vote along with very limited action so that minds can be focused to find a resolution.

[glfp]

This is the reason Urban Pirate is so far adrift with his take on this. There is no pay rise. There is £375 to offset a tiny piece of the huge reduction you are being asked to take in your overall employment package, and you are being asked to commit to a job where you have no idea what your finish time will be. If that is not a reason to strike for a better outcome I don't know what is.

I agree and urban Pirate is a RM Troll, 1st class, gold medal, Moyà bitch.

Classy. Calling people names on the internet make you feel hard mate?

As for what the person above said about being a shareholder. Yeh we are shareholders who deserve a say in how the business is run. But as a collective we hold a minority stake. Probably greatly diminished as allot of people sold their initial batch already. WE DO NOT OWN THE BUSINESS! There also seems to be people who begrudge RM for making profits and wanting to make even bigger profits. Businesses exist to make profits and its their prerogative to increase profits if they can and RM can by doing what they propose. What RM isn't is a charity that purely exists to offer you employment. I do agree that they could and perhaps should offer a better pay package considering profits. But are these profits promised year on year? Who knows as its to early to tell. So it would be silly for RM to offer such a thing based on very little info.

The pay offer is reasonable. I even said i suspect a final offer will be slightly better but not greatly. Times have changed, the job must change. Im not saying I like any of what is happening but I am being a realists.

Ultimately its this. Its about leverage. We have very little. Dont like it? Go elsewhere then? Oh, you cant find anywhere that will A. employ you, and B. offer you anything close to what RM are offering? RM management know this and they know they will crush any rebellion as people will be forced to trickle back to work and except these changes.

They couldn't care less if you like it or not. The big bad world doesn't care about your feelings. All this crying about what the job used to be and what it will become. Cold hard truth is the majority are wholly replaceable fairly easily. So il stick with my original post. What they are offering is reasonable.

Can't say I disagree with any of this either.
I'm a current employee.
Royal Mail made 335 million profits ( the 700 is Royal Mail Group inc GLS etc)
335 million profit for a company as large as RM with such a huge network and 50% of the parcels market share is actually pretty poor.
When you joined the company you didn't sign up for life.
The world is ever changing and the CWU and many of the workforce are simply living in the past.

I voted NO and nothing anyone has written on this message board has made me even have a second thought.

I feel Terry Pullinger is leading his members into a battle that will not be won.

I feel Royal Mail will fully utilize a strike around christmas.
1) The public will turn against us.
2) Royal Mail will say any agreement we had has ended with strike action.

Remember 2008 - as Dingo said because you had gone out for 8 !!!!! days the CWU felt there was no appetite left to challenge RM over stitching up post 2008 employees pensions.

Be prepared for going on strike and coming back in to changes.
Pipeline will move.

The business will start to be broken up, or has been hinted by CWU, Royal Mail will use their huge cash flow to buy up some parcel companies and scale down this business = job losses.

I do actually understand where RM are coming from.

What can they do if the workforce and the union refuse to accept changes to the pipeine ?
Back down - that would be a very weak company.

No - any company will find another way.

Royal Mail will find another way - with or without you.
And please, please stop this "customers want there mail in the morning" talk - the bulk of them don't care.
Letters are an ever decreasing necessity now - packets are the future.

There are thousands of couriers working for companies on inferior terms to RM employees that will jump at delivering parcels for Royal Mail
Ever thought of that.
Strike at chtistmas and they probably will.

Get on with it or leave. Stark, cold reality.

ATB
Graham

This is a very hard right economic perspective which I do have some sympathy with but there are some aspects that you don't address.
One is that you are still lumping Royal Mail employees in with other courier firms when there are stark differences. No other courier employee delivers letters and walks 10 + miles in all weathers. Yes, plenty of them can deliver parcels but have nowhere near the local knowledge that posties have and cannot deliver small parcels because it wouldn't be economically viable. I would never make the mistake of underestimating these facts nor do I over estimate things, we are not doctors or teachers and the world won't fall apart without us.

All companies have to think about surviving in the real world but no business will survive if it doesn't take its staff with it during any changes. We all have experience with cowboy companies that employ poor quality employees and we know what that is like. I think the public would be concerned with cowboys controlling all the letters and small packets.

We need a yes vote along with very limited action so that minds can be focused to find a resolution.

Reasoned response.
Regarding what couriers do / don't do - we know they don't walk 10 miles and deliver letters. They wouldn't have to.
They may just take all the packets / specials / signed for's and leave deliveries with a much reduced workload = redundancy.
Letters are declining year on year - continued redundancies - more offices merged.

