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I am sorry but I do not care one iota about the Royal Mails employees only receiving a 2.5% pay rise offer, I would love to receive a yearly pay rise, unfortunately I have to achieve certain targets, this means my salary can go up but it can also go down.

This is what we call performance related pay, I knew this when I joined my present company, the postal workers knew what salary they would receive when they joined the Royal Mail, so unlucky if they don't get the huge increases in salary that they seem to think is there god given right every year.

The unions need to understand that this is 2007 not 1977, the union barons have to understand that the majority of workers do not care about them or their members, Public Sector workers are not subject to the pressures of Private Sector Workers who have to justify their jobs everyday.

Also, it may come as a surprise to some of these unions that we also begrudge having to pay more for stamps etc because of the demands of the unions, that is why we prefer open competition in all sectors, it allows us the customer to go to the cheapest/best option for us, if the unions don't like this then TOUGH.

I'd just like to say thanks for putting the image of Gordon Brown in a dress into my head.

Having said that, it's still better looking than the state of the Post Office these days... chronically unreliable

Royal Mail already appears to be losing business to fast-growing rivals. A strike would just push customers into the arms of its rivals or consider alternative methods of communication altogether, like email. The postal workers union should be working with the business to modernise what appears to be a creaking operation and, yes, make the necessary job reductions, in the most humane way possible.

It is not the 2.5% offer which is the main dispute in this matter. It is in fact the many strings attached with the deal offered by Royal Mail. If the strings attached were followed through then yes the basic pay would increase by 2.5%(about £420 a year), however the workforce could be losing £1000's in other lost benefits that they are getting at present, not to mention the level of service falling foul. So the offer of 2.5% is very misleading as the deal could mean a big decrease in annual earnings. Post people are of the view that they have no choice but to back the union on this occasion.

I worked for Royal Mail 7 years ago. Then it was an orginisation crippled by an unproductive, un-willing workforce. In fighting between managers and staff was a constant barrier to change. The workforce need to understand that without change and becoming more productive the business will be lost to competitors and the management need to understand that without the workforce the business is crippled. The CWU is stuck in a timewarp and has no understanding of modern business and ultimately it is the CWU that will bring the buisness to it's knees. The CWU should be working with management to implement changes to improve the business but unforunately all it wants to do is fight with management.

What an unfair and unbalanced story this was. Its obvious you've only been talking to the bosses and not the workers. I would happily accept a 2.5% pay rise if that's all it was. However as G Edwards said its not its all the strings. They want us to deliver more un-addressed mail and withdraw all payment for it. They want us to cover extra walks for no extra pay. They want to bring in later starts so you will get mail later. They want to stop collections from some postboxes on Sundays and Bank Holidays.

Worst of all they want to bring in modernisation before the new machines are put in place. They want to bring in Colleague Shares but no-one I know wants them, we would prefer it to go towards the pension deficit.

Also your time for the official release of the result is wrong. Its due to be released at 14:30.

Joseph we exceeded the targets set us and they offer us a pay cut. I think you'd be up in arms if that happened at your workplace.

Well done G Edwards. ITS NOT THE 2.5%. I just wish Joseph, Maastricht,from The Netherlands and all the other people like that researched the facts before opening their mouth.

Why do the media never mention any details of the strings attached to the 2.5 per cent pay rise?
This is the crux of the dispute,not that 2.5 is not enough.Also Royal Mail have gone back on a a business plan agreement which was set up with the CWU but now hey have their very own business plan without any CWU consent.
The CWU also asked if Royal Mail would if they would meet with a 3rd party to sort this dispute out,Royal Mail refused.
Royal Mails language through out this has been confrontational eg.Allan Leighton using the word b*t in a dvd shown to postal workers as well as one Royal Mail director claimed: "This will be bloody. We have had the miners, we have had Longbridge and now we have this."
All Royal Mail propoganda has been confrontational right from the moment the deal was turned down.
Please would you give a view from the postal workers side as well as all the media is concerned is Royal Mails point of view,there are two sides involved in this.

re - joseph .
Privatisation of Britains rail network,along with deregulation of local transport is widely seen as a failure here i'd say.
Selling off publicly owned assets to fill share holders off-shore bank accounts is not always the best way .
I'm sure countries like the Netherlands have a less agressive attitude to Privatisation . As is seen in thier slower rate of deregulation in their postal network .
Maybe think of the bigger picture a bit more ,and of your own self interest less.

I find the comments about Billy Hayes to be too simplistic, Germany and Holland are to introduce liberalisation of the mail in a organised way over the next three years , not in the panic stricken , unimaginative, negative way that Royal Mail propose.
Royal Mail would like to compete on a level playing field without thier arms tied behind thier backs.What we have is a shift to the right in Europe, and the failed Tory free-marketers in Postcomm, who in thier parallell universe think if they cut and restrict RM, it'll get better by magic!
There is a rush towards neo-liberalism with New Labour, but that's hardly a surprise with that schizophrenic, contradictory party.
To answer other comments firstly Royal Mail's Command and Control style has been derided as a dated 1970's style. The Fear, Uncertainity and Doubt style is a IBM 60's style. Once market leader now bought out. Stamp prices are not the fault of the CWU , social mail is loss making and subsidised by Business Mail, Packet prices reflect the cost of manual handling. Prices are far cheaper than most of Europe.
The CWU would like to negotiate with the RM board but instead all we have is the Aerial Sharron School of Industrial Relations, the Macho Victorian Millowner, bloody minded approach from Royal Mail's board.
A strike is the last resort with the CWU, there's a high Yes Vote as members simply do not trust that two-bob Spiv Allan Leighton , the spin and hype and his sidekick Adam Crozier.
The Royal Mail has profound cultural and organisational problems , I've never seen so much inept management , nepotism, favourtism in Central Lancs Processing, Care in the work place staff, the otherwise unemployable, something out of a Peter Kay script or a Brian Rix farce, the sort of place that would make cardboard submarines!. However the way forward is the Nissan, Sony, Bmw way and enterprise unionism for industrial relations.

Agree with g edwards totally.
Royal Mail have been confrontational from the start when the deal collapsed eg Allan Leighton' dvd sent out to postal workers his use of the word b*t twice in the first sentence.
One Royal Mail director claimed: "This will be bloody. We have had the miners, we have had Longbridge and now we have this."
Royal Mail also refused to discuss this deal with a third party after the CWU said they thenselves would be willing to.
The media haven't helped either,always taking the Royal Mails view never interviewing or asking postal workers point of view.
Just because Royal Mail are a well known and long running organisation doesn't mean everything they say is true.

Perhaps if we forgot all the propoganda, the 70's rhetoric and the political posturing, and took a good look at what our Postal service has become over the last few years, we could see some sense in this dispute.
Under this government, at the behest of the EU, and to the absolute glee of big business, we have seen a once great public service reduced to a joke, by men who have quite frankly made a career out of the ruin and near ruin of other institutions.
(Shame on us, we let it happen, and even encouraged it by inaction.)
The only winners in the race to open up the postal markets are businesses who bombard us with junk mail (adressed and un-adressed), and Royal Mail's overpaid and under achieving "Fat-Cat" executives.
These businesses have no interest in competing with Royal Mail at all, if they had, they would be creating and operating delivery networks of their own. The RM Executives have no interest in saving the postal service either, they can only see as far as their next big bonus, and the hero worship of the business world.
Royal Mail's so called "competitors" are only really interested in what the industry calls "Downstream Access", that is, using RM's Postmen to deliver at a cheaper rate than they could themselves (in fact Royal Mail are at present subsidising this unwanted rubish, the whole ridiculous state of afairs is caused by a questionable pricing policy by the industry's regulator, RM must deliver for them at a price less than the actual costs).
Perhaps if we look a little closer at the CWU we could bring ourselves to recognise what they really are.
They are not the Trotskyist extremists of the 1970's, they are YOUR POSTMEN AND POSTWOMEN, you KNOW these people, you see them every day, they are the last defenders of an asset that belongs to us all (not just those who would make themselves richer by destroying it).
We shouldn't be calling them foolish or misguided, we should be supporting them in a cause that we can't afford them to lose.
They are the postal service's last chance (that is, if it's not already too late).

g edwards is correct,
A postman earns a basic wage of arround £325 pounds (before tax).
He also recieves £30 or so in monies for door 2 door items (leaflets) and an average of £12 per week as an "early start" payment.
The Royal Mail pay offer of 2.5% is contingent on the loss of these two payments.

£323+£30+£12 =£367
£325+£8= =£332
net loss=£ 35

Royal Mail's offer is actualy a PAYCUT of up to £35 pounds per week.
(money which seems to be needed to pay Adam Crosier's £370,000 bonus, not feed postie's families)
We should stop listening to Royal Mail's half truth, and support our Posties.

In response to Joseph from Maastricht.

If my depot had perfomance related pay as you suggest the over the last few years my basic pay would not be £323 per week but over £500. Royal Mail Letters are the one arm of the company which supports the rest.

In the 90's there were several major mistakes made. The cessation of Royal Mail's contributions to the pension fund of it's staff, even though the staff continued to contribute. Also the stupid buying of rival foreign services, many were just handed back for nothing.

Now these financial errors are coming home to roost. But Royal Mail refuses to take resposability for it's own past.

It clearly wants the staff to pay for it's own errors, whilst paying £100,000 to the chairman. And the articles' £370,000 to the chief executive. Who made those savings?
The postmen were asked how to amalgamate jobs etc!!!!!!

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the pay dispute may be, it is not just the Unions who are living in the past. The entire business methodology of the Royal Mail (including Parcelforce - they may like to pretend to be different organisatons, but to customers such a distinction is at best simply an irritation, at worst a shield to hide behind when things go wrong) is stuck in a time warp of unimaginable proportions when it comes to dealing with SME's. While "the couriers" strive to make sending parcels easier and easier, by providing free software to print labels, by costing parcels into 5 simple price bands, by being flexible about weights and dimensions, by invoicing rather than demanding payment at the point of collection and by offering free collection, Royal Mail have made it even more of a burden, by introducing the pointless new "letter boxes", by chargeing for self-franking software (and not making actually getting said parcels into the post any easier), by tying Parcelforce accounts into Microsoft Office (there is this wonderful thing called the Internet that everyone else seems to get along with quite happily), by pedantically weighing every parcel to the nearest gram, buy charging for collection (unless a huge amount of mail is sent) and, best of all, buy not actually making collection a parcel for a premiun service a "condition of service"!
The list is endless, and on every count Royal Mail fails competely to attract, in any way, the small to medium business. Then let us not even go near the issue of "lost" parcels ans Royal Mails laughable compensation system. Even the new parcels tracking system being intoduced completely misses the point - it just piles more work onto the sender, not less as the couriers do.
The Unions may be stuck in a time warp, failing to see that it is their members old-stye attitudes (mostly in the Depots, it seems) deters customers when rivals have staff who will bend over backwards to be helpful, but the problems that will kill Royal Mail really stem from the very top - blinkered, old fashioned, over beaurecratic ways of running a business in the modern, connected, world. Just what, exactly, is that bonus for?

I agree with performance based pay, but I also think that salary should increase in step with inflation. The work one performs in 2007, compared to work performed in 2002, is not any less valuable provided he is still performing the same tasks.

I am a postie and what g edwards wrote was correct we are not fighting for the pay rise the 2.5% is great but its the strings for me I will loss around £4000 pound a year if this goes through and to say soething about mr Joseaph maastricht point we are not allowed to play on the same playing field as the competition for one we are not allowed to under bid the competition so thats why we are lossing the Business and yes you were right people go to the cheapest place is that far? It should be one rule for all not just the royla mail as it stands at the moment and anyway the union is working with the royal mail to modernise the business and has been for a number of years but they keep going back on there word and you have to remember the royal mail is still making millions pounds of profit and its all going to the chief executive and chairman pockets

I think the ´óÏó´«Ã½ and all the rest of the news bradcasters need to find out the real deal involved with Royal Mail and the CWU and the current dispute. All that the news is reporting (via Royal Mail) is that postmen have been offered a 2.5% pay rise - however along with this pay rise there are many conditions attached for the Royal Mail workforce. For example, payments for door-to-door leaflets have to be stopped while at the same time increasing the number to be delivered each week per household fromn 3 to 5. Also the start time for posties has to change from 5 to 6am, and all night shifts have to be taken away. And another condition is called summer working plan where seven postmens rounds have to be merged into six rounds during the 'easy' summer period. These are just a few of the changes included with the 2.5% pay deal(or £600 lump sum) that Royal Mail have offered. The condition regarding leaflets is a big issue itself. Most posties earn around £30 a week via leaflet deliveries, which is about £1500 a year, so work it out. Give a 2.5% pay rise and take £1500 out of each posties salary, while giving Crozier and Leighton a million to play with. Nice to see that Royal Mail value their workforce.

Why would a moderate workforce which according to Alan Leighton for the past two years were TopShop, Suddenly become Social enemy No1? Delve a little deeper and a European Union political agenda emerges through the the media fog. Robert Peston! You seem to be biased (as all the media are) against the ordinary Postman and Postwomen of this Public Service, a service that has provided for centuries. I don't suppose you could be part of a political/media conspacy could you?

I HAVE SPENT TWO PERIODS WORKING FOR ROYAL MAIL WHILST 'BETWEEN JOBS'.

THERE ARE SOME EXCELLENT WORKERS THERE, HOWEVER 30% JUST LAZE AROUND PROTECTED BY THE OUDATED UNION. IT APPEARS THE LONGER YOU HAVE BEEN THERE THE LESS YOU ARE EXPECTED TO DO!

WHEN I SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS AND TRIED TO TIDY UP THE WORKING AREA I WAS 'SENT TO COVENTRY'!

It is about time the posties stopped their moaning and did the job that they are paid very well for, what other non skills job pays over £8 per hour, sickness, holidays, special leave, 6 months maternity leave at full pay,paid meal breaks, 2 weeks paternity leave at full pay, pension and so on. So Royal mail are DARING to ask its staff to work the full hours that they are paid for instead of 2/3's of that time that they usually work and god forbid that they might actually, occasionally, work an extra hour once or twice a week.
To put in bluntly... COME ON POSTIES, THINK ABOUT THE BUSINESS, THINK ABOUT YOUR JOB & FUTURE AND THINK ABOUT THE INPACT A STRIKE WILL HAVE ON ALL OF THE ABOVE !!!!!

