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Royal Mail chairman says firm is at 'crossroads moment' as it balances union action with productivity woes
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CamPostie
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Re: Royal Mail chairman says firm is at 'crossroads moment' as it balances union action with productivity woes
What I find strange is a lot of the changes mentioned here have already been announced to the market as happening anyway haven’t they?
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HTPostman
- EX ROYAL MAIL
- Posts: 1500
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Re: Royal Mail chairman says firm is at 'crossroads moment' as it balances union action with productivity woes
Im slowly getting to that stage myself. Never thought I would - after all I ‘only’ have 8 years to go but I’m worn out by it all.Shirtbuttons wrote: ↑11 Jul 2022, 20:03We are on the verge of being history and to be quite honest lots of us really dont care anymore. The dressing room has been lost.
The 6am to 11am Mon to Fri job practically on my doorstep for just £40 a week less than my current wage is looking more appealing by the day.
The day is gonna come when we’re all gonna have to testify.
526
526
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Chelseablue
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Re: Royal Mail chairman says firm is at 'crossroads moment' as it balances union action with productivity woes
Great post Shirtbuttons !!! Spot on . Terry get this printed out now !
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POSTMAN
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Re: Royal Mail chairman says firm is at 'crossroads moment' as it balances union action with productivity woes
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/roya ... -lpqnm9mdx
Royal Mail chairman Keith Williams: If we don’t deliver change, we face extinction
The former British Airways chief wants to ride the parcels boom as letters crumple — but unions are threatening huge strikes
An airline check-in assistant, a railway worker and a postie walk into a bar. This summer of discontent is no joke, but if you were to try adding some levity to the industrial disputes that have brought swathes of Britain grinding to a halt, the punchline could well feature Keith Williams standing behind the beer pumps, arms folded.
The Royal Mail chairman has made a career out of playing the landlord in heavily unionised industries. He spent 18 years at British Airways, the last five in the top job, when he ended a row with cabin crew over pay and conditions that had cost £150 million. He chaired a review of the train network for transport secretary Grant Shapps, recommending the creation of an all-powerful body called Great British Railways and a move towards digital ticketing as standard.
But it is in his current role that Williams faces the real humdinger. Less than two years after Royal Mail agreed a deal on pay and modernisation described at the time by the Communication Workers Union (CWU) as a “landmark”, the union is balloting 115,000 postal staff on a massive strike.
Royal Mail says it has offered a 5.5 per cent pay rise, with 3.5 percentage points dependent on achieving efficiencies, such as changing the way big parcels are delivered. Terry Pullinger, the CWU’s deputy general secretary, counters that the board is mostly offering “jam tomorrow”, and even the full 5.5 per cent would be a “real-terms pay cut” given inflation is expected to hit 11 per cent. “People are furious,” he says. “They’ve totally lost the dressing room. It’s a disaster.”
The results of the ballot are due on July 19. Separately, Royal Mail managers represented by Unite have voted to strike for the first time since 1979 over 700 job cuts (the company says these were voluntary redundancies). Unite also claims that Royal Mail has imposed £7,000 pay reductions in some cases, which it denies.
Sitting in The Sunday Times newsroom, Williams, 66, does not shrink from the scale of the situation. “I’ve been very clear with investors that this is a difficult, probably the most difficult, union relationship job there is,” he says. “This is the fourth industrial dispute since privatisation and the managers have not taken action for decades. We’ve run out of road. This is a crossroads moment.
“There are 140,000 people at Royal Mail and we’re not looking for redundancies — it’s 140,000 people we can give a job to if they want a job. But it’s got to change . . . I feel deeply concerned.”
Tussles over pay and the pace of modernisation are tied up with the shifting shape of Royal Mail since its controversial 2013 float. When the 500-year-old organisation was listed for £3.3 billion by David Cameron’s coalition government, it was delivering 14 billion letters a year. For obvious reasons, that has since fallen to 8 billion. Group revenues have risen, though, from £9.2 billion to £10.8 billion in 2019-20, before the distortions of Covid. The collapse in letters has been more than offset by the growth in parcels thanks to the e-commerce boom and the success of GLS, the European delivery business Royal Mail bought in 1999.
