View Full Version : Postal strike causing problems again
chezza1974
14-07-09, 09:26 PM
a nice big strike on friday thanks to the unions moaning at royal mail for cutting pay without without agreement (as well as other things).
Jeeeze - do they not think that we are all suffering with the recession? the royal mail is a business and needs to make money. i haven't had a pay rise in 3 years. my other half is on a 4 day week because work is tough/. i feel for people who need the mail for their businesses. Our business needs post for all sorts of reasons and i'm sure many others will be annoyed.
:eek:
Emily-o
16-07-09, 10:17 AM
Our post at work has still been coming through normally *touches wood*. Do you know where about the strike is taking place? Is it just one particulararea of the UK?
Do you think this will affect companies and businesses in Surrey? In ways the post is old fashion and many companies communicate through email, fax or directly on the phone. I think the demand for postal service has decreased. In our company some elements rely on the postal service however a lot can be done over email and fax now - especially when it is free!!
I didn't think you could enforce pay cuts (http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2009/01/19/49045/legal-q.html)... I thought you had to reach agreement. Lots of my family with jobs in Surrey (http://www.careers-jobs.eu/surrey-jobs) have taken pay cuts in order to avoid redundancy. Reduced pay is better then no pay at all in my opinion.
However, when we do pick up after the recession, do you think companies are going to increase the salary back to full rate? I mean companies will make more money if they can get away with paying staff less (obviously) so will our pay rates really go back up in the end do you think?
I think this postal strike was just restricted to LOndon, but having said that London has a big commercial influence over the whole country so we will probably see the effects of the strike in all sorts of places, for some time to come. It seems crazy to me that they should have these strikes. As Emily says, companies are already trying to find ways of not using post and these strikes will force them to use other alternatives. Once they do that they are less likely to back to using the post, so the business will just go down and down, with more job losses, more strikes, less business, until the whole thing disappears and thousands of people go out of work - all organised by union leaders who will stay in their jobs.
Emily-o
17-07-09, 10:21 AM
Hahah you made a good point there! How come the management seem to always stay in their jobs? I have seen departments shut down before and lots of redundancies are made however the manager is relocated elsewhere... it is like secret senior only advertisment!
Royal Mail keep putting up their prices every year. Do you think they are improving their service? Or finding ways to improve?
The Royal Mail is more commonly known as the Royal Fail where I work lol! How often does something get somewhere when it is intended to these days?
Them making these paycuts without any sort of agreement just takes them one step closer to living up to that name really doesn't it?
Its dreadful!
chezza1974
24-07-09, 12:54 PM
josie
i couldn't agree more Hahahahah we at work sent something to royal mail via one of their freepost reply envelopes and they lost their own mail! PAH!!!!!! lol.
Love the royal fail - i will soooooo be using that in my posts! ho ho ho!
OMG no way did they really lose thier own mail?????
What next?
Emily-o
12-08-09, 10:01 AM
So the later one is over now but this time it was big with around 25 000 workers walking out over pay disputes and job issues. The most affected regions were meant to be London, East Anglia, Midlands, the West and Scotland.
The media had a field day with around 490 articles on Google news (http://news.google.co.uk/news/more?pz=1&ned=uk&cf=all&ncl=dXd-bwZru6Gy0HM7li8jXeoN1oSpM) alone.
I was quite interested to hear if anyone’s jobs (http://www.careers-jobs.eu/) or companies were affected? Our post seemed to come in as normal and everything ran smoothly!
Part of me thinks that the media bite was worse then the reality. Maybe we were just lucky.
The media always makes everything appear far worse than it actually is! Its incredibale what they can do to a situation! Our post has been normal too???? Haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary?
Emily-o
17-08-09, 10:38 AM
Yeah everything was pretty normal down my end. It will be interesting to see if the postmen achieve anything from it, or if we are to see more in the future. My bets are that we will see more strikes in the future.
They all like to have a strile in the middle of the summer to enjoy the sunshine and in the winter so they don't have to go out in the cold haha! An extra day off here and there - why not then aye?
I think that the only thing that the postman will achieve with these strikes is to cause more people to use alternatives other than traditional post. They already have email, fax and private carriers reducing the overall volume of mail they have and this can only make things worse for the future of their business and employment.
I agree with that alfie for sure! I mean the number of post office closures in the last few years shows what a decline there has been in using the traditional postage system!
PennyBlack
12-09-09, 06:53 AM
Problem is that we still NEED the services of a post office despite the upsurge in e-card, emails etc. Whilst its true that traditional letter writing has dropped since the explosion of the internet, who wants birthday greetings sent over the internet? I'd rather have a card. Then think of all the other services the post office provide, all those 'essential' forms that you can only get at the post office. We still need stamps, postal orders etc.Not everyone has a computer and I'm fed up with being told to - go on-line all the time. The post office is a 'public service'. Its not there to make profits but provide a service to the public and its sadly letting us down, especially in the rural areas where the closures have affected those communities badly. Again, not everyone has a car to drive miles and miles to the nearest post office.One needs to think more broadly here as to who is ultimately responsible for the decline in the quality of our daily lives - the current government. They've wrecked this country and the sooner they go the better.
I couldn't agree more about what the current government have dont to this country Penny! It seems we have been have a downward struggle for some time now (since they came into power)! It does make you wonder what went so horribly wrong doesnt it???