Ian wrote that the Post Office is "chronically unreliable" - does he mean Royal Mail? If so, Google "Royal Mail performance". Royal Mail exceeded all performance targets set last year for deliveries....

As for Joseph in Maastrict's comments on the cost of stamps, almost every public sector utility in the UK that has undergone privatisation has seen massive increases in costs to the consumer. You only have to look at the rail network and rail fares to get the picture. Is that the fault of the unions? No, it is the greed of private sector bosses and their wish to increase profits at the expense of services provided. It's the consumer who suffers in the end. However, greater profit means they can justify the massive bonuses they award to themselves! If there's any complaint they simply blame "the regulator"!

Read your article with interest and read Billy Hayes' blog.He did not say that he had a problem with competition,just unfair competition.Royal Mail is not allowed to compete on price with the competion-it's prices are set by Postcomm.To any bulk poster this makes Royal Mail too expensive.

A major part of the problem is that the Royal Mail has a social function that the competion does not have-it delivers everywhere and collects from everywhere.Someone has to pay for this.

Mechanisation,job losses and change have been an ongoing part of Royal Mail since I joined many years ago-but the changes envisioned here are far reaching and based on predictions,that if experience has taught me nowt,that may turn out wrong.

Royal mail seems to see salvation in delivering Pizza leaflets to the detriment of 1st class mail

brian

I call it the 'Rover' syndrome, when in the face of external competition and their more efficient processes, Unions still see strike action as the only way to achieve their aim and flex their muscles. Only when everyone is laid off will they realise their mistake. I have worked in the post office and have seen the completly outdated and inefficient working practices, just like the 1970's! Wake up and work together to beat the competition. Striking will just play into their hands.

For all the CWU are saying, they may well find that support for a strike is not as solid as they would like to think.
There are other issues; I'm an ex-employee and I knew of many ill-thought-out schemes with no feasability studies or field testing done, just money spent on daft ideas that were soon abandoned. RM does seem to run in panic mode too often.
Lastly, there is an enormous gulf between the way the business is perceived by the top managers, as a 21st century communications business, and they way it actually operates at ground level, particularly where the lowest management levels are concerned. It is not good for morale to have line managers who are lazy, have no personnel skills, know less about the job than those working for them, and were chosen because they go drinking with the shift manager.

Why exactly is the Chief Exec of Royal Mail being paid £1m? Can you run that by us again please?

Comments by Royal Mail bosses that postmen and women are 40 per cent underworked and 25 per cent over paid is a real slap in the face to all postal workers. As to the comments about falling numbers of mail, what a load of rubbish. Postmen in my office are taking six, seven or eight bags of mail out with them. Staff are coming in an hour early, not having meal reliefs and using their cars to get finished at a reasonable time. Night turn staff have been given other jobs so postmen are now doing extra sorting as well as extra houses added to their deliveries. This all adds up to an extra 20 per cent in the work load for the average postman in our office. 2.5 per cent extra pay for 20 per cent extra work. Thanks Royal Mail, but no thanks!

For the past four years (& probably this year) Royal Mail has made considerable profits, all of which have gone to the shareholder, the government! Now Royal Mail is saying there is no money for better pay rise as it wants to fund investment in new equipment & changes to working practice, because of this it has been forced to borrow £1.2 billion from the Government, the same people who have taken the profits & pocketed them without a worry about investment or pension deficits.

40,000 jobs are set to be axed & most of them will be the post staff on daily delivery. The contracts Royal Mail has lost are still being handled & delivered by post staff that fail to see a reduction in the volume of post they deliver. Royal Mail has been arguing its case for the Universal Service restrictions in place on its business to be lifted to allow it to compete with other companies. This can only lead to a reduction in the service the average household receive. The Postal Regulator seems intent on forcing Royal Mail into a business limbo where it cannot compete financially but is still ordered to offer the current level of service & the managers seem to be happy to guide Royal Mail along this slippery slope into history.

As a postman myself, I feel that the Royal Mail is in the process of tearing itself apart, and it's not going to be competition that kills the business, it'll be the management and the way they run things.

We recently spent an undisclosed, but presumably non-trivial amount on plasma TVs in every sorting office which remain unused 99% of the time (they cannot receive broadcast services) yet anyone needing to replace items of their uniform was told we had to wait till the next financial year as there was no money left to pay for them. We actually lose money on every piece of "social mail" we deliver (things like Christmas and birthday cards), and even if you send something with our competitors, such as TNT, we still have to deliver the item to your house - and we lose money on that too. We could put up our postal rates, but Postcomm won't let us.

I myself am carrying more mail now than ever in over ten years as a postman, yet I'm repeatedly being told I'm not working hard enough. I've seen other guys at my office come in early - for free - to cope with their workload (and bear in mind we're already starting work about 5am), so you can see how hard it is not to want to take industrial action - even though such a move could kill the business.

My office used to overlook a sorting office in London and on sunny days you could see and hear the postal workers shouting, drinking and playing football. The posties themselves are often scruffy and in a state of dress that any private sector employer would never allow. Traditionally, management has been weak and ineffective in instilling a sense of pride (which the unions have done absolutely nothing to address, in fact quite the opporsite). The new management seem to have been making some progress in dealing with some fundamental issues and the unions and employees should recognise that things are broken and do need fixing. Jobs will be lost but there are plenty of other opportunitues around (we have to recruit overseas to fill many posts in our company as we cannot fill them otherwise). The unions will not win this one and their members should recognise this now rather than just lose income whilst their union representatives play politics!

Talking to the postmen who visit my work this dispute is not so much about meagre payrises (no one except the fat cats expects to get rich working for the RM) but about the fact that the Government is single-mindledy determined to destroy the organisation. In 10 years time when we have to pay £2.50 to send a letter to the Highlands and have to choose from a dozen different pricing schemes from half a dozen companies we will look back with sadness on the days of a single priced stamp. Even in the 1840s they could see that a uniform postage charge was the only way to run a successful postage system and in the process stimulate the economy.

Joseph: now you've been off on your anti-union rant perhaps you'd like to consider some realities. The average postman's 2.5% is about £400. He has to be in work at 6am six days a week and has little or no prospect of ever earning any more. Is it too much to ask that people who carry out the basic, most menial jobs that keep our society functioning get a living wage? As an Briton working in Europe you probably earn upwards of 40k a year and yet you're complaining about the price of a 30p stamp? Give me break!

The Royal Mail is losing business to fast growing rivals, but they're growing because their service is provided BY the Royal Mail. They're cherry picking the lucrative and leaving the rest in a ridiculous faux competition (as the article explains). Further down this road we'll all wake up to paying the real cost of sending mail to rural or remote areas and recognise what we had.

What's the pressing need for improving 'efficiency' in a large, nationally owned company that's providing a good service, jobs and, lest we forget, also making a healthy profit? As the unions, manangement and the government are aware, that '40%' will be squeezed as always from the working conditions and pay of the workforce and the quality of the service, particularly for those of us whose main interest isn't sending mass mailings into the major cities.

Joseph, in Maastricht might be in a better position than most to write about competition - the main Dutch Post is entirely run by TNT. But tell us, Joseph, how has competition helped?

Yes, there are some small local posts, but have ALL Royal Dutch Post's customers benefitted from competition?

"we also begrudge having to pay more for stamps etc because of the demands of the unions,"

You should know that paying more for postage is NOT due to wage demands, it is more than slightly due to overall losses from the post office branch network from which the government has removed more and more services, making them uneconomic to operate. And lower prices offered to big business users because of competition from the interlopers like TNT makes the social post uneconomic at 34p.

This ballott is more of a survival test for the CWU than anything else. If they lose this, RM has an open book to do anything the business wants. I am afraid, the business needs to move on and progress. What ever you political or personal views are, no business can stand still in todays market.

I am sorry but don't care one iota about Joseph working in the private industry, he made that choice so tough if he has performance related pay.

Postal workers do know their salary when they join as do workers in virtually every industry, I'm sorry but I don't get what Joseph's point is here. Also we Postal Workers don't think it is our God given right to massive pay rises every year. But we expect something that at least matches inflation.

The union is not in 1977, they have been very progressive in their attitude to Royal Mail's problems, Royal Mail are the ones with the old fashioned attitude to negotiations.
The CWU have offered to take on the challenges of competetion with a progressive business plan not just slash and burn policies. Public sector workers are not subject to the pressures of private workers but they also don't get the financial rewards of private sector workers.

The price of stamps is not set by the union's demand on pay, but is set by the postal regulator. And since when are you going to be bothered by the price of a stamp in Britain Joseph if you are in Masstricht? Another myth I can dispel for you too Joseph. The competition Royal Mail faces is not open and fair, it is loaded against Royal Mail to break up the Postal Network. Have you heard of the Universal Service? It means Royal Mail has to deliver to anywhere in Britain, this does not apply to our competetitors. They just cherry pick off all the profitable business mail and are not interested in social mail. This will eventauly lead to the increase in the price of the stamp as the business mail that Royal Mail used to subsidise social mail is taken away from them.

My husband works for Royal Mail, 75% of the postman finish around midday even though they are paid till 2.00. All you do it put letters through a door, hardly a skill, and are better paid than a lot of people, you also get a bonus twice a year. I think Royal Mail do an excellent job So Stop moaning. You have competitors out there ready to take your business if you strike they will take your jobs.

Its amazing how naive the general public and small businesses can be if they think the reason for increasing stamp prices is a direct result of postman being offered a pay rise (with too many catches and an overall loss of yearly earnings), in fact it is the complete opposite.

Postman and the union know they have to change and want to change the business with Royal Mail. Royal Mail have had ten years to get the business in order but have not achieved this yet, instead they send out confusing messages to their staff. Just last year Royal Mail management stated that postman were the backbone of the business and were underpaid, this year they think postman are overpaid because they are loosing profit in the industry.

Its not all Royal Mail's fault. Due to government introducing competition and regulation of the postal industry long before the rest of Europe, Royal Mail have NOT been allowed to compete on costs with other companies entering the market in this country.

It has always been the case that Royal Mail's profit was generated from mail collected from major businesses, mail that could run through a machine, not the hand written letters you and I post for the postman to hand sort. This machinable mail partially paid for the services the public received and kept the cost of a stamp low. The public was happy and in turn the government was happy.

Due to European law and competition, Royal Mail are now finding themselves in a position where they have to compete on all grounds. Other companies are creaming off the profit collected from major businesses. Also, most of these mail companies don't want to deliver the mail, and the few companies that do only want to deliver to inner city areas. Instead competing companies just want to employ a few people to run tens of thousands of letters through a machine every hour, then give it to Royal Mail at a regulated low fee of about 12p per letter who need to employ 130,000 people to deliver to every house in the UK.

As a result Royal Mail is only making a small profit from collecting and delivering mail. The general public and small companies who purchase stamps will never receive cheap postal services ever again.

Due to competition, it won't be long before we are paying 60p for a first class stamp, like some other European postal servies already charge!

Speaking as a Postal Operative in our local mail centre, and a former manager and trainer, the 2.5% would be acceptable to the majority, it is the strings attached that are unacceptable.

One of the major gripes is that management (sic) want a flexible workforce, although contracted to do 40 hours a week, to do less hours when they are not needed, and more when they are. So during the two months' Christmas pressure operatives would (not could) be forced to work 60 hours a week (for 40 hours pay of course). Consider the impact on family life.

Holidays, which we have to book eighteen months in advance, would be cancelled at extremely short notice.

Planned shift changes could result in a 30 hours week, for 30 hours' pay.

People turning up for duty at their workplace, could be sent to another office, on another shift to do their day's work.

The lump some bonus of £800 (unpensionable) not substantively in the basic, is based on targets that are set to ensure that they are unachieveable. Next year there may not be a lump some, and of course this would replace any pay rise.

New automated machinery, is patently not up to the job in our office, and a hinderance to the good intention of workers, not a help.

The (and the government rather they weren't called this) share offer of the management, is not worth the paper it is written on, and can only be sold on to colleagues. If sold, the major buyers would be management in London.

The business wants to move on to using unskilled ad hoc labour, as its workforce, and casual labour, to drive hourly pay down.

Please understand that nobody wants to strike, we cannot afford it, but there comes a time when working conditions become intollerable, physically, and mentally.

We had pride and job satisfaction in our jobs and working for Royal Mail. That has been taken away from us.

The CWU seem to be stuck 30 years in the past if they think a strike will achieve anything positive for RM workers. I'm a postman and I'd rather see both sides, managers and workers lobbying government to make the current postal situation more fairly balanced. Post volumes haven't decreased, if anything they've gone up but what has hit RM hard is downstream access, IE the likes of TNT collecting bulk mail from BT etc (at prices below those we can go) and dumping it at mail centres, how many TNT workers do you see posting mail through your door? They do one third of the work (the easiest and cheapest part) and collect over half the payment, any wonder RM is loosing money? On the other hand there's also a lot of old attitudes in RM that need modernising but in a company that traditionally has had low staff turn over many people harp back to the good old days of a monopoly.

It is not about the pay rise of 2.5%. The fact is that Royal Mail agreed last year to work with the union about modernisation. Since recieving the payout from the government of 2.6 billion pound,it has gone ahead with its own plans with no intentions of involving the union or the workforce.

How anyone could call Royal Mail "chronically unreliable" when it has the highest QofS in its history (over 94% next day delivery for 1st class)(which is independently measured) and one of the highest QofS in the world, simply defeats me. Lets just ignore the facts, eh?

The issue is this. Royal Mail want their postmen to change their working hours and also incorporate any sick-absence cover into their daily routine. This means the loss of their early morning shift allowance (just below £600 per year) and any overtime worked. If a fellow colleague is absent through illness then postmen in his office will be forced to do an extra duty on top of his own individual duty,unpaid. So the pay offer doesn't come close to the losses that posties will incur.
i support their action, royal mail are using the threat of competition as an excuse to scare their workforce into accepting drastic change at huge loss to themselves.