Capitalising on the parcels revolution will be key to Royal Mail’s survival, Williams says. The 2020 ceasefire with the union, portentously dubbed Pathway to Change, covered the creation of an automated “superhub” to sort parcels destined for 24-hour and 48-hour tracked delivery. This opened in Warrington last month, but Williams claims that the CWU is preventing it from being used properly.
The original idea was that instead of sending out priority parcels via 1,200 delivery offices, with posties taking them to doorsteps on their letter rounds, the company would push them from the superhub to 350 “spoke” depots, then on to customers on dedicated parcel vans.
That would be quicker and more efficient, Williams says. But the union “does not want work to get diverted from what it calls the ‘core’, the delivery offices ... so the postman is trying to deliver letters and parcels. Knock on the door and if they’re not in, you’ve got to take it to a neighbour or whatever — all eating up time. We will never deliver quality and efficiency through trying to put everything through the core.”
This is the quid pro quo behind the company’s pay offer. Royal Mail’s wage bill is £5.5 billion. Williams says raising it by 5.5 per cent would result in a “headwind” — a cost increase — of about £250 million. In return, he wants more efficiency measures, such as full use of the first superhub (Royal Mail plans to add another).
“What is it that offsets that headwind? Previous agreements with the union have delivered pay but they’ve not delivered the productivity to offset it, in a market where our revenue has been flat. The problem with where we are is that the unions want a no-strings pay deal where nothing changes. But we need to pay for that pay deal through productivity.”
Unsurprisingly, Pullinger sees it very differently. He says the group made £758 million of operating profits last year “off the backs of our people” and has showered the City with more than £550 million of dividends and share buybacks. Posties slogged through the pandemic, risking their lives, while “shareholders, the board and the senior managers have all had their heads in the trough”.
Customers, meanwhile, are experiencing price rises: the cost of a first-class stamp went up by 12 per cent to 95p in April. Parcel prices are up 4 per cent.
Soaring inflation and the widespread return of phrases such as “wage bargaining” have had some commentators winding their watches back to the 1970s. With his tufty grey hair, shadow of a moustache and penchant for Dire Straits, Williams is clearly a man of that era.
Royal Mail’s chairman grew up in what he describes as a working-class family in Guisborough, near Middlesbrough. His father, a Welshman, managed a bakery. His mother, who came from the northeast, was an assistant in the local school.
Williams was the only one of four brothers to go to grammar school and on to university. The other three ended up working at the nearby Boulby potash mine. Williams says with a grin: “As my father used to say, ‘Don’t go down the mine, son — let the mine come to you.”
After a first-class degree, Williams began a traineeship at the accountants Arthur Andersen, where he specialised in tax. That led him to Boots, which bought Halfords while he was there (by a quirk, Williams now chairs the bike retailer). He moved to Apple, then Reckitt & Colman, and in 1998 he joined BA.
As finance director, Williams helped restructure the business after 9/11. He was an architect of its 2009 merger with Iberia and a 2010 deal to tackle its £3.7 billion pension deficit. Williams succeeded the combative Willie Walsh as chief executive in 2011; his first big achievement was settling a bitter two-year dispute with cabin crew that had seen 22 days of stoppages. He was described by Unite’s then-boss Len McCluskey — not known for his love of the C-suite — as a “decent, genuine, honest” man.
To many, that record made him an inspired choice to take over at troubled Royal Mail in 2019. Rico Back, the German-born founder of GLS, had become a lightning rod for criticism since his elevation to group chief executive a year earlier. His £6 million “golden hello” had drawn anger, as had his commute from Zurich. The hard-driving Back quickly riled Royal Mail’s unions, whose opposition led to a profit warning. “For them, Rico was the wrong CEO,” Williams says with some understatement. “An entrepreneur isn’t ideal for that environment.”
A year after Williams arrived, Back departed abruptly. Williams temporarily became executive chairman and for a while, it seemed his soothing tonic was working on the unions.
That has made the sudden downward lurch in relations all the more baffling. An analyst points out “unforced errors” such as imposing a 2 per cent pay rise this month — part of the 5.5 per cent being discussed — without CWU agreement. Pullinger describes that move as “insulting”.
