Simon Thompson and his cronies - previous history with industrial relations?

[goneaway]

Well, it looks like, barring some miracle, that the announced strike dates will be going ahead, with the prospect of further strike dates, following today's mandate in the form of the second strike ballot, for further strikes over terms and conditions and change.

I just wondered whether anyone has an insight or knowledge of whether the current Royal CEO, Simon Thompson, has been involved in a major strike situation at other companies and organisations he has worked for, and if there were strikes, how long it took to resolve the issues and the outcome. Or maybe he's new to a major dispute. Checking Wikipedia, he has previously held senior roles at Apple, HSBC, lastminute.com, Morrisons and Honda Europe, as well as more recently, the UK Government's Track and Trace programme for Covid-19.

More generally, do we know why he left all of those? Because he was headhunted, or because he was pushed? It would be nice to have a better idea of what we are dealing with if the dispute becomes very protracted.

As I recall, several of the present senior management team have come over from Honda Europe - so possibly some of Simon's old chums. Does anyone know much about these characters, particularly regarding their involvement with any industrial disputes and imposing changes impacting on workers' terms and conditions?

Finally, there's a lot of talk about Simon Thompson, probably because of his prominence on Workplace and on these forums. But Royal Mail Chairman, Keith Williams, is hardly mentioned. He is famed with resolving a long running dispute with workers at British Airways when he was in charge there, so why do we think there appears to be no real effort on his part (that we know of), to try to head off the strikes and become directly involvement with the negotiations with the CWU.

Sorry to ramble on a bit, but hopefully this will open up an interesting discussion and cover some new ground.

[portadown]

There's a song about simple simon likes to play

[chickenwittle]

This will drag on , Royal Mail have been operating as if they’ve been on strike for over 2 years now and the regulator has done nothing so it’s pretty much business as usual for them.

[Woody Guthrie]

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[daveyeff]

They are like premier league managers....in charge for a short while then part company by either being sacked or moving on to another "team" with a great big pay off...like mourinho does every so often and steve bruce or big sam etc...... non of these buffoons has any idea or experience in their roles....they were just top of their class in "business school" or whichever uni they learned about management. They make me puke.

[daveyeff]

Oh, and apparently he's worth 77 million so he's probably not bothered if they sack him cos they'll compensate the c*** to add to his millions

[mw7485]

What isn't in Thompson's past is far more interesting than the slew of marketing jobs that are listed. The major experience missing appears to be any operational leadership role (COO for example), and and major change program leadership role - unless you count Test & Trace, but probably best we don't mention that. I have no idea why he is the CEO. He is completely out of his depth & experience, and it appears to be showing.

[mjd24]

Oh, and apparently he's worth 77 million so he's probably not bothered if they sack him cos they'll compensate the c*** to add to his millions

Is that true? £77million?! Surely not that much?!

[daveyeff]

a lad at graft mentioned it the other day so i googled it. and surely enough its there. Simon Thompson (Royal Mail) net worth Aug 2022. its 77.7 million.

[daveyeff]

its in dollars though, so maybe a ''little'' under