I totally agree with g edwards,it is NOT about the pay offer but the business plan that Royal Mail have put together. Remember this is the same Royal Mail that thanks to the hard work of its workforce turned it around from losing over 1 million pounds PER DAY a couple of years ago into making a profit of 400 million+. Now they have the cheek to say that the company faces "financial meltdown" and you are 25% overpaid and 40% underworked!!!. Well there's thanks for you. The business plan is so flawed that if we accepted it we would, with all the conditions attached to it, we will be taking a PAY CUT after losing all the benefits and potential earnings we could make. My council tax has risen by more than 2.5%, my rent has risen by more than 2.5%. I would be worse off than last year if I accpeted this pay deal.

As for the "falling volumes" of mail. I concede the point that due to competition, revenue from items sent via Royal Mail has gone down, but the front line workers (postmen and women) still have to deliver Royal Mail and the competitors mail therefore, the weight on their backs has significantly increased. So to all these people who think that we are being stubborn and greedy, would you like to try my job for a couple of months...... you'd soon change your point of view.

Short sighted union greed again. Carry on and they will all be out of a job as the Royal Mail's competitors force it out of business. Good luck getting another job with the same lack of accountability that you enjoy now when that happens!

Why is the market portrayed as a panecea for all our ills? Surely the Post Office is more than a business it is also a 'social' service that will be loss leading? How many times have we seen rural communities lose their only Post Office? Often resulting in villages dying on their feet. Postmen/women in such areas also deliver milk, bread & other provisions, urgently needed medical supplies and sometimes take people to hospital. For such a poor wage for hard labour in all weathers with their pensions and jobs under attack no wonder they voted the way they did!

The Royal Mail Management do not care one little bit about the Public getting their mail, they are just not interested. All they care about is profits and their own bounuses. The fact is the competition are creaming off the business mail and making large profits because they do not have to deliver the mail. They pay a small sum (Price set by PostComm) to Royal Mail for the Postmen/Women to deliver it for them. All they have to do is collect the mail from a Mailing House who have already bagged up and sorted the mail, and deliver it to Royal Mail, who then have the job of delivering it all over the country along with the huge costs of distribution and delivery. Very fair competition, I think not !.
So the Royal Mail Bosses have come up with a plan to make us more profitable by slashing and burning about 40,000 jobs, offering 2.5% on pay with more strings attached than to Pinnochio.

This is not about the pay rise offered. Taken on it's own it would be probably be acceptable but there are a lot of conditions attached which Royal Mail are not disclosing. Royal Mail's comment that their share of mail is decreasing (implying that this means there is less mail to deliver) is misleading because although other postal companies now have a share in the collection and sorting of mail they do not have the means to deliver any of it and this is still being done by the Royal Mail posties. This means that the actual amount of mail being delivered by the postal workers is increasing and it is therefore taking them longer to sort the mail and deliver it which a lot of postal workers find extremely unfair. So although you may think the other postal companies such as TNT, UK Mail and the rest will benefit from a strike they will also be affected because unless they all come up with their own delivery services a.s.a.p their mail won't be delivered either. Also Royal Mail are looking to join some rounds together and make them larger and most of these are large enough already. There is also the junk mail which no-one wants but which Royal Mail get a lot of revenue for and then pay the postmen a few pence to deliver. They now want to cut the amount they pay the postmen for that. There are lots of other conditions attached to this offer and people should get all the information before they make any judgement on the postal workers.

As a postman with 23 years service i would like to set the records straight on the actions that i have taken and voted in favour of.

We are forced by the regulator to deliver so called competiton's mail at a fraction of the cost to that charged to any one else's mail. I would like to know when , why & how this decision was taken and by whom and most importantly using price rises to achieve this . This is the equivalent of the N.H.S. doing surgery for private health companies at less than they can provide themselves.

Secondly , part of this "pay rise" is later start times. This will mean that we provide an even later delivery time to our customers who are already fed up with us delivering later in the day and keep telling me that they want there mail early in the day and not in the afternoon. When i confronted my manager over this , the response was that they don't pay for an early delivery so why should they get one !
We care strongly about the service that we give to our customers and we are in a no win situation.

Thirdly , our pension fund has been raped , going from a 9.5 billion surplus to 5-6 billion deficit.The post office took a 13 year holiday from our pension fund whilst we have always paid our contributions only to be told that we have to pay in significantly more to achieve the same .

In closing i would like to state the best thing that i have heared was fom Alan Johnson M.P. when he was our union leader in 1997 he stated " we have the best postal service in the world , all we need is the political will " how very true those words are today , as they were then.

Joseph's post epitomises what is wrong with society these days. Just because his working conditions are tough he thinks everyone else's should be too rather than wanting to bring everyone up to an acceptable level. Why shouldn't Royal Mail employees fight for better working conditions? I'm sure that Mr Crozier fought for his £1 million pound a year salary, the difference is he doesn't deserve it and the very least Royal Mail employees deserve is a wage increase. Good luck to you.

The general public do not seem to realise that there is a lot more to this dispute than an offer of 2.5%. Royal Mail would have you believe that their profits for 2006-2007 were £35million - a massive drop on last years £400million profit. What they fail to mention is how much has gone into repayment towards the £1billion government loan (to be repaid by 2013)and the £3billion pension deficit.
Royal Mail will have the public believe that the volume of mail has dropped. It has not. Royal Mail's own mail revenue may be down slightly, but with about 10 other mail companies sending thier sales force out to secure business, then using "downstream access", this extra mail comes back to Royal Mail and thier posties to be sorted and delivered. We are currently delivering the mail of about 10 postal companies now. In Essex, I would estimate our delivery weights have increased 40% per round per day. My salary has increased by nothing. (For the record, the number of injuries due to back pain caused by the sheer weight we now have to carry has risen massively)
Then we have the door-to-door "junk mail". Currently, each round gets 3 lots per week, putting about £10 per week extra in our paypackets. Royal Mail want to do away with the extra payment and then have us deliver 10 lots per week. 10 lots of junk mail through everyone's door per week!! And to finish, Royal Mail want to do away with overtime and incorporate sickness and annual leave into other rounds, for no extra pay, meaning many posties lose money that they rely on to pay bills. Oh, nearly forgot, please take into account the estimated 40,000 job losses that the automated sorting will cost. Machines paid for with money from the pension fund. Money that Royal Mail are trying so desperately to repay via job, salary and budget cuts. These cuts affect all of us. Unless you are Royal Mail top cats on £1million salaries even when your reported profits drop by 90%. Still don't care? I didn't think so...

I smile to myself when I hear people stating 'how wonderfull competition is'. This is not the gas or electric issue being discussed here. The general public will not benfit one iota from it. The only people that will benfit are the companies sending their mail via the alternative delivery companies. I use the term 'delivery' loosely as they merely collect the bulk mail and hand it to Royal Mail for a pitance of the price. That is why the stamp prices have risen. Royal Mail are loosing money hand over fist to the likes of TNT, Business Post and others. This was allowed by the Regulator, however Royal Mail are not allowed to compete with these other companies within the somewhat twisted logic of the charter. That is not competition, but decimation of a national company that used to run perfectly smoothly.
Look no further than this Government for the answers as to why this situation has been allowed to escalate.
No wonder Royal Mail and the Unions are at loggerheads with each other.

hi
as mentioned by g edwards its not the 2.5% its the strings attached, the LOSS of income in other ways.
Mr Leighton wants to run Royal Mail like he did ASDA using short term temp contracts and is forcing full time members of staff out of the industry.
Staff are bombarded weekly with chairman als messages but while he and the others on the board have over the top pay, even if they mess up they leave with a even larger handshake.
Royal Mail staff are not asking the world , offer 2.5 without strings and it would be accepted

With regards to Joseph from the Netherlands comment. Royal mail employees, of which I am one, do not want a huge pay increase. Just a pay increase that is level with inflation would do, and as you don't know the strings that are attached to the pay deal I suggest you get off your high horse before you hurt yourself.

I run a Delivery office for Royal Mail and I get incensed when I read some of the rubbish people believe to be true. The facts are very simple:
My posties earn anything between £18 - £22k pa which is one of the highest paid unskilled jobs I know of and most go home between 1 and 2 hours early beacause there is not enough work to do.
Redundancies in the past have always been voluntary and extrememly well funded so there has never been a shortage of volunteers.
New entrants can't believe the spanish practices that have been overlooked in the past, mostly due to managers being frightened of aunion power and current staff guard them jealously - hence the support for a strike against modernisation and the possibility they may have to work harder.
The staff I have are not concerned with the pay offer, it's the proposed changes that make them afraid.

The prices of electricity, gas, food, rent, council tax, have all risen by more than 2.5% in recent years. The postmen and women are right to strike to defend their pay and conditions, especially with the number of post offices which are going to close.

This issue isn't limited to postal workers, though. Across the public sector, pay offers are below-inflation. This is effectively a pay cut for millions of people, when chief executives get massive bonuses! The unions should work together to fight this attack.

Union members might want to ask themselves why their union leaders pay money to the Labour Party! Seems to me that it's like giving a bully menaces money. Union leaders should stand up for their members and try and build a political alternative to Labour, like the Campaign for a New Workers' Party. www.cnwp.org.uk

In practice the Royal Mail is the only supplier of final mile services to the domestic door step. Whilst competition stirs things up a bit, the RM is one of the few big monopolies left.

The cries about small businesses going out of business because of cheques in the post is crying wolf. May be tough, but most will get by. My company operates in the mail order business using Royal Mail to ship our cutomer orders, many of which are relatively low value to homes so that other carriers are not an option. We are likely to suffer permenant loss of business to other supply channels. As we spend over £100,000 a year with RM, that will be a permanent loss of business to them. Far from protecting their members jobs, this strike will simply accelerate the loss of jobs at Royal Mail. That's a real own goal for the CWU!

Gordon Brown will no doubt distance himself from being tainted by any personally attributable involvement in the settlement of this dispute - but it's hard not to believe that there is a highly politcial motive in this strike call. Here is a left wing union, in a monoploy industry, sending a strong message to a new labour PM.

Do you think the CWU have timed their ballot so that industrial action can commence the day Gordon Brown becomes PM? Have we had a summer of discontent?

After 19 years of Royal Mail, I've had enough of promises of better pay better conditions by both sides - FACT management can't be trusted to deliver
FACT - the CWU can't be trusted to deliver.

Taking redundancy and jumping the sinking ship

A strike is the last thing RM staff want to do, but sometimes it has to be made as a stand as to what is acceptable in the workplace. Its not just about the 2.5% pay rise, most posties take home about £265 per week (well below the national average), make of that as you will, but it is heavy and physically demanding job. Crozier gets a £200,000 bonus. The proposed conditions attached remove some of the benefits of the early start, early finish, with expectations to do extra unpaid work, amongst others.

The staff and Union know and accept the business needs to adapt, which will, sadly, have to include some job losses, but the proposals are similar to a football team fielding 10 men in every match.

The Government, Postcomm, along with the RM board, have created most of the problems, ie. pensions deficit and the unlevel playing field tipped in favour of RM competitors, and therefore, now need to really get involved with the workforce and Unions to trash out a productive and succesfful future for the business

postal workers are constantly being beaten over the head with the fact that Royal Mail must accept 'down stream access', which means the like of TNT collecting mail, possibly sorting it, & then giving it back to Royal Mail to deliver.Postcomm have tilted the playing field in favour of the competition so your postmans delivery pouches are getting heavier & more numerous.The reason the service is so poor now is due to the management structure & their agenda of cutting services such as the second delivery , also Royal Mail , formerly the G.P.O. was a SERVICE not a business, maybe you should look to those members of the government of the day who sold your service down the river. We had the best postal service in the world, the rot set in when it was made a business.This government should be ashamed of itself, New Labour is just a continuation of Old Tory, our postal service should be just that, a SERVICE. Royal Mail says it cannot afford a decent wage rise, yet it can pay for groups of managers to go on pointless courses, and can afford massive bonuses for anyone above shop floor level, but I think the most laughable waste of money are the 42" plasma screens & hardware that has been installed into every office to send subliminal messages to the staff, this is fact not fiction, go and check it out.

Competition is a fact of life. On the whole it's a good thing provided that the basis of competition is fair and equitable.

I do not know these companies who are supposedly creaming off Royal Mail business and there's probably a good reason for that - I live in a rural part of Scotland where they would find it much more expensive and inconvenient to operate. Such private deliveries as do happen here are frequently unreliable and have led to bizarre events you would associate with a TV sitcom.

If the Royal Mail competitors were required to provide the same level and quality of service nationwide then I would have no problem with it. But it seems to me they are taking the profitable business and leaving Royal Mail to handle the tough stuff.

That can only lead in one direction - greater subsidy from government and much higher charges to non-urban dwellers.

Rowland Hill introduced the flat-rate postage which has been a model for postal services worldwide. Our present competition policies are eroding that concept and it is much to be regretted.

We still need to find ways to make our postal services sharper and more cost effective but I am not convinced that selective competition is the way forward.

Good on the posties. It's outrageous that fatcat directors take home millions in bonuses and other perks, yet claim a below inflation payrise is acceptable to people that are earning just below the national average wage.
The postal workers have been offered a paltry and demoralising 2.5% which in real terms is a pay cut, the offer of cash bonuses means very little when you don't earn enough to get a mortgage.
This isn't an argument over who runs Royal Mail - clearly it's run by incompetent buffoons that plead poverty and want to sell their workers down the river to buy machinery, yet have so far refused to sacrifice their salary or pay increases. The union clearly cannot accept constant pay decreases for their members, and the members have voted on it. Yes, it's going to be frustrating not getting my post, but if I see a postal worker on a picket I'll offer them my support.

"Huge increases in salary" Joseph?

No, just one that is at least the level of inflation, you have no idea about the situation and the strings attached, you are to para-phrase, like "a child walking into the middle of a film"

This dispute is not about 'who runs royal mail'or a trip back to the 70's.This dispute is about a below inflation pay offer of 2.5% whith 22 strings attached.Maybe insead of making flippant comments like 'life on mars'you done some investigative journalism and found out and published what the 22 strings were we could inform the puplic a bit more sensibly.

If history is to go by then like other workers who accept the minimum offer to "protect" their jobs, they will find that their "loyalty" was not reciprocated by those "fat cats" who run the business. Massive cuts will be made and the Directors will receive massive bonuses for imposing them.