Some think the deterioration is related to the appointment of Simon Thompson, previously chief product officer at Ocado, as Royal Mail’s chief executive last year. That may be why Williams is serving as its face in the dispute, including in this interview. “Simon doesn’t yet know how to talk to the unions,” says the same analyst. “He hasn’t run a highly unionised business before. We’ve taken a massive step back in making this company work.”
Williams insists that “the good thing about Simon is he gets out and about, and he talks to the union”.
The confrontation raises existential questions for Royal Mail. Should it even stay in one piece? At the time of privatisation, GLS accounted for 16 per cent of the group’s sales and made operating profits of £101 million. Last year those numbers were 33 per cent and £342 million. Shareholders such as Daniel Kretinsky, the “Czech Sphinx”, who has a 21 per cent stake, presumably might like to see GLS liberated from its dysfunctional parent.
Williams admits that GLS would be worth more on its own than Royal Mail’s entire £2.6 billion market capitalisation today. He says: “Royal Mail is a drag on the group, which is odd if you look at the assets and the brand and the quality of the business. But it goes back to [the lack of] a track record of sustainable profit.”
He does not do much to dampen speculation that a break-up could one day be on the cards. “I’ve always maintained that there are no huge synergies between the two companies,” Williams says. “They both need to prosper independently and if they can’t, we’ve said we’re not going to cross-subsidise. So there’s always been the prospect of separation.”
That would no doubt provoke a nuclear reaction from the CWU. Even Back’s attempt to put Royal Mail’s Parcelforce division into a separate legal entity three years ago resulted in a strike threat and accusations of asset stripping.
Another question involves the universal service obligation (USO), which asks Royal Mail to deliver across the UK six days a week. Media regulator Ofcom says the USO could be cut to five days, which would save Royal Mail up to £225 million a year while still meeting 97 per cent of people’s needs. “Letters have declined by 18 per cent since Covid,” Williams says. “Your average postie used to have a big bag full and he doesn’t any more. All our studies say people would be happy with a five-day rather than a six-day service.”
Again, though, the CWU is passionately committed to keeping it as it is — and any change would require government backing, which seems unlikely to come amid the current Westminster turmoil.
Royal Mail’s shares initially popped on its 2013 float. Then, the debate centred on whether taxpayers had been short-changed. Now, the reverse looks more accurate: broker AJ Bell calculates that Royal Mail investors have lost 4.5 per cent since 2013, including dividends, while the FTSE 100 has risen by 54.5 per cent.
Williams says life with the CWU is feast and famine: “During the times of feast, everything is running together. In times of famine, things rapidly slow down. You see that with the parcel hub.”
If he cannot work out how to share the contents of the trough to the union’s liking, this could be the hungriest winter yet.
The life of Keith Williams
Working day
Royal Mail’s chairman wakes at 5am and catches up on emails and the news.
Keith Williams divides his time between the delivery service, chairing the bike retailer Halfords and advising ministers on the railways. He spends four days a week on Royal Mail.
Downtime
When he is working from its head office in central London, he catches the train from his home near Windsor, arriving by 7am. He tends to work until about 7pm.
Williams likes to get out on his electric bike. He and his wife also enjoy gardening. “I spent the spring cultivating just about everything, and then the deer got in and ate the lot ... We’ve got a cat, but it didn’t
Royal Mail chairman Keith Williams: If we don’t deliver change, we face extinction
The former British Airways chief wants to ride the parcels boom as letters crumple — but unions are threatening huge strikes
An airline check-in assistant, a railway worker and a postie walk into a bar. This summer of discontent is no joke, but if you were to try adding some levity to the industrial disputes that have brought swathes of Britain grinding to a halt, the punchline could well feature Keith Williams standing behind the beer pumps, arms folded.
The Royal Mail chairman has made a career out of playing the landlord in heavily unionised industries. He spent 18 years at British Airways, the last five in the top job, when he ended a row with cabin crew over pay and conditions that had cost £150 million. He chaired a review of the train network for transport secretary Grant Shapps, recommending the creation of an all-powerful body called Great British Railways and a move towards digital ticketing as standard.
But it is in his current role that Williams faces the real humdinger. Less than two years after Royal Mail agreed a deal on pay and modernisation described at the time by the Communication Workers Union (CWU) as a “landmark”, the union is balloting 115,000 postal staff on a massive strike.
