London postal workers to strike on 19th June

17 Responses

1. Great

2. RM really do take the biscuit. They’ve gone on Strike far more than any other organisation!

   Does anyone know if future strikes will be spreading to other areas or will it be 10,000 staff again all around the London area?

3. Happy Days that,s Fathers Day sale,s knackered

4. Thing is, the post in london sucks so bad, will anyone actually notice?

5. In response to Benbob above, no it will NOT affect other parts of the country. The strike is a London only dispute over job cuts and Royal Mail’s incorrect implementation of the 2007 agreement which both the CWU and many of its members feel is being used solely to slash sevices and downgrade jobs. Reality is though that Royal Mail is operating in a constantly dwindling mail market with letters decreasing. Although packets are on the increase due to internet traffic these carry a much smaller proffit margin and the likely outcome is far more job losses and part time posts no matter how many strikes take place in London or elsewhere. The public have already lost the 2 delivery system replaced by a single daily one several years ago and i feel it is only a matter of time before the universal service and possibly the Saturday delivery also go despite the CWU’s attempts to defend these. So as bad as some of you feel the postal service already is, stand by for more doom and gloom!

6. I can’t wait for the service to go private. I think Royal Mail has had a monopoly for far too long. Too many “old boys” in the company who are more interested in themselves than providing the service they are employed to provide.

   So what if the Saturday delivery goes…most important/urgent communication is done via emial or fax anyway.

7. I think the postal sevice is great, i have very few problems.Nine times out of ten missing package is at the buyer local sorting office.
   There,s no way i,m taking any chances this week i am in Liverpool and i can see the Liverpool Royal Mail staff wildcat striking again this week.

8. In response to Pete – “I think Royal Mail has had a monopoly for far too long.”

   Royal Mail lost it’s monopoly on January 1st 2006. There are now 25 licensed postal operators in the UK. You’re free to use anyone you wish to send any item anywhere in the world.

   I work for Royal Mail outside of London. Since we bought in the cutbacks the London posties are striking over the quality of service figures in our office have gone down and it’s not uncommon for parts of rounds or packets to be left undelivered due to no-one having the time to do them. We’re currently in what we call ‘summer lapsing’ where a couple of deliveries don’t have a dedicated postie and are left for other posties to do when they’ve finished their own rounds. Due to the extended rounds we now have not all posties are able to do the extra work in their alloted time so the mail gets left in the office until the following day unless the postie wants to claim overtime. Not all of them want to though. The managers are supposed to provide cover for this sort of thing but they finish at 2pm while some posties are still out on their rounds so are unaware of undelivered mail until the following morning. Not that they care anyway!

   I’m not sure striking is the right answer but the cutbacks haven’t been managed properly, at least not in the office I work in. There is still some slack in some parts of the office whilst other parts can’t cope.

   I don’t think privatisation is the answer to this part of the business as it will lead to more cutbacks and/or higher prices. TNT are touted as a possible buyer – just look at the price of sending a 50-100g letter within Holland -currently 1,32 Euros (£1.12). If Royal Mail were allowed to charge those sort of prices there wouldn’t be any talk of privatisation and the pension deficit would be paid off in a few years!

9. Royal Mail lost it’s monopoly on January 1st 2006. There are now 25 licensed postal operators in the UK. You’re free to use anyone you wish to send any item anywhere in the world.

   That may be true, however if you asked 1000 people to name 1 other company they can use to send a letter to their nan in Glasgow, I would wager that 1000 people wouldn’t be able to.

   Most of these other companies have focused on business mail, not everyday letters etc.

   unless the postie wants to claim overtime
   As these strikes prove, it’s hard enough to get them to do the job their paid to do.

   If they don’t like the job or feel the pay isn’t high enough, they should find another job, work for themselves or whatever, NOT endanger our businesses by throwing their toys out of the pram every year.

10. That may be true, however if you asked 1000 people to name 1 other company they can use to send a letter to their nan in Glasgow, I would wager that 1000 people wouldn’t be able to.

    That might not exactly be fair. I recently heard that 50% of Britons couldn’t locate their own heart. I think I also read an article last year saying that 20 – 30% of Americans had never heard of HD television even though information about it had been shoved in our faces daily for more than 2 years.

11. but my Nan doesnt live in Glasgow!

12. RM – Last bastion of pre-Thatcherite eutopia?

    Quite important for a lot of people?

    But not too good for others.

13. I was sacked from my job at the post office but I think I was too young for it anyway.

    All day long I would sit there sorting letters and listening to the radio but every time a song finished I would open one of the parcels.

14. #13 LOL, judging by the number of INR’s on eBay, I think that you were not the only one doing that.

15. Sack them all! There are plenty of people out of a job at the moment who would give their right arm……..

16. Just a little link to help anyone wanting to claim for items “lost” in the post:

    https://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/jump1?catId=69800733&mediaId=80300735

17. I hate strikes but I do sympathise with some of the staffs concerns. Luckily this strike was only for a day and Royal Mail were still making collections from all Post Office counters. They were also fully operational at the Mount Pleasant sorting office in central London so I took all my mail down there before the last post at 7:30pm.

    Although Royal Mail has been losing money for many years, this year all Royal Mail Group companies made a profit for the first time in 20 years! Royal Mail’s operating profit was more than £321 million for 2008/9, compared to the £1 million they were losing every day seven years ago. Obviously this was only possible by huge job cuts and Post Office closures.

    I’m against privatisation. Look at what happened to the train companies; we end up with expensive fares and terrible service while the shareholders make a fortune.

    I think the problem is deregulation. Now private companies (TNT, UK Mail etc.) have taken the profitable part of the postal system away (bulk letters) so Royal Mail is left with the unprofitable parts. Is it right that private companies collect bulk mail from companies and then deliver it to individual sorting offices where Royal Mail posties have to deliver it to peoples doors while the private companies makes the majority of the profit?

    Every other delivery company has quoted me at least three times as much as Royal Mail to send 200g packages within the UK!