Originally Posted by turbomatt

Iv'e worked for Royal Mail for quite a few years now.It used to be a good job, the workload was acceptable ,the pay was fair for what you did despite the early starts,weekend work and sometimes crappy weather(i find it just as bad in the hot months too, can be quite tiring in the sun).It all started to go wrong when they brought the single daily delivery out as apposed to 1st and 2nd delivery.This was the start of the cost cutting which was about 3-4 years ago.They got rid of 2nd delivery and gave us longer 1st deliveries(absorb 1 delivery into another 2 deliveries).Then they started turning the full time rounds into part time(33 hours in my office).Now its voluntary redundancies which in turn are changed into bag carrying duties(22 hours).In our sorting office we accepted all these changes and worked harder - fair enough.Now i hear there trying for more voluntary redundancies in september, our office is in turmoil now.The people that they are bringing in dont care about your mail.They turn up late, dont complete their duties and leave it in the bag boxes for the next day.One guy that recently started had an inverted crucifix tattooed on his forehead needless to say he was sacked on the first day.We have managers taking deliveries out because there's not enough staff to fill the rounds.Our office used to be completely clear of mail after every working day and we used to pride ourselves on delivering the mail on time come rain or shine.Now its crazy, piles of mail left in the office which is due for delivery, stacks of parcels left undelivered.The service to YOU the paying customer has plummeted, morale is at an all time low.I weighed my post bags the other day which totalled 175llb in weight and i deliver to 700 houses per day which takes me 3.5-4 hours depending on how busy it is.Sometimes its fine on the lighter days but on the busy days i come home knackered.My back has taken a beating too over the years it, cant be helped i suppose.
The thing i dont get is the previous financial year we apparently turned the business round(Alan leightons words) after all these cuts with 600 million profit.The next year he announces a profit of just 25 million and low and behold were in turmoil again.Apparently theres a shortfall in our pension funds, because Royal Mail took a "holiday" for many years by not paying into it.Now we have to pay it back on top of a government grant for 1.3 billion to help us along.Alan leighton and the government are trying to privatise Royal Mail and have succeded partialy already (did that improve the train network?) If its all that bad why is Alan Leighton paying himself such vast amounts in bonuses?
At the end of the day the customer is going to pay for all this in the level of service they get
The strike is NOT just about pay.

Originally Posted by Prasius

When our post gets delivered at 0730-0800 as it did 15 years ago or so rather than the.. umm.. sometime in the afternoon if we're lucky.. then I'll have some sympathy for the postal service as a whole.

Originally Posted by Butkus

I understand what you're saying here, but think about it. If a delivery has between 300 and 700 houses on it, and takes between 3 and 5 hours to complete, how can everyone get their mail before 8:00am? Someone's house is the first on the delivery, and someone else's house is the last. The same postman that delivered a letter at 8:00am is still going to be delivering at around 12:00pm.

.

Originally Posted by finchyboy

Jesus D.K.1 on a more serious note. I'll get the violin out for your uncle !! Personally i think the postie's are taking the **** considering all the young lads in the forces out in Irag and Afghanistan doing their bit for Queen and country for less then 16k a year !!!

Originally Posted by Prasius

When our post gets delivered at 0730-0800 as it did 15 years ago or so rather than the.. umm.. sometime in the afternoon if we're lucky.. then I'll have some sympathy for the postal service as a whole.

But with the ****e service the Royal Mail currently provides; Roll on Privitisation and we might actually get back to the days of getting your mail before you go to work again.

I appriciate that its not entirely the fault of the posties..

Originally Posted by Ray_li

they had a career choice and they knew the what the pay was going to be like before accepting the job.


now get back to work. I'm sure there's a credit card to be stolen out there

Originally Posted by fatherpierre

How come the postal service in London is so much worse than anywhere else?

I lived in various parts of London, mainly north for years and the service got steadily worse.

No word of a lie, sometimes post would come after I got home from work at around 6pm. And it was sometimes stolen - by agency staff I assume......

I would be happy to pay a bit more for a better service. The whole postal sytem in the UK seems a bit hit and miss - particularly post offices. They are generally run-down and amaturish in the way they are run, with terrible customer service.

I will not go into my local PO as they are so rude and was pleased when they were chosen to be one of the closures!