Royal Mail says it has offered a 5.5 per cent pay rise, with 3.5 percentage points dependent on achieving efficiencies, such as changing the way big parcels are delivered. Terry Pullinger, the CWU’s deputy general secretary, counters that the board is mostly offering “jam tomorrow”, and even the full 5.5 per cent would be a “real-terms pay cut” given inflation is expected to hit 11 per cent. “People are furious,” he says. “They’ve totally lost the dressing room. It’s a disaster.”
The results of the ballot are due on July 19. Separately, Royal Mail managers represented by Unite have voted to strike for the first time since 1979 over 700 job cuts (the company says these were voluntary redundancies). Unite also claims that Royal Mail has imposed £7,000 pay reductions in some cases, which it denies.
Sitting in The Sunday Times newsroom, Williams, 66, does not shrink from the scale of the situation. “I’ve been very clear with investors that this is a difficult, probably the most difficult, union relationship job there is,” he says. “This is the fourth industrial dispute since privatisation and the managers have not taken action for decades. We’ve run out of road. This is a crossroads moment.
“There are 140,000 people at Royal Mail and we’re not looking for redundancies — it’s 140,000 people we can give a job to if they want a job. But it’s got to change . . . I feel deeply concerned.”
Tussles over pay and the pace of modernisation are tied up with the shifting shape of Royal Mail since its controversial 2013 float. When the 500-year-old organisation was listed for £3.3 billion by David Cameron’s coalition government, it was delivering 14 billion letters a year. For obvious reasons, that has since fallen to 8 billion. Group revenues have risen, though, from £9.2 billion to £10.8 billion in 2019-20, before the distortions of Covid. The collapse in letters has been more than offset by the growth in parcels thanks to the e-commerce boom and the success of GLS, the European delivery business Royal Mail bought in 1999.
Capitalising on the parcels revolution will be key to Royal Mail’s survival, Williams says. The 2020 ceasefire with the union, portentously dubbed Pathway to Change, covered the creation of an automated “superhub” to sort parcels destined for 24-hour and 48-hour tracked delivery. This opened in Warrington last month, but Williams claims that the CWU is preventing it from being used properly.
The original idea was that instead of sending out priority parcels via 1,200 delivery offices, with posties taking them to doorsteps on their letter rounds, the company would push them from the superhub to 350 “spoke” depots, then on to customers on dedicated parcel vans.
That would be quicker and more efficient, Williams says. But the union “does not want work to get diverted from what it calls the ‘core’, the delivery offices ... so the postman is trying to deliver letters and parcels. Knock on the door and if they’re not in, you’ve got to take it to a neighbour or whatever — all eating up time. We will never deliver quality and efficiency through trying to put everything through the core.”
This is the quid pro quo behind the company’s pay offer. Royal Mail’s wage bill is £5.5 billion. Williams says raising it by 5.5 per cent would result in a “headwind” — a cost increase — of about £250 million. In return, he wants more efficiency measures, such as full use of the first superhub (Royal Mail plans to add another).
“What is it that offsets that headwind? Previous agreements with the union have delivered pay but they’ve not delivered the productivity to offset it, in a market where our revenue has been flat. The problem with where we are is that the unions want a no-strings pay deal where nothing changes. But we need to pay for that pay deal through productivity.”
Unsurprisingly, Pullinger sees it very differently. He says the group made £758 million of operating profits last year “off the backs of our people” and has showered the City with more than £550 million of dividends and share buybacks. Posties slogged through the pandemic, risking their lives, while “shareholders, the board and the senior managers have all had their heads in the trough”.
Customers, meanwhile, are experiencing price rises: the cost of a first-class stamp went up by 12 per cent to 95p in April. Parcel prices are up 4 per cent.
Soaring inflation and the widespread return of phrases such as “wage bargaining” have had some commentators winding their watches back to the 1970s. With his tufty grey hair, shadow of a moustache and penchant for Dire Straits, Williams is clearly a man of that era.
Royal Mail’s chairman grew up in what he describes as a working-class family in Guisborough, near Middlesbrough. His father, a Welshman, managed a bakery. His mother, who came from the northeast, was an assistant in the local school.