Robert Peston is correct in likening this dispute to a 1970s industrial dispute - some of the CWU demands are unrealistic. But anyone who thinks postmen and women are being too greedy should consider the facts referred to by G Edwards above. Royal Mail are offering a 2.5% increase, but want to withdraw the weekly door to door payments (approximately £30 a week) and early shift allowances (£12.02 a week), thus the average postie is looking at a £1700 annual pay CUT. Add to this the increase in junk mail and proposed later start times (meaning deliveries going way into the afternoon) and it doesn't sound like such a "win win" situation after all, does it?

I joined Royal Mail five years ago, after 20 years in industry and several years of running my own business. I was dismayed to discover that I'd stepped into a time warp. Suddenly, I was back in the seventies with all the sinister confrontation of those times. Arcane practices were (and still are) rife - what other company would pay its workers "ghost" overtime to deliver the mail, when they're still being paid for their normal working hours? What other company pays its workers for forty hours and then allows them to go home after only twenty-five or thirty?

These are the "hard working" posties that gripe about not getting a massive increase on top of their £8 (yes that's EIGHT pounds) an hour basic plus more allowances than most people dream of. Oh, and with absolutely no qualifications. There are literally millions who work harder and much longer for a lot less. Ask any interviewer how many ex-posties they've seen who are desperately trying to get back into Royal Mail after discovering what the real world is really like.

These are the same people that whine about working a few minutes "past their time" on the rare occasion that it's necessary (and booking the overtime), but don't think twice about the fact that they went home at 10am the day before, whilst being paid until 1pm.

The truth is, these cynics and terrorists are an innately work resistant bunch, BUT, as always, they form the vociferous minority with the most to lose. That's why they're making all the noise. The union is unforgivably defending the indefensible. In their mission to destroy what was once a world class service, they ignore the 42,000 members who couldn't find the enthusiasm to vote. They ride roughshod over the wishes of the many non-union staff. They drag the business inexorably toward the very brink of financial ruin on the pretext that the current pay offer is unacceptable. Why DID they recommend Parcel Force accept a similar offer only a few days ago?

Their real agenda is very different - it's personal and it involves the removal of Allan Leighton and Adam Crozier, at any cost. The CWU vilifies them because they, more than any of their predecessors, have done an enormous amount to modernise the business and steer it (despite the union's protests) into this century. With them out of the way, the union seems to think it will convince the government to reverse the liberalisation of the postal market. Fat chance. Whilst there is no evidence to suggest that the European market will open up to us, there is every reason to suppose that our European competitors will do everything to protect their considerable investment in our home market.

Make no mistake this is purely political; it's a showdown along the lines of Margaret Thatcher and the miners. The tragedy is that a few small minded, inherently lazy bigots should be allowed to comprehensively undermine a business with proven capability and, for the most part, a highly committed and, cooperative workforce who just want to do an honest day's work.

The union will have its strike. The militants will picket, name-call and intimidate. Neither will find any public support. The business community (who provide nearly 90% of Royal Mail's income) will vote with its feet. 40,000 jobs that would have gone through natural wastage, early retirement and voluntary redundancy will become abitrary and compulsory. Let's hope the ne'er-do-wells and malcontents are among them. Let's hope that when the dust settles, there's enough opportunity left to build a bright new future for what is still the best and most trusted delivery service in the world: ROYAL MAIL.

I have worked for the Royal Mail for 26 years and now hld a junior management position dealing with many of our leading customers,but not probably for much longer !!!!The CWU is pushing the business to the brink and the difference is this time there will be no pulling back. The competition must be rubbing their hands as they are all in a much better position to capatilise than ever before. Many of the CWU members who are voting for strike action are doing so because they feel it would be wrong not to back the union, not because they are unhappy about the offer. They should have thought harder about the conseqences of their actions which can only lead to even more job losses and the possible destruction of a service that has lasted for hundreds of years. Ultimately it will be them that destroy the Royal Mail not competition.

"The unions need to understand that this is 2007 not 1977, the union barons have to understand that the majority of workers do not care about them or their members..."

And it's selfish thinking like that which is the very reason you feel you, and indeed do, have to justify your job everyday.

The 2.5% is not the main dispute in this matter as most of the staff at my office are (against the strings attached to the pay rise).Later starts so that the customers receive mail late on in the afternoon staff have enough problems now with the public at the time the mail is delivered,collapsing duties so that staff can go on holiday and the rest of the staff cover their duty so even later finishes and later mail madness I say,D/D or leaflets the general public hate them but the management want to increase them to 5 and eventualy to 20 a week seeing as the government are pushing green issues and are part of Royal Mail will it not mean more recycling centres for paper.They say they have now withdrawn D/D from the pay negotiations but the issue over them has not gone away and the management will return with it.As for who runs Royal Mail the management do but they need to put realistic ideas forward not madcap ideas we hear about 40,000 redundecies but no one has explained why or where I will sign off now as I could go on forever about some of their lunatic ideas.
David.

As previously said, it's not just the 2.5%, its everything else. One concern is that management want us to start later. this may seem reasonable at first, but it means that you will get you mail later in the day. Once upon time not so long ago, most business had their mail either before they started work for the day or at worst, just afterwards. With the new plans, you may not get your mail until well into the afternoon.
Also it means that we lose our unsociable hours allowance - which is more than the pay rise - so we're actually worse off.
Last year there was agreement over pay which included this year. Unfortuantely management have decided to throw that out of the window and are not talking seriously with Union about a new one.

Everyone seems quick to call the postmen and women for standing up for their cause. what they seemt o be forgetting is that its the postal workers who are out in all weather whether it be rain or shine. They are also exposed to abuse both verbal and physical, the wear and tear effect on the body caused by constantly carrying upto approx 70kg a day on delivery. Most postal workers are on their feet for approx 7 hours a day. And many choose not to take a break due to pressure to complete deliveries. On top of this many Royal Mail are saving thousands of pounds a day by allowing the use of private cars on a delivery instead of using the vans provided.

so surely they all deserve a good deal. All the management are doing constantly is threatening damaging changes which will ultimately damage the service provided and the business as a whole.

The regulator also has to bear some of the blame as the introduction of competition did not come with a level playing field. The regulator decides how much prices have to go up when the competition do not.

Its a sad day when Royal Mail reduce services in rural areas by closing down post offices. Even in my own town many of the local post offices have been closed down to leave many of the public with no choice but to travel further afield or do without.

Royal Mail also plan to introduce later starts for the postal workers which will mean later deliveries.
This will surely have an effect on many businesses which rely on receiving their mail as early as possibly.

The later starts will also have an effect on the families of postal workers as many rely on the lunch time finish so that their wives/husbands can take a break from the kids and go to work.

Another issue is that Royal Mail are no longer offering full-time positions, so when a full-time postal worker leaves the business they are replaced with a part-timer. This also has an effect on how the service is run locally as mail is often delayed because of their lack of local knowledge.

Finally I am glad the the result of the ballot was for industrial action not because I want to strike but because it will force Royal Mail to listen to its employees and their union. This view has also been shared by some managers from the delivery offices.

It's not all about 2.5% pay rise it's about the whole business .
Not far down the line the lttle old lady in the countryside will have to get a bus to the nearest town to post her letter because Royal Mail is no longer a service to the community its a business, and will not send out a van to collect a few letters from a rural box.
More interested in sending out junk mail that nobody wants but makes more money from.
Do you think TNT, DHL and the other private firms will do what Royal Mail do now A BIG FAT NO..... .
The majority of Postman/women do a great job in ALL WEATHERS to get the post to the public

It is clear that the Royal Mail is overstaffed and inefficient. Why should customers subsidize that? The statement about 'competition being introduced in an unfair way' is interesting but it is difficult to assess so long as the Royal Mail operates so inefficiently - they would lose out to the competition even if the field was level.

Shouldn't we drop the term 'Royal' - it is unfair to link the Queen to such a shoddy outfit.

joseph you are talking utter nonsence dont belive the press the postman and woman are a dedicated hardworking workforce the 2.5 payrise is utter nonsence they want to give me a 2.5 pay rise but then take £44.50 a month off me and dont belive these bogus shares because they aint worth nothing me and 77.0000 other royal employies voted yes to show these 2 muppetts who have just had a massive bonus that enough is enough

Basically the post union has two choices. Dont strike and lose thousands of members. Strike and lose all the business and lose thousands of members. I think the public will be very sympathetic to the postmen as long as no taxes go up. I think like a lot of business both management and unions preferred the old days of no competition and easy money - gone for ever unfortunately. Tough if you're a postman with a mortgage - casual work looks like your future.

Would these "other lost benefits" include the right to book sick days in advance?

This is a 70's blog -support the industry not the worker,any chance of taking the postal worker's view for a change?No they're always in the wrong,if it's a business they're always right.

It is very sad that the media are reporting this as a struggle to see who runs Royal Mail, when in fact it is not.
The management want to have all extra work now done on overtime to be done by posties for nothing, some may be absorbed into their working hours but the majority will mean extra hours for no pay.
In some areas mail isn't being delivered until 6 o'clock at night.
One final thought, If this is such a good offer why are so many managers questioning the ability of the board openly within sorting offices and why do we lose so many Directors.!!

This is why I voted yes.

Royal mail business plan over the next 5 years :
Take 9 full time postmen, make the first 2 redundant, make the next 6 part time, leaving 1 full time job out of 9.
On top of this give the postmen 2.5% (£8) increase, however remove night duty allowance, remove driving allowance, deliver 5 lots of door2door items but only get paid for 3 of them leaving the postie about £20-£30 p/w worse off.
Add in a further £350 Million in savings in the first year.
Add in a £400 - tax local bonus if targets are met.
Add in a £400 - tax national bonus if targets are met.
( but nobody know what the targets are )
Cover 20% of another delivery for FREE if someone is off sick / on holiday.
Less collections from boxes.
Mail to arrive another 2 hours later than now.
Fewer Post Offices for the public to use.
Fund Mr. Crozier's £1 Million wage ( one of the highest paid civil servants ).
PENSION : Royal Mail took a 15 year contribution holiday but members still paid in every week - leaving a £3.3 Billion black hole (now members have to accept lower benefits / increased contributions.)
All this for a basic of £252 take home pay
That's why I backed industrial action

Is anyone aware that the 'competion' is not in fact in competition with Royal Mail but is getting money for nothing because it has invested nothing in the infrastucture that allows it to use Royal Mail to deliver letters? Royal Mail senior directors have agreed to sell their assests on the cheap so that they can turn an easy buck - and they're happy for their main asset - the workers - to do that work for minimal rewards.

Isn't there a very simple message here that postal employees are missing ?

Your competitors are already rubbing their hands with glee. I saw an article on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ which included a comment from one of your competitors (DX I seem to recall) - their line was with a strike looming, they expect to win more customers from Royal Mail in just one month than they have in the previous year.

No customers - no jobs ! Wakey, wakey !

The arguements around the post office have gone on for decades, the usual line is management versus unions.Someone mentioned look what happened with the miners and Longbridge. Two common denominators with the current post office dispute.

One-they lived in the past where unions thought they knew better than management and customer demands. Their demands for higher wages resulted in the business being no longer competative and its end was inevitable as everyone turned a blind eye to the global business markets.
Look who ownes most of the utility companies, foreign conglomerates making vast profits, do they care about unions.

Secondly,-like all workers they knew the salary when they took the jobs,yet think by joining a union as if by magic they will improve their lot through strike, threats and poor productivity. Simple solution if you don't like the terms and conditions of any job seek alternative employment.

I find the unions actions draconian, remember it is not just the directors of the post office who recieve what is claimed to be large salaries, so do the heads of unions, who need the membership to maintain their salaries and lifestyle for doing nothing. Remember union officials still get paid when they advise a postal worker to strike.

Put simply, as someone has already said, in the private sector if you don't make a profit you could be out of a job,that's reality, yet in the public sector where in most instances nothing is produced to add to the countries revenues, it is viewed as someone elses responsibility when targets are not reached, and they still believe they have a job for life.

Wake up unions and take some responsibility and accountability before it is to late.

Wages is not the only issue, reduce spurious absence, increase productivity and you might have a chance of survival.Is that not what the management of the post office are trying to achieve.

Continue to moan and argue like children and live in the 1970's will hand the post office to a foreign competitor on a plate.

History will again report that greedy unions led to another institution falling by the wayside.

Then if by magic the union will slide back under the stone from which they crawled and be once more silent, waiting for their next victim.

No-one ever said it was wrong for any organisation to set out to make a profit.

If the postal workers want more money through increased profits, then will they equally accept lesser wages as the losses continue.

Wake up and smell the coffee, the government believe in free enterprise, Gordon Brown is set to take up his new role, irrespective of unions sabre rattling.

Don't mix business with politics it will only end in tears.

Anyway the union officials are one day closer to their retirement on a fat pension provided by postal members union contributions.

Is that not the real objective of the union?

now that the vote for strike action has overwelmingly knocked the stuffing out of royal mail, i believe new deputy PM Alan Johnson (my view of course) should take leighton by the short and curleys and give him a good talking to.

The silence from Messrs Leighton and Crozier is already deafening...24 hours after a heavy defeat.

£1m salary for Crozier? What on earth does he do for that?

You are now witnessing the death of a PUBLIC SERVICE that should never have been touched.

This is all about money and not what is something that we should take as a right.

The only winners are big businesses (through cheaper postage costs so more junk mail to us)and senior executives(with bigger bonuses).

Support the union because at the moment this organisation are the only thing thats standing in the way of a total collapse of the Postal network and then it is us,the tax payer,that have to pay to sort this mess out.

Would the postmen/women responding above who are lucky enough to have got a full time contract, please bear in mind that when they report their wages at £252 take home pay, that a large proportion of the posties that people are likely to see on their streets are on the 30 hour part time contracts, and as a result, not earning anywhere like this amount.
These proposals from Royal Mail will hit this section of workers even harder.

Why is it that the Royal Mail Chief Executive's Salary, Bonus & Pay Rise is bandied about but there is no mention of how much Billy Hayes (CWU General Secretary) receives? Are Union bosses entitled to a privacy that no one else is?

Competition in postal delivery services would be lovely. As a business user, I'd like to see a level playing field for all in this industry. So, I'd like to see Royal Mail charging VAT on all their services. I'd also like Royal Mail's competitors to offer a universal delivery service for a fixed price.