I agree that we do need post offices and reliable postal staff - not staff that are going to go on strike every 5 minutes! Its horrible!
Isn't there going to be another strike from next week????
PennyBlack
14-10-09, 06:02 PM
Mmm, well we all know what went 'horribly wrong' - it started with Blair and now its continuing with Brown - its called the LABOUR government. :(
kezza113
24-10-09, 06:25 PM
Apart from the government repeating bad habits and postmen who are not to keen on delivering post in Winter, through my experience I now don't think much of any system in the UK at the moment!I will share my story with you and please by all means give me your thoughts.
I booked and paid for my first holiday in ages to find I had to apply for a visa prior to travelling. As this is the norm, I got my bits together and posted my passport by special delivery up to London.10days later, after a visa only needing to take 5days to process! I start getting concerned.It turns out that my prepaid special delivery that I enclosed with my passport had been posted back to me with my visa in on the 01/10/09 and has fallen into the Royal mails 'black hole' with NO one being able to help me locate it. I am meant to leave for holiday in Nov, a new passport takes 4months to process, not to mention the expense of a new residence permit, which I will add expires before the 4 month process time and I'm left with the grand option of......'there is a claim form on our website you can fill out and submit to us..' no shit!
Now I ask from the bottom of my heart - Does the government care(even though I have been paying into the economy for the past 6yrs) NOT at ALL. Does Royal Mail care (even though I used the most secure option possibly available to the public?) NOT at ALL.
I am now left with the harsh reality of possibly losing my job, having to relocate leave my boyfriend of 3yrs and start my life all over again.
God how terrible for you!
We at work call them the Royal Fail for that exact reason - they are unhelpful in any given situation and never have an answer!
To loose a special delivery though - that is really bad! How they managed that I dont know! Isn't this the option that is supposed to be guarnateed to reach its destination?
Did anyone else look embarrassed on Christmas Day when they were unable to give their friends and family presents because stuff they ordered off the internet just didn't arrive in time. I for one was not happy and had to do a lot of last minute shopping. Also, I wonder what happened to all that gold jewellery that people have been sending to these "cash for gold (http://www.postalgold.com/)" companies!
All of our deliveries arrived ok, but not sure how many were Royal Mail rather than couriers.
We have a very helpful postman, who called late on Christmas Eve with some last cards, so some good news about the Royal Mail.
Luckily I ordered most of my stuff which was delivered by couriers rather than the Royal Fail lol! I am still waiting for one item..... Wonder how long I will be waiting.... So I had to go out and replace that with another gift!
As for this cash for gold stuff, dont trust it one bit and from what I saw on the news a few weeks back they are complete rip offs and completely underpay you the value of your items!
Sounds like you had a lucky escape there Josie apart from the one present. With regard to these Cash for gold companies I wonder how easy it is for you to get your gold back if you are not happy with the payment they send you. Surely they could just keep it, melt it down and say that they have already paid you.
Sounds like you had a lucky escape there Josie apart from the one present. With regard to these Cash for gold companies I wonder how easy it is for you to get your gold back if you are not happy with the payment they send you. Surely they could just keep it, melt it down and say that they have already paid you.
Yeah there is probably some scam involved even though they do say if your not happy they will send it back to you etc.... I wonder who would in fact be happy and therefore how these companies would make any money at all?
Definitely must be a catch involved and I am not inclined to try them out to find out either haha!
It seems to me that if I was looking to sell my gold (http://www.postalgold.com/sell-my-gold) jewellery, then I wouldn't send it off in the post but take it to a jewellers or a pawn broker instead. Basically someone who I could talk to face to face and if I wasn't happy with the valuation I could just take my jewellery away with me.
It seems to me that if I was looking to sell my gold jewellery, then I wouldn't send it off in the post but take it to a jewellers or a pawn broker instead. Basically someone who I could talk to face to face and if I wasn't happy with the valuation I could just take my jewellery away with me.
Precisely! I wouldn't let it out of my site that for sure! They probably hope once you have sent it off you will be too lazy to pursue anything or you will miss the deadline to say no t them etc!!!!!
I bet they make a lot of money out it as well :mad:
They probably hope once you have sent it off you will be too lazy to pursue anything or you will miss the deadline to say no t them etc!!!!!
I think you are probably right. Some people will just accept the cheque rather than go through the hassle of of ringing up the company and sending back the cheque. I read an article yesterday about one woman who sent off some bracelet gold (http://www.postalgold.com/braclet-gold) but when she got her cheque, she decided that she would rather have her bracelet back. However, by the time she got in contact with the company, having tried to contact them for a number of days, they had already melted her bracelet down and said that she had missed the deadline! It seems like a flawed system and just a bad way to do business if you ask me!
Definately they are too clever with the whole thing and I dont like it one bit if I am honest with you! Poor poeple who actually do it and lose out like that! People should complain and perhaps if they do so in unison then something can be done about it?
I did hear that Jacqui Smith said that she was going to investigate these companies and set up some sort of watchdog. I doubt they will actually be able to shut them down as there is doubtless some legal loophole that will prevent the government from doing anything. Anyway, I imagine that a fair few of these companies are just there to make money a quick buck from people's broken gold (http://www.postalgold.com/broken-gold) jewellery while the price of gold is high but will cease trading once the price dips back down.
I agree with that one! They will probably cease trading in time for any investigation having already made their money!
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