Williams was the only one of four brothers to go to grammar school and on to university. The other three ended up working at the nearby Boulby potash mine. Williams says with a grin: “As my father used to say, ‘Don’t go down the mine, son — let the mine come to you.”
After a first-class degree, Williams began a traineeship at the accountants Arthur Andersen, where he specialised in tax. That led him to Boots, which bought Halfords while he was there (by a quirk, Williams now chairs the bike retailer). He moved to Apple, then Reckitt & Colman, and in 1998 he joined BA.
As finance director, Williams helped restructure the business after 9/11. He was an architect of its 2009 merger with Iberia and a 2010 deal to tackle its £3.7 billion pension deficit. Williams succeeded the combative Willie Walsh as chief executive in 2011; his first big achievement was settling a bitter two-year dispute with cabin crew that had seen 22 days of stoppages. He was described by Unite’s then-boss Len McCluskey — not known for his love of the C-suite — as a “decent, genuine, honest” man.
To many, that record made him an inspired choice to take over at troubled Royal Mail in 2019. Rico Back, the German-born founder of GLS, had become a lightning rod for criticism since his elevation to group chief executive a year earlier. His £6 million “golden hello” had drawn anger, as had his commute from Zurich. The hard-driving Back quickly riled Royal Mail’s unions, whose opposition led to a profit warning. “For them, Rico was the wrong CEO,” Williams says with some understatement. “An entrepreneur isn’t ideal for that environment.”
A year after Williams arrived, Back departed abruptly. Williams temporarily became executive chairman and for a while, it seemed his soothing tonic was working on the unions.
That has made the sudden downward lurch in relations all the more baffling. An analyst points out “unforced errors” such as imposing a 2 per cent pay rise this month — part of the 5.5 per cent being discussed — without CWU agreement. Pullinger describes that move as “insulting”.
Some think the deterioration is related to the appointment of Simon Thompson, previously chief product officer at Ocado, as Royal Mail’s chief executive last year. That may be why Williams is serving as its face in the dispute, including in this interview. “Simon doesn’t yet know how to talk to the unions,” says the same analyst. “He hasn’t run a highly unionised business before. We’ve taken a massive step back in making this company work.”
Williams insists that “the good thing about Simon is he gets out and about, and he talks to the union”.
The confrontation raises existential questions for Royal Mail. Should it even stay in one piece? At the time of privatisation, GLS accounted for 16 per cent of the group’s sales and made operating profits of £101 million. Last year those numbers were 33 per cent and £342 million. Shareholders such as Daniel Kretinsky, the “Czech Sphinx”, who has a 21 per cent stake, presumably might like to see GLS liberated from its dysfunctional parent.
Williams admits that GLS would be worth more on its own than Royal Mail’s entire £2.6 billion market capitalisation today. He says: “Royal Mail is a drag on the group, which is odd if you look at the assets and the brand and the quality of the business. But it goes back to [the lack of] a track record of sustainable profit.”
He does not do much to dampen speculation that a break-up could one day be on the cards. “I’ve always maintained that there are no huge synergies between the two companies,” Williams says. “They both need to prosper independently and if they can’t, we’ve said we’re not going to cross-subsidise. So there’s always been the prospect of separation.”
That would no doubt provoke a nuclear reaction from the CWU. Even Back’s attempt to put Royal Mail’s Parcelforce division into a separate legal entity three years ago resulted in a strike threat and accusations of asset stripping.
Another question involves the universal service obligation (USO), which asks Royal Mail to deliver across the UK six days a week. Media regulator Ofcom says the USO could be cut to five days, which would save Royal Mail up to £225 million a year while still meeting 97 per cent of people’s needs. “Letters have declined by 18 per cent since Covid,” Williams says. “Your average postie used to have a big bag full and he doesn’t any more. All our studies say people would be happy with a five-day rather than a six-day service.”
Again, though, the CWU is passionately committed to keeping it as it is — and any change would require government backing, which seems unlikely to come amid the current Westminster turmoil.
Royal Mail’s shares initially popped on its 2013 float. Then, the debate centred on whether taxpayers had been short-changed. Now, the reverse looks more accurate: broker AJ Bell calculates that Royal Mail investors have lost 4.5 per cent since 2013, including dividends, while the FTSE 100 has risen by 54.5 per cent.