Ah, but there's the rub - a universal delivery service for a fixed price is not profitable. I've recently been talking to CityLink and TNT about doing our deliveries. Both companies said the same thing - there's a (high) premium price to pay for any delivery which crosses water. So, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands and yes, even the Isle of Wight cost extra. As does - in the words of the reps I saw "anywhere where there are more sheep than people" - which means anything north of the line Glasgow-Edinburgh.

As a business user, our customers get most of their orders sent by RM's Special Delivery - an unbeatable service. So, do we have true competition? No. Do RM's rivals cherry pick? Oh YES!

I know a strike would be a huge pain for us and our customers - but you know, a 2.5% deal is pretty paltry. If the strike does go ahead, then yes, we'll have to use RM's competitors - and we'll absorb the extra costs, but when the industrial action is over, we'll be going back to Royal Mail for the bulk of our services because, quite simply, none of the others can match the service we get for the price.

As a manager in Royal Mail let us get the hysteria out of the way.
Postpersons do not book sick leave off in advance.
They are manage through a strict sick absence procedure which many have found could lose their jobs.
Yes some do work less hours than they are paid but that is down to bad management allowing them to do it, right Keith!!
When the single daily delivery system was introduced the majority of walks were increased so that they worked their hours.
Most of us are sick to death of the Union and Management fighting instead of working together.
Fuelled by the board bringing their friends from outside who cost the Business Millions but produce nothing.

I work on a Post Office counter. I would like to know when i will be asked by "my" union (CWU) what i actually think of the pay deal as up to now they have only asked me if i want to strike and not if i would accept the pay deal. While all of this is going on i am losing money as the pay deal will not be backdated. I thought i paid the CWU to stand up for me. Well if they don't ask me then how do they know?
I feel like a pawn. The union are destroying our business and myself and numerous colleagues are handing in our Union cards as they are jeopardising my future.

FSB trade and industry chairman, Clive Davenport states
"A cheque delayed in the post can mean the difference between life and death for a small business, which means that this strike cannot be allowed to go ahead."
But this is exactly what Royal Mail management want to happen. Part of the change in terms and conditions they want is to delay the mail getting out to the public.
Later starts and no night sorting will result in the average start of a postmans round being about 10.00am. So some small businesses will not get their post between 3-5 hours later. And this could be worse because the management also want the postman to cover each others walks on top of their own, without overtime pay,if there is sickness and holidays. So imagine a small business getting post at 5.00pm due to these management changes. It really is the postman and women who are trying to stop the service to the public and small businesses deteriorating.
So maybe Clive Davenport should be told all the facts by the Royal Mail management before making sweeping statements.

Also, what planet is Bob McKay living on.

Most postmen and women would wave the pay rise £8.00 a week if it meant stability and the chance to have a consistent service for the public and business.

How many times do we have to stress that it is the management that are trying to drastically change the way Royal Mail works.

Why are all the changes proposed by management so far away from what the employees want?

I think a 77% vote against the managements proposals say alot. Bearing in mind we voted not to strike some 4 years ago.

If Bob McKay wants his post at anytime, and I mean anytime between 10.30am and 5.00pm then so be it. But I would bet him his house against mine that the majority would not..

I`ve worked 27 years for Royal Mail. It was a "closed shop" when I began my service and I had to join the CWU to do the job.
Yes, when I started the union did dictate much of the way the work was carried out and they did have too much power.
But thanks to the "marvellous maggie" years this was weakened considerably.
Progressively we have had to endure more and more management decisions that make it impossible to do our jobs as effectively as we want.
The saying is "the rot starts at the top". This applies to Royal Mail.
We are stopped doing our jobs by the" new way of working"decided by people who have never done any work remotely like the delivery and processing of mail.They come onto a workplace floor only when the media need to promote another of their crazy ideas.
I work in an office where we were just recently awarded for being the most efficient shift in our area. What`s so great about that? Well, six months before this we were gathered together and told to make Royal Mail more cost efficient we were being closed and all our county`s mail would be moved 40miles away to another office,which,incidentally was the worst peforming office in the area!!
Not only that all the mail would then be brought back to our satelite delivery offices for delivery.A round trip of about 80 miles! This is the sort of decisions we have to bear.
We want to work and we want to give the public a good service,but when the workforce has no other way of getting managment`s attention what other way can we go than to vote for industrial action.
All businesses have people working for them who don`t pull their weight.It`s a fact of life, but the majority of our workforce want to do the job well and we do take a pride in our job.
Our problem is the people who make the decisions are living in a totally diferent world to us. We have floor managers who have no Knowledge of the basic jobs needed to get the mail out of the offices to be delivered and we have Higher Management who`s only aim is to make Imaginary profits so they can justify their out of proportion bonuses and wages.
As an example of their equal sharing of last year`s profits: Postal Staff had 92p a week Adam Crozier over £430k Alan Leighton £180k.Not bad for 2 days work a week in Mr. Leighton`s case!!

I think it is time that customers of Royal Mail start charging the CWU every time they go on strike for loss of business. I am fed up with unions holding us customers hostage (it's hardly Royal Mail that is being held hostage, it is us), and our own businesses suffering from outages of service.

You strike and it affects me, I bill you. Simple. They'll eventually get the hint to either negotiate a pay deal better for the long term, or get used to the fact that they are no longer as privileged as they believe themselves to be.

oh the spin, just recieved letter from chairman al (yes another one)
Even thought the strike ballot has been announced he now wants to include the 20,000 non union members to try and lessen the percentage.
But all through the letter no, not one mention of the strings.
Please remember as the posties will remember this is chairman als 3rd final offer.Mr leighton i am sure has said in the past "that working class people dont need or want a pay rise, pay them in bonus and that keeps them happy".
The 1st offer was a one off payment and still today management are pushing for that saying its more than the 2.5%.
So in real terms we have already agreed to a pay cut have we not.
If everybody and i mean everybody in RM were to stand still or take pay cut then the argument might stand up. but please look at Mr Leighton and his past.He comes in asset strips cuts jobs brings in new contracts of employment at reduced terms and conditions then takes a big handshake and moves on
Let senior management take a pay cut or at least a freeze
let Mr leighton get buy on £282 a week for 40 hrs constant nightshift
and then tell me i am being unresonable

Maybe Tesco should buy it.

Wilbur Watson wrote: " It is clear that the Royal Mail is overstaffed and inefficient." " The statement about 'competition being introduced in an unfair way' is interesting but it is difficult to assess so long as the Royal Mail operates so inefficiently"

Well Wilbur have a look at the Public Service company figures that I work for at the end of last year, you will see we are not inefficient.

ftp://ftp.royalmail.com/Downloads/public/ctf/rmg/Quality_of_Service_Report_Postcomm_Q306-07.pdf

To answer points made I Most of the socalled perks are a result of the EEC Social Chapter , I suggest LJ would be better suited taking out the hysterical " The Daily Rant/ Flail"
2 Plasma Tvs were installed to show Leighton & Crozier's Juvenile and unprofessional videos to the staff.
3 The Parcelforce Offer didn't have more strings than Pinnochio. There isn't many staff left to vote anyway!, I've had the misfortune to do agency work for Parcelforce in Central Lancs, corrupt managers witheld driver/loaders wages , delivery schedules that could only be achieved by a Tardis Machine. A culture of bullying with a disasterious Team Leader system, that place made the sorting office up the A6 look good and that's saying something!
4 At Preston sorting office though this will disappoint the anti CWU contributers , the most malign influence in reality was the CMA/Amicus, though they are not a Union, they are a Association!, as long as Managers parrot the yes Allan, no Adam mantra, BNP members as managers, one that should have been sacked for assault only for neopotism , drunks, bullies who couldn't run a whelk stall, alchoholic shift managers, prosper, the nastiest bully was once the CMA Rep; as they know they'd be backed up from Old Street to the hilt.They've thier "Systems" and rotten "culture" to protect.It's no coincidence a trouble shooting Mail Centre Manager wanted rid of these people, and in turn the Managers and Staff they protected.
So I'm sorry it's not a "Red Plot" always.The CWU often "sit on everything" as they are more used to relatively benign times.
5 The incensed Delivery Office Manager reels out the tired old chesnut " They are all lazy", Job and finish was the sweetener proposed by Allan Leighton , to get the early finishes you'd need serious seniority or go drinking with the Managers . Delivery Posties are actually thier own worst enemies charging round like lunatics, unpaid early starts , illegal use of cars etc. You'd need some serious overtime to earn that much, the genorous redundancy packages don't exist , RM want people through the door as cheaply as possible using the most underhand means. There's a Post Demob bullying culture , that DOM will be bullied by Area, the DOM will bully his line managers due to pressure from Old Street.
There's orders to get rid of staff under 50 who can't keep up, kidney patients on trumped up wilful delay charges, and Royal Mails Contracter "Occupational Health Care Professonials" a French Computer Company, the quacks and hacks doing Royal Mail's bidding, the long arm to avoid litigation only result in Industrial Tribunuals and complaints to the General Medical Council which ambulance chasing and Employment Solictors are quite happy to do; as Royal Mail can't sort the wheat from the chaff as it's too profound and complicated.

With over 30 years service as a postman I would like to say that this pay deal will bring extra work and less money for postmen.The 12 or so conditions and strings are killers . Postmen would be better off as they are ( without this 2.5 % extra and the conditions and strings ).

I find the complete naivety of some of the posters here to be almost unreal.

So you claim are being offered an actual pay cut? Yes, you probably are. That's hardly surprising in a situation where - as almost anyone outisde can see - the Royal Mail is in a (in certain respects) declining industry, is grossly uncompetitive within that industry, and is overstaffed and run at far too high cost.

Of course the Royal Mail has to try and cut costs and cut posts in order to stay alive. It needs to change - and probably far more drastically - if it is going to survive in the future - we live in a new world of internet, email, mobiles technology.

To answer Tim's comments about "his union" regarding Post Office counters and staff handing in thier union cards
1 Your Union is trying to stop your Post Office being closed down! 2 Allan Leighton& the DTI, wants you down the road or working for WH Smith for less money without TUPE, which is illegal (Transfer of Undertakings Protection}3 You would have a lot more to complain about with USDAW or GMB representing your intrests in a shop.4 If you were in trouble or had problems at work you'd wish you were in a Union., otherwise you'd just be a number that noone cares about.
I agree with David the Royal Mail Manager that this Aerial Sharron school of Industrial Relations should stop, this sorry affair should go to ACAS.
As for the complete naivety of the Posters, maybe Posties should work for the NMW £5.35 p.h., take a corporate shafting, but it's OK for inefficency with overpaid senior/ middle managers with thier gross salaries who surprise, surprise can't manage., that's where the overstaffing is!
Deal with the rot from the top, the top down system has been rejected elsewhere.
Also the CWU's General Secetary Billy Hayes is on £60k ,a bit of a difference from the obscene figures banded about for Leighton and Crozier.Delivery is actually very efficent,,not overstaffed! but there's constant attacks on it from high, the latest "efficency idea" is actually for collecting bags from outside houses!There's nothing like nostaglia for the 80s for some of these " realistic " posters is there!?

"chief executive is pocketing a bonus reported to be £370,000 and total remuneration of around £1m" for a 2 or 3 day week!!
Postmen have not had a rise for years, all the money for a rise comes from grabbing back allowances, overtime rates, getting rid of jobs and sharing the work out etc etc.
Every time its " mail is declining" we can't pay more, how come every postman is delivering 6 times the mail they used to??? Where was "mail is up" have a rise with no strings???
They rob our pension fund and we have to pay it back by making more savings???
If they had not put more strings to the deal than Troy Tempest has they may have got away with it.
The original "share offer" gave the game away 49% to postal workers 51% staying goverment. After a qualifying period you caoulk sell your shares....... only to PO employees. Hey guess what if the goverment sell off the PO you'd only have to buy 26% to gain control beats having to shell out for 51%
Management want the PO privatised and are doing everything they can to make sure it happens and they remain in control.
I say get rid of them and do it the same as they would a postman who under performed.... No multi million pound hand shake/bonus for being no good at your job!!

tim,of course royal mail is uncompetitive,it isn't allowed to compete on a fair level.(you have done your homework).
as for a declining buisness?do you know just how much the junk mail posted is worth?billions.the postal industry dosn't care about you and your letters,theres no money to be made in that,in fact RM lose money on each letter sent.the money is in the junk mail.when RM say 'customers' they mean the big companies that send out all rubbish.
'we live in a new world of internet, email, mobiles technology.' if thats the case never send or recieve anything from the royal mail again.
EVERTHING that gets posted to you letters and packets ,just write refused on it.
oh and tell the ebay users to send thier stuff electronically.

Ihave been a Royal Mail employee for thirteen years.I would like to know how all these people can say we are over employed.Where I work we are under employed by sixty people.Also I would like to point out our so called TOP MANAGEMENT? are giving themselves massive bonuses for the achievements WE are doing.We only want an inflation proof pay with no strings.

As is usually common in this type of vote the members have voted in a clear majority against the employer to put pressure on them to raise the wage rise. But then that is why they were offered such a meagre wage rise in the first place.

But let us not insult either the employers or the employees. Also, let us not forget this business is historically based on a civil service regime of rewards through holidays, unsociable hours and pension schemes. That is why in the present day, not only have the Royal Mail management a serious problem competing with the current anti-social cherry picking competitors, it is also the case that it cannot live up to the expectations of a "working class" labour intensive workforce that is trying to protect what it believes to be a reasonable remuneration in all it's many forms for a reasonable days work. So who is to blame for the ensuing debacle. Why none other than the middle-right New Labour Party who have forgotten, like most politicians either local or national, blue or red, that it is the populous that have the democratic vote not UK and foreign companies. Stuart Thompson LLB Hons. Socialist and e-bay seller reliant on the Royal Mail.

I have been a postman for 10 years and as previously mentioned it is not the 2.5 pay rise but the conditions attached,we do not want to go on strike but this is the only way of showing how deeply we feel about the situation.To add, when the public realise that delivery of their mail will be even later than at present they may realise why we feel forced into this action.If it wasnt for postmen/postwomen using their cars for delivery for which they are paid nothing and not taking any breaks ,some are starting before 5am so they can finish on time in many cases.Would M&S sell Tesco branded food at a loss ,I dont think so.

