National News royal mail workers landslide strike vote

[Sarge]

with 97% of votes cast in favour of industrial action, it seems Royal Mails CWU are revolting

Royal Mail union votes in favour of strike action

Royal Mail faces its first national postal strike in a decade after 97% of votes cast were in favour.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[FalmouthOx]

If you are unlucky enough to have your mail delivered at the end of a round it might be taken back to the depot several times per week as posties don't have time to deliver it. Health and safety issues throughout. Royal Mail breaking contract by not delivering first class mail on time. Posties in rural communities delivering in vans say having to drive like loonies and be unsafe because just too much to do. Not surprising they are striking. Over burdened

 

[Steve Gilbert]

I am a postman and voted in favour of the industrial action.

Agreements that were agreed by the Royal Mail in relation to working hours, pay and pensions were in place only for Rico Back to come in (with his multi million pound bonus for taking control) and decide he wasn't going to honour those agreements. He wants to sell of parts of the business and separate parts of it such as parcel delivery. He wants to introduce parcel sorting machines which would mean 1 in 6 posties lose their jobs.

Work load over the past few weeks and dramatically increased due to Christmas approaching, kids back at school etc. Over the summer due to lower rate of mail we all agree to take a section of another round (called absorption) which we are all happy to do. Absorption is then supposed to finish when the work load increases. I know in my section this isn't the case.

Like FalmouthOx said, if you are at the end of the round and its been a heavy day and your postman can't or isn't willing to go over their time then the mail gets returned to depot.

We also have had situations where there has been a shortage of staff (due to Royal Mail not wanting to increase staffing budgets) which has meant managers asking for favours from Posties to take at least another half of a round. I have been willing to do this up to a point but now it is so busy I physically can't keep doing it 3/4 days a week on top of my existing round (average walk of a post round is 10 miles per postie).

Even though I'm not a labour voter, the best thing that could happen to the royal mail is to nationalise it again.

From a meeting with the CWU last week, it wasn't thought a strike would take place before Christmas however with this result I can see their being action taken sooner than that. I voted yes not because I wanted to but because I knew for job security it was the only option I had.

 

[Wallop]

I left Royal Mail 15 years' ago having spent more than a decade there. Industrial relations was one of the main reasons. I was fed up with trying to grow a part of the business which wasn't in a monopoly position (unlike most of it at the time)but being constantly hampered by strike action or a threat of it.

At almost every meeting with potential or existing customers, they raised the 'what if your workforce strikes' issue. On numerous occasions, I was told the only reason we didn't win significant contracts was the IR risk. The drivers in our part of the business were dedicated and wanted to work. Some of them crossed picket-lines to maintain good customer service at great personal risk to themselves. On frequent occasions, they were threatened and on one occasion, a thug in a balaclava stood by one of our staff member's cars and smashed his car windscreen in with a baseball bat before then pointing at the individual with obvious meaning - nice.

Not enough staff on the rounds - maybe - but why then do the CWU resist technological advances in sorting machinery that would free up resources to be redeployed and assist on the rounds and lessen the burden?

I still feel some loyalty to Royal Mail but compared to where I am now, the working environment was toxic and there was no corporate togetherness which is a key factor to success.

 

[Whingit]

Good on them. Been meaning to join a union for a while now.