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Postal Strike

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in Politics & Debate
So, the union has announced next Friday as the day

Before I give my, less than considered, opinion, what do others think.

I am particularly looking forward to the Kermit vs. Blagsta fight ;)
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Comments

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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Unions have a right to strike, management have a right not to agree to union demands.
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    Teh_GerbilTeh_Gerbil Posts: 13,332 Born on Earth, Raised by The Mix
    There was me thinking this was like an Artillery strike, 'cept with letters.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Teh_Gerbil wrote: »
    There was me thinking this was like an Artillery strike, 'cept with letters.

    I'll have a vowel please Carol :D
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Its funny how the "efficiency drives" never start with Crozier's pay packet, isn't it?

    Still, by striking they're giving more mail to TNT and the rest, so its their own P45s they're signing by going on strike.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I doubt I will notice any difference. Mail doesnt arrives every day at my address. Some days it comes others it doesnt, its always between 1pm and 2pm and I dont get to see it til I return at 6pm.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I agree Calvin. If I'm home all day itmakes no difference really, but if I leave the house at 8, then my mail all gets dealt with at least a day later, and that sucks. Bring back early morning post.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Of course there is only one reason while Royal Mail is not why it used to be: lack of funding.

    The closing of endless posts offices, the cancellation of the second delivery, the laying off of thousands of staff, etc etc: lack of funding.

    You would think this is a cash-starved country or something.

    Well done Labour.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    and crozier got a nice fat pay packet again, highest paid state employee in the country
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote: »
    Of course there is only one reason while Royal Mail is not why it used to be: lack of funding.

    Lack of letters more like...
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Lack of letters, you think? I recon ebay must have done summut to the amount of parcels being sent.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I would like to see my bills and mail come via email. It would save on paper at the very least. Then Royal Mail can strike as much as they like.

    Royal Mail really need some strong competition to force them to sharpen up their game. At the moment if i want to send a letter, all i know what to do is put my enevelope in one of those red pillar boxes, and Royal Mail deliver it when they feel like it. If I dont like a companies service I can go elsewhere, not with mail. I dont know how to have my letters send from a post box by anyone else. People have very little choice than to use a poor service.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    katralla wrote: »
    Lack of letters, you think? I recon ebay must have done summut to the amount of parcels being sent.

    And how many are sent by Royal Mail and how many by others service providers?
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    Teh_GerbilTeh_Gerbil Posts: 13,332 Born on Earth, Raised by The Mix
    Flashman's Ghost wrote: »
    And how many are sent by Royal Mail and how many by others service providers?

    I always send my ebay parcels by royal mail. And I receive most of mine... by Royal mail.

    The postie must wonder wtf is going on at this house. Packages are parcels all the time.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I just assume most are sent by royal mail. Everything I've sent or recieved for ebay transactions has been via roayl mail. Only thing I have sent otherwise were some canvases which were sent cheaper and quicker by someone else... Can't remember who, didn't do it personally. Have other company taken the market on parcels then, and who- out of interest?
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    To be honest I wasn't particually thinking of e-bay, but the Amazon etc(mea culpa).

    At the same time the amount of post has gone dramatically down... How many people pay bills by internet banking rather than sending in a cheque? how many people send letters as oppossed to sending an e-mail? (and business/public sector use of letters has gone down - we used to have close to 20 people in our post room, now we have 2 or 3).

    The post office survives on junk mail.

    In a few years the only thing which will be delivered by the Royal Mail is parcels and they won't be delivered by postmen, but drivers in vans...
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think its fine.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    This is the reason why we need to privatise Royal Mail and open it up to market forces. Private companies won't allow these ghastly unions to try and bully them in this way. Every single postie who strikes next Friday should be sacked immediately.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Teh_Gerbil wrote: »
    I always send my ebay parcels by royal mail. And I receive most of mine... by Royal mail.

    RM may be the final delivery but that doesn't mean that another company isn;t involved along the way.