The Royal Mail wants to reduce headcount. I sometimes get my mail at 2 or 3 in the afternoon.If they cut the headcount any further, I'd be as well collecting my mail myself,
that way I'll get it a day early.

I think that there are two issues emerging from the comments that I have read so far. One blaming the Government / Regulator and the other concerning the so called 'strings' to the 2.5% pay increase.
It is true that the Regulator (and by implication the Government) is supporting competition rather than Royal Mail, but I fail to see how a strike is going to change this. RM Management hate this as much as the staff and are doing all they can to reduce the impact. The only way to stop it is to vote for a Government that will do something about it.
The 'strings' do not include most of the changes quoted. The Early Start allowance will be kept for three years, by which time who knows what will have happened. The other changes mentioned are only those that any sensible company would undertake and are going to happen anyway.
The only other thing that I would like to comment on is the issue of managerial (upper or otherwise) bonuses. Post Persons got a bonus last year, as agreed in their pay deal, so why should they get upset about the bonuses achieved by others - based on their pay deals. Any of them who think that Leighton / Crozier etc are not worth it should remember where the Business was going before they joined.

As a Royal Mail Manager I would like to clear up a few points regarding pay.
Firstly, my understanding is that Royal Mail Senior managers have taken a pay freeze this year.

Secondly, the so called 'strings' in the pay deal regarding delivering increased numbers of door to door items or 'junk mail' as it is referred to are no longer there. They were taken out of the offer by Royal Mail many weeks ago.

Lastly, the people who are so willing to point out what pay a postperson is on are forgetting about the monthly performance bonus's. In my office this is nearly £70 per month per person irrespective of whether we are meeting our performance targets or not!

I would also like to point out that although the CWU are very quick to oppose RM's business plans, they are not very quick in providing alternatives to surviving in this increasingly commercial environment that we find ourselves in.

Having worked for Royal Mail for over 30 years I have to say that the current senior management ie Leighton and Crozier are a breath of fresh air compared to the hopeless Civil Servant types the business have been stuck with in the past. The state of Royal Mail can be laid firmly at the feet of these previous managers who failed miserably to manage the business on a commercial basis, failed to take on the governments meddling and failed to confront the destructive anarchists of the CWU.

I'm not saying that the current management get it all right - and they don't, but the battle over who runs the business has been coming for over 20 years and needs to be settled once and for all.

The current pay offer is not a great one but it will do for now. What the business needs is fewer workers working harder and being rewarded more.

There are some fantastic people working for Royal Mail but also a small minority of shirkers and wasters who hide behind over-complicated personnel procedures, aided and abetted by an agressive union who are prepared to defend the indefensible. Royal Mail has saddled itself with the worst of the agitators from previous nationalised industries and is paying the price.

Royal Mail needs a union but it has to be forward thinking and responsible. The CWU are consigning themself to oblivion by their attitude and approach.

I work for Post Office Ltd in a branch office.The offer on the table to us is a pay freeze for two to three years(0% rise)they also want to remove our Saturday allowance,which in effect would be a pay cut in real terms while I agree the 2.5% offer to royal mail employees is not enough why is there no mention in the media of the "Joke Pay" offermade to Post Office colleagues who work on the counters in branches.

All I want to say NOT all Royal Mail Employees want to strike. I cant remember facts and figures, but there is a huge proportion of employees NOT even in the union. We dont get a voice in whats happening. I am a 53 year old lady and DO NOT want to lose my job. I have bills to pay and a nice house to keep. For gods sake cant the union see what the threat of striking is already doing for the company, we have lost Amazon, how many more of our major companines will follow. Will I have a job for much longer, its a worrying thought to be out of work at my age!!!!!!

I have had to take the abuse, insults and threats of violence from members of the public whilst delivering their mail.
Postmen and women get all the blame for the current later deliveries - we didn't want the later deliveries. Royal Mail insisted on them (totally ignoring the health and safety issues) with complete disregard for the customer.
There is no support from managers, just more threats and abuse.
Don't dare to be ill, you'll just be threatened with the sack.

We did't vote for industrial action lightly. Many people who voted yes thought long and hard and individually decided that a stand had to be made to try to prevent the wholesale destruction of the service that we try to provide.

There are many who decided not to vote, that was their choice. As to those who did not get a chance to vote, if they had bothered to join the union they would have had the chance to have their say.

The majority who chose to vote decided tho support the union. We are ready to stand by that decision if necessary. We would prefer a reasonable agreement with Royal Mail but that looks increasingly less likely.

I often wonder what the outcome would be if ALL Royal Mail staff were balloted about strike action - not just union members and everyone voted.
I do not want to and will not strike, nor (as far as I have heard - except for maybe the union reps) do any of the people I work with whether they are union members or not. Most of them say they joined the union to try to prevent any strike action and to protect their jobs. They all voted and are now scared stiff that they may lose their jobs because of the union and strike action.
I and many others have mortgages and families to feed. I do not want to lose my income and maybe my home just because of a union and union members who want to strike.
How come all the postal workers who want to strike don’t seem realise that by taking strike action they are more likely to lose their jobs. The more mail sent to our competitors, with us just getting the last downstream access bit, means the less money available to pay wages anyway. Striking will mean we lose even more contracts – therefore less mail which means less people needed to work. Isn’t there a saying about cutting off your nose to spite your face?
I know what you should all do – instead of striking, hand in your notice and apply to work for the competition. Royal Mail can then advertise your jobs and the competitor’s staff can apply because Royal Mails pay rate is apparently so much better than theirs anyway and everyone will be happy.
1) The competition who will be getting Royal Mail trained workers so they will be happy.
2) You will no longer be Royal Mail employees (which is what you seem to want anyway) so you will be happy.
3) The competitions staff will be getting much better jobs and pay so they will be happy.
4) Mine and my colleague’s jobs, income, homes and families safe so we will all be happy.

Problem sorted. Now just do it and let the rest of us live and work in peace without having to suffer your greed.
By the way, where does it state that everyone HAS TO HAVE a pay rise every year?

I would just like to say i'm a part time postman on a 32hour contract that means i work 5hrs 20mins a day (7am - 12pm)taking out a full walk, 6 days a week with only 4weeks 3days paid holiday a year earning £308 before tax so after tax i get a net pay of £236.16 now after rent, bills (gas etc), food, and child care costs i'm left with £30 oh and once a month i have council tax so month end i'm left with £8 lucky i don't drive.

The reason most full time posties finish earlyer is because they come to work early, they use there cars (at there own cost) and know there work/walk inside out, as with an office job if you know the paper work then it will be easier to do.

For all those people who complaine about postage prices going up why don't you take your 50p and get in your car/train and see how far that takes you.

And for the top brass i am still taking out as much work as i did 3years ago (if not more) so if work volums are falling then why are my bags still so heavy?

i don't belong to the cwu because if i did i would have less money

with regard to this on 12 Jun 2007, Gary wrote: what is this person on about? he obviously lives in a parralle universe would he like to know the total amount of bonus we received in our office last year? well it was,nt £70 a month like his make beleive office but a staggering 92p yes you read that right royal mail paid us just 92p bonus for the whole year.and with regard to the rm bosses taking a pay freeze they forget to mention the fact that they all received £1000 bonus this month as a thank you for all there hard work this makes me as a postman sick to the core 2.5% pay rise? not good but 99% of postmen/women would gladly accept this but whats the point if they give you a 2.5% rise then take roughly £4000 from you.
£323+£30+£12 =£367
£325+£8= =£332
net loss=£ 35
this is spot on and just one of the losses we are facing if rm get there way.mind you if postcomm let us play on a level field then i,m sure none of this would of ever arrose(postcomm obviously have shares in TNT)what other reason can there be for them to let and make royal mail go to the dogs when the competitors cherry pick and hammer the final nails into the coffin,and well as for crozier and leighton well what can be said about these guys who get staggering salerys and huge bonuses for what ?? they are clueless and more like wardolf and statler from the muppet show.roll on friday let the strikes commence.

I took an temporary job as a postie some seven years ago and saw how hardworking the majority were.
I also saw how the big firms are creaming off the paying work and expecting deliveries to your door to be subsidised by the taxpayer through forcing Royal Mail to deliver the mail that most people don't want.
What I'd like introduced is a mechanism to recharge those companies for my time in throwing away all the garbage that I haven't asked for, and certainly don't want to subsidise them to deliver.
If TNT, Deutsche Post and the ilk want access to the market lets see them pay for it by setting up their own delivery network and giving us an invoicing adress to recharge for wasted time in binning unwanted mail-how about Ten Pounds per item?
That'll free up the regular postie to deliver the stuff we need and want.

Whats the difference between a loaf of bread and a posties wage? You can feed a family with a loaf of bread!!

To Royal Mail managers who post on here,the ballot was a secret postal ballot,in the privacy of our own homes we sat down and put our crosses and made the decision to go on strike.
And if it wasnt for posties coming in early,taking their own cars on delivery the postal service in this country would be a lot worse.

The strings on the pay offer are still there,they havnt gone away,if you want a pay cut,worse working conditions,then accept Royal Mails vision,if you dont then stand by your friends and colleagues.

It seems to me postmen have two alternatives. They can go on strike and see the business go down the toilet or they can accept and lose a lot of pay. There are any number of Poles / Zimbabweans etc who will do this job on a casual basis for the minimum wage.
The real question is why English businesses can't restructure in a way that doesn't stuff the workforce.
Any ideas. One problem seems to be that any organisation that employs a lot of middle-aged men in the public service ( firemen come to mind) seems a bit out of touch about how life is in the real world these days.

The office where I work the vast majority use their own cars. We get no money for it and take about £250 a week for 6 days hard graft. It’s a tough job and its six days a week. As other posters say these TNT and the likes are just creaming off the big customers such as BT. They have no interest in small mailings or small businesses for example.

If this situation continues you will lose the universal service. As it is you THE PUBLIC are going to lose your post office. It’s all money money money, nothing to do with service anymore. Probably ten years from now Royal Mail will be in the hands of a private equity firm-smashed up by a bunch of con-artists who have never paid a dimes tax in the last ten years then sold off for profit of a few billion.

Thing is not much fight left in this country and the public at large have no idea of the “hidden agenda�

I work in a delivery office in SW London.Work loads have not decreased for us as we deliver TNT and other mail company post for them.Yes I make time out of my job but only because I use my own car on delivery.If staff in my office stopped using there own cars it would be choas.We have not enough bikes to go around not enough seats on vans to be dropped out to our walks.
Anyway This strike isn't about pay.It's about being told to soak up other peoples work for nothing.would managers to other managers jobs for nothing?
Crozier and Leighton will be gone by next year.Dig deep posties and be ready for a long fight!

I work for Royal mail and have done for over 20 years, and in that time the working practices in a delivery office have not changed, we have never ben accused of being overpaid by 25%, or underworked by 40%, we have been told that our competotors pay 25% less than royal mail and are 40% more effecient ( because they have the latest automation). If we all actualy stood back and looked at our jobs we would realise what a good job we have and accept the need for change, however that would mean that we have to admit that some of us ( not all) have got very easy jobs.Some London offices still have duties for cleaning out the stables, I suppose they think Queen victoria is still on the throne as well.

Come on Posties open your eyes and realise that we do need to change, and we cant live in the Royal Mail of our memories forever.

I agree with the fact that there has to be change, but it has to be in the right places. Cut the amount of upper management that just sit down drinking coffee and moaning about meeting figures. I work in a large delivery office in Hampshire and I think the amount of indoor staff that are not needed and are standing around is unbelievable. Royal Mail could quite easily save a lot of money if they stopped having so many different rules for different members of staff and implement staff into areas where they are needed and move them from where they are not needed. If people want to keep there jobs they will adapt. We need someone to step in and sort this mess out and quickly before it gets even more out of control. We will accept change but only for the right reasons.

During my 9 years as a delivery postman from 1991 ,the Royal Mail was a net contributor to the Treasury by about £1/2 billion each year.
Then we had the new thinkers come in ,as has been said here ,mostly thinking about how they could increase their own bonuses,and from there it went downhill.
In my day the post was sorted in the same building as the delivery office and was therefore available for delivery up to the 7.00am out time. All first delivery mail was through customer's letterboxes by 9.30am except on the heaviest of days ,then it was back to the office for a quick cup of tea and out with the second delivery.
One of the greatest " magic " money saving solutions in recent years was ,sack 1/3 of all post staff and do away with 2nd delivery....Bu**er the customers. My grand-daughter of 5 could have thought that up,and yet huge bonuses were paid for this brilliant money saving scheme. My goodness ,why didn't I think of that ?
Nowadays ,with deliveries down to one a day and with postmen/women not even going out until 10.00am, providing a reliable service to the customer is definitely the last thing on Royal Mail's mind.
I only hear second hand these days what a mess the RM is in with new schemes being thought up every week ,but I and a good many many more postmen could see all this coming and left.I was one of the lucky ones who could afford to do it.
Such a shame.
Why we cannot have service industries like railways and Royal Mail providing a service to the people of this country rather than trying to be great money making enterprises is one of the things that I hold against " New Labour ". They had their chance to put it right ,but didn't have the guts.
John

I have worked for the Royal Mail for the best part of 14 years and I am grateful for what it has given me. Unfortunately, the mail centre I work in is like so many others, riddled with the lazy who do little or nothing and management who allow it to go on. Furthermore, we are stuck with the CWU, the most inept organisation of all. Sadly, the Royal Mail will pay a heavy price for allowing the rot to set in because of lousy staff, dreadful managers and the CWU.

Redundancy?
Sure bring it on. I'll apply for it, but will be unlikely to get it. That is only for the lucky minority. I've tried twice in the past to no avail. I want to leave this sinking ship, having first started back in 1981. I saw the future, like many other of my colleagues, and started my own sucessful business, so I have nothing to fear and no regrets about leaving Royal Mail. Not all posties are idiots - many have degrees, and more to there names.