Feel this will come to a head if there is a strike.
ATB
Graham

[Martin Walsh]

Lets not miss the facts last year we delivered 15 billion letters compared to 1.5 billion parcels. So when they say letters are in decline , we still deliver significantly more letters than parcels. Royal Mail"s strategy is becoming clear they really want to play at growth and that is why they still have not advertised the sunday parcel trial in the M25 after 3 years of its commencement. Additionally they seem to only want one late acceptance hub at the National Distribution Centre in Daventry instead of a number of RDCs why ? Because one hub drives laters starts whereas a hub and spoke later acceptance model would not.

Anyway the pay deal is not a pay deal when it is dependent on : Mike Newby"s letter states " A lump sum of £375 ( around 1.5% ) payable on agreement of the pay deal and related matters. This is offered on the basis of continuing a number of business as usual activities that are currently underway ( detail to be articulated during stream talks (in the business , and initiating a number of other activities which will support the development of the business going forward therefore contribute to the productivity of the business and therefore the pay of our people.

In terms of the activity we would expect to agree and initiate the following within the year :

Further trialling of methods across a much wider number of units to incorporate such as the multi bundle outdoor delivery , new indoor preparation methods ,upstream automation ie door to door collation , large letter walk sort and first wave sequencing.

Trialling of ways to alleviate the day to day pressures of lapsing and absorbtion through greater focus on our people being able to work closer together to self manage walks and groups of walks, which should in turn help to identify better ways to manage holidays and improve service to the customer.

The continued introduction of LATs this year to meet immediate customer demands and then build together an approach to delivering customer requirements around next day delivery in a cost effective manner for future years , including the use of new employess to fill the changed afternoon work requirements where appropriate.

Trials of automated hours data capture to better and more accurately understand our resoucing needs and therefore plan ahead.

continued joint work too review our attendance processes , with specific agreement around the automatic issuing of stage 1 and 2 attendance warnings and to change the 6 month reference period too 12 months.

The opportunity too take a lump sum in exchange for the current legacy payment

Than Mike Newby says : If we are able to demonstrate genuine progress and conclude trials with an agreement for implementation from April 2018 onwards for the first 4 bullets points then the business would be happy to consolidate 1.5% into base pay from 31st March 2018.

So the pay rise has more string than pinocchio. The lump sum and consolidation is dependant on us accepting later starts , one wave , merging three buddles outside on delivery , walks ownership / team working and resourcing based on PDA , Trimble and automated data capture along with seasonal variations.

Dont be fooled this is not a pay deal it is a con and needs to be rejected. Together we will get a much better deal.

[chrisj]

Yes I agree that a lump sum cannot be a pay rise - not in practice anyway. The only group that will get the so-called 1.5% are those that never do any extras - no OT of any form.

Those that do OT and Scheduled Attendance etc will not be getting a 1.5% pay rise.

That said, is it a basis for a strike and what exactly can we do about pipeline changes or later starts and the rest, do we want to run the company?

[Dorset Plodder]

Dont be fooled this is not a pay deal it is a con and needs to be rejected. Together we will get a much better deal.

I agree, and that's why I voted YES. Must have been great for Companies like Royal Mail in the Bad Old Days. Lot's of uneducated employees who were easy to lie to, and basically had to believe what the Management said, due to lack of widespread information. Nowadays it's a different ball game, but still very insulting to be treated like idiots by the Management...... Do they REALLY think we're that thick that we can't read between the lines of their crappy offer?

[fishtank]

what exactly can we do about pipeline changes or later starts and the rest, do we want to run the company?

We cannot stop change nor do we want to but we can influence that change, we can make sure later starts and pipeline changes are fully justified from a commercial growth point of view and not just short term "on paper" savings or excuses to sell off property.

We shouldn't just assume that the board know what is best for the company in the long run just because they are the bosses, their focus is far more short-term than ours and we have collective experience that they have not. I have seen more " false dawns" than most in Royal Mail, many short sighted business plans that have gone up in smoke and far from being an anchor that weighs down the company the staff and union have bailed Royal Mail out on many occasions by making them think more carefully before launching into another ill thought out half baked plan.

[postslippete]

This is the reason Urban Pirate is so far adrift with his take on this. There is no pay rise. There is £375 to offset a tiny piece of the huge reduction you are being asked to take in your overall employment package, and you are being asked to commit to a job where you have no idea what your finish time will be. If that is not a reason to strike for a better outcome I don't know what is.

I agree and urban Pirate is a RM Troll, 1st class, gold medal, Moyà bitch.

Classy. Calling people names on the internet make you feel hard mate?

As for what the person above said about being a shareholder. Yeh we are shareholders who deserve a say in how the business is run. But as a collective we hold a minority stake. Probably greatly diminished as allot of people sold their initial batch already. WE DO NOT OWN THE BUSINESS! There also seems to be people who begrudge RM for making profits and wanting to make even bigger profits. Businesses exist to make profits and its their prerogative to increase profits if they can and RM can by doing what they propose. What RM isn't is a charity that purely exists to offer you employment. I do agree that they could and perhaps should offer a better pay package considering profits. But are these profits promised year on year? Who knows as its to early to tell. So it would be silly for RM to offer such a thing based on very little info.