    Personally I think that the Union is shooting itself in the foot here. No business can continue to employ shit loads of people when they are losing contracts hand over fist. It's simple economics really.

    With the increased competition there is an efficiency drive and like most state owned enterprises, RM is wasteful. Continue like this and they just won't be sustainable and therefore they will be greater job losses in the longer-term.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote: »
    Of course there is only one reason while Royal Mail is not why it used to be: lack of funding.

    :confused:

    Income is based, in part, on business received. In part that is based on quality of service and price. If you don't compete then you will not get business, lose business and you lose income and then you cannot afford the same overheads. That includes staff, post offices etc

    You work in a shop, why not just increase your prices and employ another 200 people there? The theory is the same.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Well remember I'm one of those foolish romantics who thinks vital services should be run and financed by the State and profits should not be the main driving force behind them ;)
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote: »
    Well remember I'm one of those foolish romantics who thinks vital services should be run and financed by the State and profits should not be the main driving force behind them ;)
    Bloody socialist. :p
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote: »
    Well remember I'm one of those foolish romantics who thinks vital services should be run and financed by the State and profits should not be the main driving force behind them ;)

    But it isn't about running this business for profit. It's about not expecting the taxpayer to bail it out because it's run badly. Or because many of us use direct bank payments instead of giros, use e-mail instead of post. It's a changing world and the RM must change with it.

    In another thread you talk about the rich not paying tax and this being, in effect, theft from everyone else. Well I'd apply the same logic here. Sure we can continue to throw money at an inefficient service just to keep people in jobs which aren't actually required. But doesn't that mean that we all have to cough up a little more...?
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The Post Office has been deliberately run down and underfunded to pave the way for these "modernisations".
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Man Of Kent wrote: »
    Sure we can continue to throw money at an inefficient service just to keep people in jobs which aren't actually required. But doesn't that mean that we all have to cough up a little more...?
    Of course. That's what socialism is all about. It's about keeping up failing services simply to make a bunch of smug liberals feel they have some sort of "conscience". Meantime, they push up taxes for everyone else. Britain needs another Margaret Thatcher, frankly.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    stargalaxy wrote: »
    Britain needs another Margaret Thatcher, frankly.

    isn;t that what we've had for the past ten years :p

    But god no, that's the last thing we need right now.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Blagsta wrote: »
    The Post Office has been deliberately run down and underfunded to pave the way for these "modernisations".

    You make that sounds like it's a bad thing...
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Man Of Kent wrote: »
    isn;t that what we've had for the past ten years :p

    But god no, that's the last thing we need right now.
    We've just had a more feminine and considerably more ineffective version of Thatcher for the last ten years. If that isn't what Britain needs, then... what is it? Not David Cameron, surely?
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    stargalaxy wrote: »
    We've just had a more feminine and considerably more ineffective version of Thatcher for the last ten years. If that isn't what Britain needs, then... what is it? Not David Cameron, surely?

    Of course not. Nig mistake, I cannot see how someone so priviledged can ever understand what it really means to be poor, hungry, homeless - the areas which Govt should be helping people with...
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Man Of Kent wrote: »
    Of course not. Nig mistake, I cannot see how someone so priviledged can ever understand what it really means to be poor, hungry, homeless - the areas which Govt should be helping people with...
    A slightly unfair analysis. There are a few people in the Tory Party who have a far better idea of what that's like. Quite a few of them work closely to Cameron as well. Take David Davis, for example. He lived on a South London council estate with his mum. He had to work his way up to university. His story suggested a man who'd worked hard to better himself. If Cameron listens to these people, he might begin to understand.

    It's not as if Gordon Brown knows any better, anyway. He long stopped caring about the poor, preferring instead to tax them relentlessly.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    stargalaxy wrote: »
    Of course. That's what socialism is all about. It's about keeping up failing services simply to make a bunch of smug liberals feel they have some sort of "conscience". Meantime, they push up taxes for everyone else. Britain needs another Margaret Thatcher, frankly.

    Liberals or socialists? They're kind of opposing positions y'know.
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