But I'm sure most if not all of the posters to this thread would agree, that they would not leave without their recundancy package of around £15k, in my instance, which I have worked hard for, as postie, manager, trainer (when Royal Mail trained their employees - not anymore), mentor, and now postie again.

the question is why is it that this country adheers to what ever the rest of europe dictates when they themselves back out,eg:the postal/parcel services(open market),driving hours restrictions etc.we are being walked all over.its about time the people of gb stood up against our own goverment and say,what the bloody hell are you playing at.allso,it is about time the public realised that all this competion is not good for royal mail or themselves for the following reasons:it is royal mail that still delivers the final mile of all our comnpetitors,they are just taking the easy bit,collect from a mailing house and dump it on royal mail.
allso royal mail uses agency workers all year round(manpower)this certain agency is owned by a certain exec of royal mail.why do we need agency workers all year round,if we need to rid the company of 40,000 jobs???????the mind boggles....
j allsop.

What the unions dont understand is that they do not and will not run the business. They do not understand how modern business works, it's above their level of experience.

They have two choices - back the management 100% and modernise from 1972 to the present day, which will be painful for them as 50% of their membership will be sacked.

The other choice is keep striking. What will happen then is the company will fold and the market will be taken over by private enterprise, which is as it should be.

Please cmu and posties, please, please, please vote to strike - keep it up: we the British people want you gone.

I am frankly amazed by some of the comments here... it obviously shows a complete lack of knowledge about what is happening regarding postmen and women! within the last 3 years, the mail that we deliver per day has increased dramatically, not to mention the door2door items which is likely to be increased 3 fold! we are woefully understaffed, yet, jobs are on the line! Most people do not fully appreciate just what we do to make sure the public get every item which is sent to them, no matter how badly addressed, poorly packed, and some diabolical handwriting etc! Plus, all of the mail which is dealt with by the "competition" is still delivered by royal mail postal staff, when the royal mail see a down turn in items, its only calculated by what goes through the machines, not what turns up to be delivered! Contrary to belief, our delivery targets are met around 98% nationally! that constitutes a good result in my book! We do have a good reputation, this i know from the public whom it is said condemn us, Ive heard it personally! All this for a pay cut? not to mention the strings attached to this pay deal and a personal message from our illustrious leader that we do not deserve the money we recieve! They change our rules for deliveries every week but fail to inform the public, its us on the streets that feel this most! its almost like the powers that be want us to screw it up! But!!! that isnt happening! What is happening is a knee jerk reaction to something they cant control! I dont mind constructive critisism, but do your homework first! Its a job, all I want is the chance to do it properly and be recognised for what i do and get paid accordingly! Is that too much to ask?

I think the royal mail strikes are apolling i was waiting for importnt mail on the 5th of july and that was the day of a postal strike ok now i can understand wanting a pay rise and i can understand disrupting buisnesses but what about the public we need our mail i have been in th Royal Navy now for 4 years and i have a yearly pay rise sometimes but i have to live with the pay i get i cant go on strike not that i would even think about it i just think it is shocking and it disrupts so many lives in the process of its usless ness we dont want or need to be caught up in your figth for a bigger wadge

Hi cally, I too find the strikes disruptive, Its the only thing we can do though to bring this to the managements attention, that we are not happy with what they are proposing, dont think for one minute that its happening just for a pay rise! I could live without having a pay rise(reluctantly, of course!) all the public sees is that the mail is disrupted! for us its much more serious! when the changes come into effect you will see a worse royal mail than before! the mail will be late regularly, you will have a lot more junk mail aswell. for us postal staff it means a lot of job losses, not middle management but needed postmen and women, we will have to wait till 10am to start our rounds, we have to cover rounds for people who are on holiday or sick for no extra money. this is just a few of the things we will encounter! how would you feel if your job responsibilities were doubled, they cut half of your personnel and still expect you to function fully! then they cut your contracted hours but still expect you to complete your tasks! all this for what equates to a pay cut! Its not a petty squabble but a fight to keep the royal mail functioning! I like my job and dont want to see it going to the wall, All because the bosses are unable to organise the company in the face of competition! Its all panic strategies, money saving and job cuts, instead of looking forward and bringing the comany into the 21st century! I just want to do my work without all the red tape and hurdles to face! do they actually want us to deliver the mail or not? if it aint broke dont fix it!

The average postman is certainly semi skilled at the least, 14 years at Reading and Gt Yarmouth vouch for this: I saw grown men brought to their knees under the pressure from the exersion and the supervisors, have a go then critisize, Mr Crozier!

I am amazed that Cally has any understanding of anything literate(that includes his mail). Not only is Cally semi-literate but is woefully short on facts.

I am ,however a postman and can speak without fear of contridiction.
Two weeks ago The Mirror'reported RM's plan to rob us of our pension in a way that would have made Robert Maxwell proud.

The misconception is that this dispute is about pay,its not. Like everything RM do its ill-concieved and short-sighted

Royal Mails management are inept and incompetant. They have opened the flood gates to efficient competition and have themselves only to blame
The senior jobs have been taken on by a reject Footbal Association executive who merily screwed things up their brilliantly and an ex supermarket boss which says it all.
No one can argue that technology changes staffing requirements but the damage done by this motley crew to their staff morale and to the industrial users of the post office will never be forgotten
At a basic level when I see a mail box emptied with a 1st and 2nd class box and all the contents go into one bag I wonder bother sending anything first class.
From an office point of view we now send everthing 2nd class because it is ore economic and there is as much chance of oit arriving the next day as 1st class. Also when you complain about delivery teh bog standard answr under this management is that "we never guarantee next day delivery with 1st classs mail only yhta it will get there!. With that management thinking in situ the management should be replaced forwith without compensation and some balanced human beings take their places asap

Royal Mails management are inept and incompetant. They have opened the flood gates to efficient competition and have themselves only to blame
The senior jobs have been taken on by a reject Footbal Association executive who merily screwed things up their brilliantly and an ex supermarket boss which says it all.
No one can argue that technology changes staffing requirements but the damage done by this motley crew to their staff morale and to the industrial users of the post office will never be forgotten
At a basic level when I see a mail box emptied with a 1st and 2nd class box and all the contents go into one bag I wonder bother sending anything first class.
From an office point of view we now send everthing 2nd class because it is ore economic and there is as much chance of oit arriving the next day as 1st class. Also when you complain about delivery teh bog standard answr under this management is that "we never guarantee next day delivery with 1st classs mail only yhta it will get there!. With that management thinking in situ the management shoudl be replaced forwith without compensation and some balanced human beings take their places asap

You know if you want a better paid job, you should go to University!
Delivering the mail is hardly rocket science.
I remember my mate telling me that he got Overtime from 10.30am!! Even though he had only worked for a couple of hours, why? Because the unions blackmailed the employers with strike.
What the hell?
I have to work 8 hours before i get overtime.
Postal workers complain about the big wigs getting big bonuses and salaries, but if they didnt offer those things they wouldnt get anyone capable of doing the job properly and then they would be really messed up.
Anyone can deliver the mail, running a business? Far fewer.
Its called Supply and Demand.
Its the way of the world, you should take a look sometime.

Workers of the Royal Mail remember our once great car industry perhaps you should take heed lest you drive your business (and I do mean Your) into the ground with this age old stand of "lets lose more money and charge the customer more as long as us the super service deliveries get more".

I see another great British institution about to be confined to the annull's of history.

Apart from being chairman of Royal Mail, Allan Leighton is currently the chairman of Bhs Ltd (shops), Wilson Connolly Holdings plc (house builders) and Race for Opportunity (business organisation). He is also non-executive chairman of Cannons Group Ltd (health clubs) and lastminute.com (internet retailer). Oh and we're not finished yet.

He is the non-executive deputy chairman of Leeds Sporting plc (Leeds United football club RIP) and non-executive director of BSkyB, Dyson Ltd (vacuum cleaners) and George Weston Ltd (a subsidiary of Associated British Foods).

Might I suggest he devote a bit more time to his responsibilities at the Royal Mail or let someone take over who isn't too busy counting his money from all his jobs or wondering which company he is supposed to be visiting today?

Whilst I agree that the unions are behind the times at Royal Mail, noone earning £400 a week is going to take a blind bit of notice when the corporate trough is being so extensively drunk dry.

attention of rod.delivering is not rocket science.hmmm i have trained people who have degrees ,phds etc and struggle doing a mundane postal job.most have left shortly after as they just cannot handle it.most peoples perceptions of royal mail must be watching postman pat with their kiddies in reality it is hard graft,with little praise.an example of this was when royal mail announced record QOS figures and this was not mentioned at work briefs allthough the union put the print off from the bbc on the cwu board ,just to keep staff informed.again this is the dichotomy of the situation record qos and yet there will be inevitable job losses.

Royal Mail managers are not interested in providing equipment so that staff can carry out their jobs. It is a never ending struggle to find yorks to ferry mail out of the mail centre, and to cap it all, bags to put the mail in are becoming an endangered species. This organisation is fast becoming a joke and I'll not be sorry to see the back of the Royal Mail. It is a rubbish dump with low standards and little else. I say to TNT, UK Mail and others, kick the living daylights out of the Royal Mail. They deserve nothing else.

I have just read in the Courier an item requesting the return of Yorks and bags to the mail centres because of acute shortages and the Royal Mail fear it could affect their chances of keeping contracts. The prospects of mail centre managers doing something positive for the staff by keeping mail centres fully stocked with equipment is nil. This shower are too selfish, too conceited and a disgrace to a once proud organisation. Congratulations to TNT for winning a 1.6 million pounds contract from the Royal Mail for the distribution of EMAP magazines. Keep up the good work TNT and the sooner you put the Royal Mail out of business the better.

I wonder whether Royal Mail has a death wish? Today I observed on postboxes a little notice saying that as from 28th October they will no longer be collecting mail from postboxes on Sundays or Bank Holidays. The Royal Mail website talks simply about Sundays:

Has anyone compiled a list of services no longer provided? Early first delivery, second delivery...

I hold no brief for either the Royal Mail or CWU, but it seems to me that both are completely out of touch with the realities of life. The Royal Mail has so far failed to realise that it now has competitors and that means a need to turn itself into a truly people focussed organisation, people meaning staff AND customers! The Royal Mail seems to think it can impose its will on its staff and that they will cow-tow to the bosses - sorry Mr Crozier, those days have gone! They equally seem to think they can impose their own rules on their customers, After I complained about my first class mail regularly being delivered at 5.30 pm, I was told that that met the RM's self-set performance targets because it had only been sent the previous day (about 9am incidentally, I make that two working days). It also just so happens that I need to regularly post a number of letters on Sundays, almost equally regularly when I walk to the giant letter box outside my local Post Office around midday I find it nearly full, on a couple of occasions I have even had to wait for the postman to come (late, of course) to empty the box because I couldn't get my 20 or so letters in! So now what are they doing? They have decided to cancel all Sunday collections as from the end of October! Is this being customer focussed? No, it is pandering to their staff who no longer want to work on Sundays!

As for the CWU, they need to get real as well! Their members refuse to accept that they just have to work smarter to offset the effects of competition. There are too many ingrained 'Spanish Practices', I say 'Forget it Postie, just get on with your job of delivering mail and stop fussing over myriads of archaic rules! It seems to me they are worse that the dockers of fifty years ago - look what happened to them! And the coal miners! If the CWU won't do the job, others will!

Why is it that TNT are paying there workers 11k a year basic and royal mail post people £16k a year. After viewing a few automated manufacturing plants for my dissertation, in the midlands and viewing Royal Mail`s Gatwick Mail Centre the technology used was inefficient and out of date. I`m quite sure a large proportion of labour costs could be saved on investment in new technology. It begs the question why they sold it like at Gatwick to a US based investment company for ten million and rent it off them. More money needs to be spent on the infrastructure of the mail centres. As regards the workers its akin to the miners and the unions in the 80`s. Time has stood still. They have the ideologies of the betamax era while being able to afford plasma t.v`s.

Let me correct a few things here, a comment made earlier that we in the royal mail dont want to work sundays is ludicrous, everyone wants that gig! me included! there is uproar within RM, we need to keep it going but its a "leighton" cost cutting strategy!
TNT earn less than we do? to right! they may deal with letters, but with "downstream access" RM`s biggest loss producer and all time moronic idea, every letter that TNT touch is delivered by RM posties! Every round in my delivery office gets at least a third more mail every day which arrives later and later! We have been told that from the 8th october we have to start prepping our rounds from 6am, not 5am like we do now, I dread to think what kind of knock on effect that will have!
We have also been advised that we should make 2 hours flexible each day just in case the delivery takes a little longer to complete, that defeats the oblect when in my case, my wife works part time and I collect the children from school and look after them during the holidays, I know im not the only one with these commitments after work!
Last of all, us posties who deliver day in day out do want to do our job, The reason why we would like it to go back to the way it was is because it was untouched by people who wouldnt recognise a delivery pouch if you slapped them in the face with it! Im a firm believer that if you keep things simple, you limit the chances of anything going wrong! that makes everyones job much more straight forward! and you keep the customers happy!

I have worked for Royal Mail for over 8 years now and want no part in this dispute. I am no longer a member of the CWU and until the workforce realise that the CWU are in it for themselves, a failing union trying to get as much publicity as possible. Then this business will only go one way, and it's not up. I agree with may of the other comments, it's not the 2.5% it's the strings attached, mainly to workers on delivery. What I don't understand is the delivery postpeople moaning about there been made to take extra walks out for no extra money!! most delivery workers make over an hour a day in spare time but expect to be allowed to go home early rather than work till the time the get paid to. The ask for ghost overtime in order to do extra work, getting paid overtime rate whilst they are still on duty. We get 1hrs paid breaks a day (inc TOB) Some want to try getting another manual unskilled job and see if they get the same rates of pay and benefits we do.... I don't think they will The CWU are only intrested in protecting there profits. Loosing 40,000 union members would mean an annual drop of 5.5 million in subscriptions revenue. And they say they have our interests at heart!! This business will never move forward untill the CWU is gone

Looking at the scruffy ,shorts wearing postmen delivering my junk mail as late as 3.00p.m. and the sticker on the postbox outside the local post office saying that post will no longer be collected on Sunday's or Bank Holiday's I,can safely say ,management no longer run the business.I live next door to,and across the road from,postmen,and I, can honestly say,they are a disgrace to a once noble sevice.In my day they wore a collar and tie and looked respectable,now ,they are scruffy and slovenly.That's all down to bad management.