Williams says life with the CWU is feast and famine: “During the times of feast, everything is running together. In times of famine, things rapidly slow down. You see that with the parcel hub.”
If he cannot work out how to share the contents of the trough to the union’s liking, this could be the hungriest winter yet.
The life of Keith Williams
Working day
Royal Mail’s chairman wakes at 5am and catches up on emails and the news.
Keith Williams divides his time between the delivery service, chairing the bike retailer Halfords and advising ministers on the railways. He spends four days a week on Royal Mail.
Downtime
When he is working from its head office in central London, he catches the train from his home near Windsor, arriving by 7am. He tends to work until about 7pm.
Williams likes to get out on his electric bike. He and his wife also enjoy gardening. “I spent the spring cultivating just about everything, and then the deer got in and ate the lot ... We’ve got a cat, but it didn’t
I Wrote-During Covid-Which is still relevant now
It's good to get these types of threads, the ridiculous my manager said bollox, so we can reassure ourselves that while the world is falling apart, Royal Mail managers are still being the low-life C***S they have always been.
My BFF Clash
The daily grind of having to argue your case with an intellectual pigmy of a line manager is physically and emotionally draining.
It's good to get these types of threads, the ridiculous my manager said bollox, so we can reassure ourselves that while the world is falling apart, Royal Mail managers are still being the low-life C***S they have always been.
My BFF Clash
The daily grind of having to argue your case with an intellectual pigmy of a line manager is physically and emotionally draining.
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Clappedoutpostie
- Posts: 1232
- Joined: 05 Nov 2021, 21:46
- Gender: Male
Re: Royal Mail chairman says firm is at 'crossroads moment' as it balances union action with productivity woes
You missed the vans at Xmas.hazzeem025 wrote: ↑11 Jul 2022, 19:22So Simon basically got £140,000 bonus for,
Implementing the shitest revisions up and down the country we've ever seen? I mean ours was so s**t after the planner had made such a mess of it all, we binned his and did our own.
And
A recruitment freeze. Thousands of duties failing week in, week out because of his and his boards decisions. Yet they reward it? Ofcom have just fined us and they continue with this bullshit!!!
How stupid can the media really be? Even the managers have voted to go on strike!!! f**k me, that says it all doesn't it?
It's all about shareholders dividend return.
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Acca Dacca
- Posts: 3178
- Joined: 16 Aug 2009, 17:13
- Gender: Male
Re: Royal Mail chairman says firm is at 'crossroads moment' as it balances union action with productivity woes
“Your average postie used to have a big bag full and he doesn’t any more''
Thats true. We now have 8 big bags full.
Thats true. We now have 8 big bags full.
If you tolerate this, then your paid break will be next
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aiden01
- MAIL CENTRES/PROCESSING
- Posts: 7001
- Joined: 27 Feb 2013, 21:43
- Gender: Male
Re: Royal Mail chairman says firm is at 'crossroads moment' as it balances union action with productivity woes
Prob meant letters only they don't exist anymore lol.Acca Dacca wrote: ↑11 Jul 2022, 23:06“Your average postie used to have a big bag full and he doesn’t any more''
Thats true. We now have 8 big bags full.
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Tinoblade
- Posts: 252
- Joined: 13 Jan 2018, 19:51
- Gender: Male
Re: Royal Mail chairman says firm is at 'crossroads moment' as it balances union action with productivity woes
So us threatening IA is hugely damaging to the company.
But then I guess it's ok for the Chairman to write an article basically saying we're screwed?
But then I guess it's ok for the Chairman to write an article basically saying we're screwed?
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kazardaimenu
- Posts: 1391
- Joined: 13 Apr 2022, 19:11
- Gender: Male
Re: Royal Mail chairman says firm is at 'crossroads moment' as it balances union action with productivity woes
Only 8?!Acca Dacca wrote: ↑11 Jul 2022, 23:06“Your average postie used to have a big bag full and he doesn’t any more''
Thats true. We now have 8 big bags full.
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TopperGas
- Posts: 3151
- Joined: 13 Feb 2021, 22:46
- Gender: Male
Re: Royal Mail chairman says firm is at 'crossroads moment' as it balances union action with productivity woes
"Keith Williams divides his time between the delivery service, chairing the bike retailer Halfords and advising ministers on the railways. He spends four days a week on Royal Mail."