I have nothing but respect for postmen. I wouldn't fancy doing it, but it's non-skilled, so pay is given accordingly I guess.

Since moving from London the service has been 1st class, I might add.

Originally Posted by turbomatt

How would you feel if you went to work on monday and the boss said - right your under worked and over paid - heres an extra couple of hours work on top of your day, oh yeah have a pay cut aswell !

Originally Posted by Scoob99

Crozier 40 hours a week


COLIN

Originally Posted by Ray_li

they are not getting a pay cut. they're not happy with the payrise.

I do load of unpaid over time and I dont complain

Originally Posted by turbomatt

The 2.5 percent increase has lots of conditions with it too which ultimately means a drop in wage!

Originally Posted by cw42

As a post office manager, what scoob99 and turbomatt, our resident posties, wont tell you is about the good old days, before Mr Crozier and the "changes" The days when there were indeed 2 deliveries, and the first would take them till around 9am, the second, after an extended breakfast, usually at thier homes, would take till 11am, and they'd still be paid till at least 1pm. What scoob99 seems to fail to grasp is that comparing an unskilled, unqualified (for business) possibly under educated (although we've got people with degrees in our place!) postman, with someone who sits on a number of boards, is grossly out of touch. If you're so hissed off with your working conditions and pay, why have you stuck in the same job for 20 years? If you're not happy, go get another job, go learn another skill at some afternoon college course, go get off your lazy **** and do something about it. The "I'm hard done by, help me please" argument will no work on the British people anymore. You can tell by the sentiment on this thread, as the last of the nationlised industrys in this great country of ours, you have no public sympathy at all. Get back to work, stay there, and either accept your lot, or get a job elsewhere where the pay and conditions, which match your skillset, are better.

And yes, before you moan, I did get a nice bonus for meeting and in some cases exceeding our quality targets last year.
I also blame the management!

Originally Posted by Sonic'

so that you can get the management perks

Originally Posted by Scoob99

Hello Chris i wondered when you would pop up, Get back to work my ****, why should management, get a £2000 bonus when other people are doing the work for you, I mean how many times do you see a manager out on a bike delivering mail?......I can tell you in our office none, all we are asking is for a decent wage rise not to have the p!ss taken out of us, you say I'm out of touch you seem to forget a conversation we had a while ago.
Cheers
Colin

Originally Posted by cw42

I see managers out on bikes delivering mail quite a bit in this area Colin. I myself have been out 3 times in the last 2 months on my days off helping our colleagues in Delivery. That's what has prompted me to get so pissed off with all your delivery office whingeing! When I was in delivery, over 15 years ago now, it was a hard job. There were no bag drops, no small walks, very little mech and walksort mail. Everything came in manual, there was no walk prep sorting frames. You know what it was like. The stuff you have for you now in delivery makes the job so much easier. The real issue is the fact you actually have to do a FULL days work now, not the half day for a full days pay you used to. It's been like that in processing for a lot longer, so our staff are more used to working to their time. It's not a right that they should get hours of free paid time because they've managed to finish early by whatever means. There is always work to do here.
I couldn't believe how easy my deliveries were when I've done them. Walks a lot smaller than I'd ever done when I was a postman, most of my mail bundled up from the mech, plenty of equipment to help me load stuff easier. Admittedly I used my car for 2 out of the 3 deliveries, but if I were doing it permanantly, I'd have used all the options put in place by the Manager, bag drops, secure box drops, ect, to make my life easier still.
At the end of the day, you are in a no stress, no hassle, no skill decent paid job, and the British public know that full well.
16k a year for what you do is a bloody good wage. This company will be ruined by the unions if the management (and the government) don't stand up and bite the bullet and stay strong in this dispute.
Just for your info, on friday night I spent my shift bag opening, then running an LSM. Last night, on overtime (usual sunday night option for me) I spent my 8 hour shift sorting letters, overseeing the mail centre, running an LSM, running an MTT, delivering mail to a sub-office, sorting some more mail when I got back and overseeing some more. We dig in and roll our sleeves up in this office when we're busy. Unfortunatly, we still failed this morning due to the sheer weight of mail and lack of staff on a sunday night

Edited to add: I posted this question on Pistonheads the other week, the response has been very good so far, with an overwhelming response in favour of the Postmen not realising they're got it good.
postal strike