http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/0 ... al-strikes



Not good at all...

well looks like I will have to carry on ensuring I get everything sent to work then as Amazons other mail partners seem to not want to deliver anything apart from a card saying your not in come and collect it from a depot, thats as far away from civilisation as they can make it.

To be honest, any strikes or industrial action will not make too huge a dent where I am. The service here is poor, with mail taking much longer to arrive than you would expect. I can cite my 2000AD subscription, which is posted in Maldon, which is about 20 miles away. Maldon and Chelmsford share the same sorting office, so I do wonder how it takes almost a week for it to get to me, when I know others receive theirs in a couple of days from posting. I am still waiting for one to arrive which was posted 2 weeks ago. Thing is, I can’t report missing post before 15 working days are up (note the ironic use of the word “working” - taken from the Royal Mail’s web site).

Losing Amazon’s contract is a blow, but as they seem to be incapable of delivering a good service, I am not surprised. The thing is that all theme private mail companies which businesses use rely on the Royal Mail to do the final delivery, so you have no real escape.

I have little sympathy for those taking the action. I should really, but given that they are protesting about something which could improve the services and would in the long term produce more work, and therefore more employment opportunities, I am not wholly convinced by their arguments.

What did those stupid striking unions expect. This isn't the 70's, the Royal Mail doesn't have a monopoly any more, their customers can go elsewhere.

Yes but the unions have been co-operative up till now.

i believe the post office union are falling into a trap set up by the post office management
a strike plays right in to there hands

it would have been much better to have a complete work to rule that way management are placed under extreme pressure and the postal service would still run …

FYI, the bus drivers here in Essex are on strike on MOnday. It’s about a pay freeze.

If Cameron does come to power, and his troll of a chancellor has his way and freezes public sector pay, I can imagine that there will be a lot more industrial action being threatened.

Yes another winter of discontent either this year or next year.

German postal workers are also up in arms about management only giving 3% this year, not the agreed upon amount... Given the recession, I'd be happy with 3% to be honest!

I can never understand the unions, the employer is losing money and might have to cut back on staff or shut up shop, but if they don't cough up a huge pay rise, they'll strike...

Surely the unions should be urging their workers to do all they can to help the company, so they can keep as many jobs as possible, with perhaps deferred payments when conditions improve...

public sector pay or pay rises, i have no problem with
its the public sector pension liability that is the killer …

And the government have taken a lot out of the Post Office in terms of funds over the years.

the Govt. have taken a lot out of all private pension funds but then expect the tax payer to fund the public sector pensions
not too dissimilar to privatisation of profits and the nationalisation of debt for the banking system …

The tax payer funds all pension systems if you think about it, the money doesn't come out of thin air. You (and I) finance public pension systems through taxes and many private pension systems through the goods we buy. Every time you buy (I dunno) a sandwich from M&S, that sandwich could be cheaper if M&S weren't having to pay into their employee pension scheme. I find it strange some people are so resentful about 'paying money into public service pensions' yet don't even think about the money they pay into 'private service pensions' because it's slightly less direct.

It's not at all like the 'nationalisation' of the banking system. In fact, the government bailing out the banks actually saved an awful lot of private pension schemes whose assets would have been worth buttons if the banks had gone to the wall.

We either have company pension schemes, or we don't. Public service pensions are just 'company' pension schemes where the company gets it's incomings by taxes rather than sales or services. The alternative is to not have 'group' schemes at all and it is simply each individual's responsibility to manage their own pension but we don't do that because most people aren't competent to do so.

As to the post office, the strike is far from being simply about pay. I'm sure certain people (*cough*Mandleson*cough*) would like everyone to believe that so they could get public support to push through privatisation. The reality is that that would not help this issue at all as almost certainly any privatisation would first see the pension requirement 'hived off' to the government - no private equity would touch the GPO with a bargepole if it still had the pension deficit attached. So what would happen is the government would get a lump of cash - which they would waste - the consumer would find prices rising even faster and we would still have the GPO's pension deficit as a drain on the public finances. So everyone would lose, except probably the GPO management and a couple of ministers who would get cushy well paid jobs on the new Post Office Ltd's board of directors.
Privatising the GPO would be as successful as privatising the railways. Some things aren't best suited to operating according to market principles.

(note: I have absolutely no connection to the post office, their staff or any such. I just generally follow the rule that the press only ever give you one side of the story and it's up to you to find out the whole truth).

Jon

I think the main bugbear a lot of people have about the public pensions is that they are still final salary schemes where a significant majority working in the private sector have either lost this benefit of had it significantly curtailed. As with most final salary schemes the benefits are fairly significant and the employee doesn't have to put in as much money as the risk associated with investing to created the pension pot to pay out is borne by the employer, in this case the government, which means that tax payers are paying for their own pensions and those of government employees as well to a far greater extent.

I do not believe that civil servants should have no pension provision from their employer but they should have to reflect the conditions in the wider community that, after all, government policy has had a significant impact on (both Labour and Tory).
Now, when anyone tries to threaten public pension provision the strikes come thick and fast and it's this that makes me angry.
You can't fault the unions for trying to get the best deal for their members, it's what they are there for after all.

Still, the Royal Mail strikes are going to be a massive own goal for the CWU members as it's now more than likely that there will be redundancies due to the loss of business this will cause.

While I kind of agree with both statements, you have to admit they're kind of contradictory .

If you have unions, eventually you will get strikes. If negotiation upon contract issues bewteen employer and employee fails, the employee has really only two options - strike or quit. Either way (in this case) your post doesn't get delivered. I think it's pretty much impossible to maintain a level of service with a given set of employees while reducing their benefits for doing the job - it's got to be the case that if you pay someone less for doing the same job as they have been, they're not going to do it as well. The public expects a certain level of service from the postal system (and it's staff), the question is do they believe the price they are currently paying is enough to provide that service? If yes, then the public won't support the strike, if no then they will. we'll see.

Me, I believe in the old maxim 'If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys'. I know my local post office has been getting in a lot of part time dirt cheap agency staff to do deliveries in the last couple of years and the service has gone down the tubes.


You really think that will improve the service to you?

Jon