Sounds like he's making a complete b@lls up of 2 of 3 jobs then?
What I don't understand is if you read this article it seems the crux of the present issues are moving to the 350 parcel hubs, but that doesn't even form part of the present pay/need to change talks, that seems a completely separate issue?
Sounds like he's making a complete b@lls up of 2 of 3 jobs then?
What I don't understand is if you read this article it seems the crux of the present issues are moving to the 350 parcel hubs, but that doesn't even form part of the present pay/need to change talks, that seems a completely separate issue?
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Deadly
- Posts: 698
- Joined: 12 Jul 2014, 21:38
- Gender: Male
Re: Royal Mail chairman says firm is at 'crossroads moment' as it balances union action with productivity woes
“There are 140,000 people at Royal Mail and we’re not looking for redundancies"
That's going to disappoint a lot of people.
That's going to disappoint a lot of people.
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Numberone63
- EX ROYAL MAIL
- Posts: 621
- Joined: 05 Sep 2017, 18:38
- Gender: Male
Re: Royal Mail chairman says firm is at 'crossroads moment' as it balances union action with productivity woes
Ahhhhhhhh. It all makes sense now. There are 140,000 people at Royal Mail and uncle Simon got £140,000 bonus. So he took a pound for each of us. Ahhh come on you can’t deny the guy a cheeky pound off us all. 
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priority102
- EX ROYAL MAIL
- Posts: 520
- Joined: 04 Aug 2009, 18:57
- Gender: Female
Re: Royal Mail chairman says firm is at 'crossroads moment' as it balances union action with productivity woes
I did 25 years and made the best decision last year.....I got out.HTPostman wrote: ↑11 Jul 2022, 20:52Im slowly getting to that stage myself. Never thought I would - after all I ‘only’ have 8 years to go but I’m worn out by it all.Shirtbuttons wrote: ↑11 Jul 2022, 20:03We are on the verge of being history and to be quite honest lots of us really dont care anymore. The dressing room has been lost.
The 6am to 11am Mon to Fri job practically on my doorstep for just £40 a week less than my current wage is looking more appealing by the day.
I too was just worn out by everything associated with the job as it is now, and my life has completely changed...for the better. I have a life, no longer knackered most of the time, weekends off, no backstabbing and bitching over something as trivial as 30 minutes docket, and an employer who treats their staff like people not numbers.
You say you are going to lose £40 per week....take off the less tax and NI you will pay, and once you are in and done your probationary period who knows where it will go. One life - live it!
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Sir Henry
- Posts: 1316
- Joined: 24 Oct 2014, 00:33
- Gender: Male
Re: Royal Mail chairman says firm is at 'crossroads moment' as it balances union action with productivity woes
So while working for RM he chairs a company involved in our cycle to work scheme and the railways who may well benefit from RM switching transporting mail to trains from planes? Conflict of interest?TopperGas wrote: ↑12 Jul 2022, 08:34"Keith Williams divides his time between the delivery service, chairing the bike retailer Halfords and advising ministers on the railways. He spends four days a week on Royal Mail."
Sounds like he's making a complete b@lls up of 2 of 3 jobs then?
What I don't understand is if you read this article it seems the crux of the present issues are moving to the 350 parcel hubs, but that doesn't even form part of the present pay/need to change talks, that seems a completely separate issue?
"A third of the world's farmland is now useless due to soil degradation, yet we still keep producing mouths to feed. And what's you answer to that? Energy saving lightbulbs?"
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britwrit
- MAIL CENTRES/PROCESSING
- Posts: 956
- Joined: 22 Apr 2007, 15:12
Re: Royal Mail chairman says firm is at 'crossroads moment' as it balances union action with productivity woes
I never understand these types of articles. If you were a customer, be it a big retailer or someone who just wanted to send stuff, would you want to use us? We're inefficent, we're union-bound, posties are bothering your neighbour when they could be delivering to you, etc. etc.
When you have the heads of the company talking us down, don't be surprised when the share price tanks. And when the big shippers start looking elsewhere.
When you have the heads of the company talking us down, don't be surprised when the share price tanks. And when the big shippers start looking elsewhere.