MANDY HAS TO DELIVER - PAUL ROUTLEDGE

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-storie ... -21733727/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Postmen and women have given their union leaders a mandate for a national strike. I sincerely hope they do not have to use it, but I will back them if they do.

Royal Mail staff have been kicked from pillar to postbox for years by company chief Adam Crozier who earns more in a year than they do in a lifetime.

Their patience with the bosses is exhausted, as the rash of local strikes in recent weeks has shown. Posties have to lose money to bring home to the public just how crap the company's management is.

The initiative must now pass to the government, specifically to Business Secretary Lord Mandelson who tried, unsuccessfully, to flog off a large chunk of Royal Mail in the summer. Crozier and his fat cat executives demand "modernisation", which is always shorthand for more work from fewer workers. He's already got it: 60,000 jobs have gone in the last five years, 3,000 post offices have closed, Sunday mail collection has ceased, and second delivery.

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The Communications Workers Union has even offered a strike-free deal if Royal Mail will negotiate change, instead of imposing it.

Mandy should take up this offer, and make it a winning formula for the country, the business - and the men and women who deliver it.

The posties are not the only ones in dispute. Binmen have been on strike in Leeds for five weeks. Firefighters in Yorkshire are fighting cuts. Why? Because political changes in local government have unleashed a frenzy of cost-cutting by Tories and Lib Dems. They're sacking workers, slashing wages and driving down conditions of employment because they think they can get away with it.

Not since the dark days of Thatcherism has it been so tough to be a trade unionist. Nor so important.

[POSTMAN]

Where's he f***ing been,Routledge,he only comes out when there is a strike.

[uprising95]

will royal mail be royal mail if the strikes happen nationally ?

[baldrick]

Where's he f***ing been,Routledge,he only comes out when there is a strike.

Well at least when he does he's usually on our side.

[foger]

The greedy pigs have got their noses in the trough, and they'll end up killing us so they can make a few more quid for themselves. (ever read that book Animal Farm) I think what the union should be pushing for, apart from modernization, is negociating a deal on shares in the company for all the workers. Before Crozier and his tory friends get their hands on it! Let's face it there is no going back to the very left wing socialist unions of the 60's and 70's. That's an old idea that didn't work at the time, and it wont work now. The CWU should be pushing for- modernization- fair play- and a cut of the action for all employees. Namely, proper shares. Not that monopoly money share in success rubbish.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

will royal mail be royal mail if the strikes happen nationally ?

Do you mean will we loose our right to display or use the Royal Cypher - No. We have been on strike before and did not loose it then, in fact we became Royal Mail again after a strike during the "Consignia" debacle.

[IWW Fellow Worker]

Where's he f***ing been,Routledge,he only comes out when there is a strike.

I met him in a pub in Liverpool during the TUC conference a few weeks ago. He's a nice bloke, but a Labourite. He really does think Royal Mail staff have been dumped on and was quite well informed about what has been going on in DO's. He said if we voted to strike, he would support us in his column as he did last time. How long that support will last is anyones guess. At least he doesn't fall for the "10% year on year" tripe. I agree we could do with him and people in his position keeping the pressure going on the scum on the Royal Mail board.