To comment 153[richard]
Try working outside in the cold and wet weather and not in a snug warm office.The post would not be delivered on time if it was not for delivery staff coming in before there start time[some cases 1 hour].Also posties using there own cars make a big difference to finishing time.You be grudge us finishing 1 hour early at least i don't sit around scratching my arse all day.

I agree with many of the previous writers who mention the worsening of the RM service over the past few years- once upon a time it would have raised an eyebrow to use the excuse "I never received it" , but now it's just accepted. However, the idea that 'competition' is going to improve things doesn't seem to be working- I recently recieved two items of post, marked TNT Mail, that arrived two weeks after the dates on the letters. One of them was a parking ticket, and I had missed the 14 day period to pay the reduced charge! Curiously, TNT don't seem to put a postmark on their letters, only a secret code number... My RM mail never arrived this late, so I can only assume the delay was before RM got hold of it. Actually, here's an idea- why don't RM staff put all their competitors' mail items in a room for a week or two before delivering it? They could say they are merely delivering the service that they're being paid (peanuts) for... that'd make the point

I have to say I really don't see a bright future for mail being hand delivered. Everyday they strike the unions weaken the whole postal industry, as companies will start doing more business electronically.

Emailing PDFs, paying bills by BACs, viewing online accounts. I prefer not to be sent post because I would rather check it online it is up to date, accurate and I don't have to filter through a pile to find what I want.

If they are lucky eBay and Amazon might provide some business... but the under 50g industry is going to shrink.

Today, the German metalworkers union IG Metall offered to lower employees' pay at Volkswagen, for job guarantees. In 2004, German-US car giant DaimlerChrysler’s board offered to cut executive pay in order to end a dispute over cost cuts.

If the staff, their union and the management of Royal Mail were driven by it’s interest and their combined future, rather than their separate short-sighted agenda, would we see offers such as those above from Germany?

It seems to me that the Royal Mail is fighting for survival and the unions are fighting to ensure it does not win that fight! Better the loss of 40,000 jobs than a 160,000. I wonder what hardships these tin God union leaders endure during strike periods? I feel they are cutting off their noses to spite their faces. From my own circle of friends I can assure them that they do not have the public support that they think they have!

I run a small business and will look to source alternative methods of communication if the strikes continue.

I dont think unions do any good in the long run,its all very well them flexing their muscles but its the general public that suffer.

If you dont like the pay or the conditions go do somthing else.

So the boss at Royal Mail earns £1 million quid a year does he?

I'd love to earn that much myself but the truth of the matter is that I don't have the skills required to run an absolutely MASSIVE multi BILLION pound operation.

The million quid he receives in a year is being paid to a man who is tasked with trying to stem the losses of possibly a million pounds a DAY the company currently loses due to inefficiencies of the operation as a whole.

If the likes of Allan Leighton were not running Royal Mail they would simply be at the helm of another BIG business where they would probably be paid even more!

Don't forget these people don't just turn up for work one day, they are specifically headhunted for the job, they have proven experience at the top. The brief they have is to look at the business as a whole and see how they can turn massive losses into a profit.

I'd love the job but nobody comes knocking on my door offering me the job and I wouldn't expect it either, I just don't have the skills or experience and not many people do.

It's a tough job that absolutely must be done or the frank reality is that in the not too distant future there may be no Royal Mail left at all..

Very often the truth is painful and it's pretty obvious from the outside that changes are absolutely essential. Good luck Mr Leighton, I sincerely hope he gets the job done so that the Royal Mail system lives to fight another day!

I believe the majority of the posties work hard for their living and probably deserve 2.5 % without strings . However its not what is fair and reasonable , but what the business can afford and I suspect if you looked at the figures , huge savings on staffing costs are required . The CWU have misled their members in believing striking will resolve the problem , it won't , it will simply escalate the process of change required for outdated and uncompetitive working practices. With the downsizing of the manufacturing industry over the last 30 years , one would of thought it would be widely understood by all , that working hard does not always get rewarded . Modern business needs to be flexible and focused on the future market place , but more importantly they need to be competitive ie Deliver goods and services faster and cheaper than their rivals . I fear the workforce are simplt indenial , as were the coal miners of the 80's and we all know what happened to them , the NUM old headquaters is currently being demolished for a new car park .

Why relax don't send birthday, xmas cards etc, send presents, by COURIER
LOOOK ON ebay there you can find cheap couriers!!!!jUST DON'T WHINGE ABOUT YOUR POSTIE i BET YOU HAVN'T EVEN TIPPED HIM FOR XMMAS--IS THAT POLITICALLLY CORRECT?? then no need for royal mail, don't have credit cards you won't get the bill no need for postie then, Bills direct debit, etc alll this paper going around is NOT eco friendly!!! Then only semi concious illiterate people
will deliver things to your door. Mostly they will dump it there,
you will scream at them to STOP filling your letter box full of junk but they won't listen. They don't understand you or the English language!! Soon every shop will be like this. You will try to communicate but they won't listen. Why not emigrate to a warm country, sunshine country. Relieves stresS and leave your troubles behind. The future is a human misery and a capitalists dream. Eat heartily drink smoke die young save the NHS money. Enjoy , I never understood why I couldn't just go and pick up my post every week instead of the post man waking me up with his noisy letter drop into my letter box. if you have a dog it is even worse, terrrrible racket, Bring back the pony express, and carrier pigeon.
If there was no more post office royal mail then the local economy would blooom, no more Big company killing off the high street, why Amazon and Ebay would probably go bust!! Long live the local economy, it is greener than ordering things online sent DHL on a jet plane . Do you know? How much pollution there is just to jet bits of tat around the world?? Support local economies---end the post servicesd now , BUT NOW!!. Viva Che ,viva la revolucion viva, drink rum and prosper, relax emigrate somewhere warm. End daily deliveries, save the planet, PICK UP YOUR OWN POST--TELL THE PIZZA JUNK MAILER TO NOT PUT JJUNK IN YOUR POST BOX IN POLISH. BAN THE eu IT IS JUST A TRANNATIONAL COPORATIONS DREAM TO SUBJIGATE ALL THE SUBJECTS TO THE CAPITALIST MACHINE--IF IT WERE ABOUT FAIRNESS WHY NO HAVE A MINIUM WAGE THROUGH OUT EUROPPPE???? WHY WHY??? AS IT IS IT IS WORSE THAN THE SOVIETS---AMERICA IS NOT WHAT IT ONCE WAS, HAVE YOU BEEN THERE LATELY, IT IS GOING DOWN HILL AND I USE D TO LIVE THERE. ,OH MY GOD THE DOLLAR IS 2.03 TO THE POUND AND THE MINUM WAGE IN AMERICA IS $5 -------------THAAT'S RIGHT FIVE DOLLARS-- £2.50 TO THOSE WHO ARE MORE ILLITERATE THAN ME. WHY TRY TO COPY THEIR MODEL.. I THINK THE EU IS A BIG BANKERS AND TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS DREAM. COULD YOU LIVE ON £2.50 AN HOUR ; MAYBE I SHOULD LOVE UNDER A TREE AND THEN POLISH THE FAT CATS DIRECTORS SHOES FOR A LIVING MAY BE I WILL MAKE MORE THAN IF I DELIVER THE POST. HAVE YOU EVER SEEN AN EMPIRE THAT GOES ON FOREVER,NOTHING LAST FOREVER---NOTHING---NOT EVEN THE ROMANS-- LONG LIVE CHE LONG LIVE LA REVOLOTUION VIVA!!!!!!!!!! and don't forget to grow your own vegetables!!!

The CWU are a bunch of lemmings. The leaders do their membership no favours, since all that striking achieves is weaken Royal Mail still further against its competition, thus hastening its demise. Instead the CWU and Royal Mail should be working together to complain vehemently to Government about the unfairness of allowing private couriers to cream off all the easy pickings which would otherwise benefit RM and consequently the CWU.

I hate the guts of the CWU, especially when tin-pot Dave Ward has the bare faced cheek to suggest the Royal Mail is "slavery". Quite rightly, Adam Crozier dismissed it as cobblers. For the duration of this industrial action the CWU have been nothing but soundbites, soundbites and more soundbites. They have dismissed everything and proposed nothing. I have differences with the Royal Mail especially on the issue of flexible working, it is simply a non-starter in an organisation which is a 24 hour outlet, and I strongly urge the management to ditch the concept. I believe these strikes could be brought to an end given its removal.

Hi im not sure what all the strike is about but i think it is really stupid thing that the workers have done!! since the royal mail workers have gone on strike its not just royal mail that have sufferd its all the country that have sufferd too.. so if it was down to me i'd just give royal mail what they need, and get all the post service back up and running a.s.a.p!! I dont beleave that a little thing like wage increase could nearly bring the country to a holt, the goverment makes enough money out of the people that live in Great Briton so i think it is there duity to give something back to us,! I say give them there pay increase or whatever they need to get back up and running, and stop pretending like its a big deal when its not!!!!! from stuart hall of northwich in cheshire,.. PS im waiting for mail myself so i can get my new flat but now this strike has happened iv lost the oppertuinty to get the flat now thanks to the strike, so now iv got to live in rough places again till i find another place!! but its ok they only want a pay rise!!!!!!!!! (SUCKERS)..

Stuart and all those others ignorant of the full facts might like to visit

to see a list of the 22 proposed changes in working practice before jumping on the "greedy postal workers want more money" bandwagon.
While I'm sorry for the disruption to your circumstances (and the millions of others) rest assured that it is far more temporary than the changes proposed by Royal Mail.

The changes that the company wish to employ will affect the entire workforce for the duration of their careers no doubt. Therefore if we don't fight now we don't fight at all.

As has been mentioned above, many of the forced changes will involve an effect pay cut, albeit a stealth one, it is a paycut none-the-less.

Postmen and women are bearing the brunt of public opinion out on the streets everyday these disputes continue while Adam Crozier, Allan Leighton and their fatcat executives dwell behind gated mansions and air-conditioned offices playing games of monopoly with first line workers futures.

Liam is very typical of the CWU during this bitter dispute, soundbites, soundbites and more soundbites along with the politics of envy rubbish. As always with the CWU there is not one single alternative policy to what the management has proposed. Don't be shy Liam, let everyone know what should be done to make the Royal Mail an effective player in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Personally, I don't think you have a clue. Prove me wrong Liam and reveal all the correct answers to the Leighton and Crozier wrongs.

In this modern age where hardcopy delivery is under constant threat from new technology we need a modern Royal Mail, to provide profitable and good service. With Government support and agreement between unions, employers, and employees - the latter that make the system work don't forget...they must find a way forward. Unfortunately I am afraid this will not be the case. The British business model in the public sector has always been, and will no doubt always be built on an us and them culture. Surely the Government still (?) own Royal Mail, but I see little comment or intervention from them - perhaps the postal union needs to approach the Bank of England 'as lender of last resort' and Gordon Brown might take notice!

Noticed a good blog if you're that way inclined =
Disclaimer - I in no way have the same views as this blog, it is not my blog, I have no connection to it, all names if used are ficticious, any events are purely coincidental, conditions apply, subject to status...

Is there any way we can strip them of the "Royal" in thier name? It implies that they are a crown corporation, but they are acting like private sector cowboys, and we can't have them abusing thier workforce in the name of the Queen.

Oh, and we want a lot less junk mail from this shower of litter bugs. If it gets much worse, I'm going to have to fasten the letter box onto the top of the bin.

Lets not get everybodys hopes up. The CWU executive has got to endorse this and the the 130,000 members will have a vote.Let,s make one point clear.
The later starts are required by new transport legislation not Royal Mail. It simply has to happen same as for any company with a logistics operation & for staff to say they did not know about it or their childcare and personal issues has not been considered is rubbish.

If you don't change whether an organisation or as individual you've had it. The unions need to get real, they are the real threat to the workers not the management.

John-Lets get this straight. I never said I have all the answers. I wouldn't even hazard a guess at what the solution might be.
The message I am conveying is that the proposals put forward are not acceptable.
To be honest I don't entirely support industrial action/strikes and would rather things be resolved without such drastic and damaging measures.
I can however see the point of the CWU, in that the only effective means of challenging these proposals is strike action.
A deal has (in principle) been reached which must go some way to prove that the action has had the desired effect.

To be absolutely clear, I am not against modernisation. I understand the market is changing and we must move with the times. However I am against sweeping cost saving measures bundled into the so called modernisation proposals.

Just so you know John, I worked the strike days as, like I have said, I am do not entirely support strikes, regardless of the company/dispute.
I received a good deal of grief as a result.

So before you go accusing me of being a CWU soundbite, spokesman maybe you should bear this in mind.

I remember when Bt, was G P O! they went Bt to have a better scruteney on there workers. Yo cannot get the staff now day's I supose, or its going wrong using machines and blaming the workers

terry

There are a few points i would like to make,
1, Allan Lieghton earns £370k pa for a 2 day week. if i'm wrong i retract this statement, i work 7hrs 20 a day 5 days a week (overpayed & underworked) i think is the phrase he used, £2 million bonus in his first year, since the share in sucsess changed to localprofit sharing i as an employee havn't had a bonus be no doubt he and his get thiers
2, Competitors TNT, UKmail etc negociated a price with RM to deliver thier mail as postcomm tied RM's hands to give comperitors a fighting chance in the monopoly
3, Predictions in a decrease in mail were wrong as RM still deliver the competitors mail be that at a lower price
4, The stakeholders, government, i don't think they give a monkey, taking services from the post office, tv licence etc. No wonder £4 million week is lost, forcing 2500 closures
5, £1.2 million loan for modernisation and help toward the pension deficit, lets not forget why there is a deficit in the first place, seems to me the stakeholders only want the profits and not the trouble, get rid of it they might say, the future is bright the future is TNT, DHL, FED-EX and god knows who else will be delivering the mail to your door
6, 2.5% pay offer with 22 strings to hung youselves with. goodluck

Ive got an Idea...

Why don't Royal Mail, without asking their customers permission...

Stop imported mail being delivered on time despite the person paying for an express delivery service...

Pay the duty for their customers, again without their customers agreement ...
And charge them £8 for the privelage even if the duty or value of goods is less than that ...

That would improve their profits ...

Oh they've all ready thought of that scam !!!