The pay offer is reasonable. I even said i suspect a final offer will be slightly better but not greatly. Times have changed, the job must change. Im not saying I like any of what is happening but I am being a realists.

Ultimately its this. Its about leverage. We have very little. Dont like it? Go elsewhere then? Oh, you cant find anywhere that will A. employ you, and B. offer you anything close to what RM are offering? RM management know this and they know they will crush any rebellion as people will be forced to trickle back to work and except these changes.

They couldn't care less if you like it or not. The big bad world doesn't care about your feelings. All this crying about what the job used to be and what it will become. Cold hard truth is the majority are wholly replaceable fairly easily. So il stick with my original post. What they are offering is reasonable.

Can't say I disagree with any of this either.
I'm a current employee.
Royal Mail made 335 million profits ( the 700 is Royal Mail Group inc GLS etc)
335 million profit for a company as large as RM with such a huge network and 50% of the parcels market share is actually pretty poor.
When you joined the company you didn't sign up for life.
The world is ever changing and the CWU and many of the workforce are simply living in the past.

I voted NO and nothing anyone has written on this message board has made me even have a second thought.

I feel Terry Pullinger is leading his members into a battle that will not be won.

I feel Royal Mail will fully utilize a strike around christmas.
1) The public will turn against us.
2) Royal Mail will say any agreement we had has ended with strike action.

Remember 2008 - as Dingo said because you had gone out for 8 !!!!! days the CWU felt there was no appetite left to challenge RM over stitching up post 2008 employees pensions.

Be prepared for going on strike and coming back in to changes.
Pipeline will move.

The business will start to be broken up, or has been hinted by CWU, Royal Mail will use their huge cash flow to buy up some parcel companies and scale down this business = job losses.

I do actually understand where RM are coming from.

What can they do if the workforce and the union refuse to accept changes to the pipeine ?
Back down - that would be a very weak company.

No - any company will find another way.

Royal Mail will find another way - with or without you.
And please, please stop this "customers want there mail in the morning" talk - the bulk of them don't care.
Letters are an ever decreasing necessity now - packets are the future.

There are thousands of couriers working for companies on inferior terms to RM employees that will jump at delivering parcels for Royal Mail
Ever thought of that.
Strike at chtistmas and they probably will.

Get on with it or leave. Stark, cold reality.

ATB
Graham

You don't just accept the first offer that is on the table Graham, so it would have been very foolish to have voted NO. Anyone who has ever worked at the Royal Mail for any length of time would have known that. But then again I might have been just living in the past and this company is changing and changing for good. Now where did I hear that before??

[postslippete]

Oh, and er, sadly because its not the busiest day we probably won't get the Saturday off either... ATB

[glfp]

You don't just accept the first offer that is on the table Graham, so it would have been very foolish to have voted NO. Anyone who has ever worked at the Royal Mail for any length of time would have known that. But then again I might have been just living in the past and this company is changing and changing for good. Now where did I hear that before??[/quote]

Or maybe its foolish to give Terry Pullinger and the Momentum boys a resounding yes !
Time will tell.

ATB
Graham

[jetblack]

Ultimately its this. Its about leverage. We have very little.

[UrbanPirate]

Ultimately its this. Its about leverage. We have very little.

Is that it? A picture? Try using words?

[jetblack]

Your mind, in spite of the glaringly obvious facts, is made up.

One request of you only - if this dispute comes to strike action, do not break that strike and so undermine the sacrifice of your colleagues who are, after all, sacrificing that you also might benefit.

[ScousePostie]

Working 9-5 is not the end of the world. Most of the UK workforce works this way and they haven't collapsed from exhaustion, turned to dust or into gremlins any second past 3pm

Office workers work 9-5 but probably aren’t walking 12 miles a day near continuously for 4 hours. Remember, it’s someone that is sat in a nice air conditioned office, earning a fat wedge for coming up with ideas on how we should be working. Posting letters in the winter, in the dark up to 5pm (walk ownership, who knows when you’ll finish) is not something that is safe.

[wannabeek]

Is that it? A picture? Try using words?

Ok words required? I thought it was obvious myself. You believe we have very little leverage? We process and deliver the mail. RM only functions because we process and deliver the mail.

We have more leverage over the bosses in this company than many others in other industries.

This is frequently referred to as an 'unskilled' job in my experience. Nonsense. It simply would not function with an unskilled workforce.

The crux is, in my opinion, that we are vastly underrated by our employers and treated like idiots simply because they consider our job to be 'unskilled'.

It really isn't, and I've had a lot of jobs.

*edits, sorry - fat fingers and small phone.

[ScousePostie]

One thing that got people’s backs up in our office was when Royal Mail compared us to Hermes.