Any sympathy the public had with the posties has gone. This is now an inconvenience that all my friends are quite frankly fed up with.

Unions need to compromise with the Royal Mail’s modernisation programme, not striking, which is blatant blackmail.

The general public just want their post and they don’t really care who delivers it now.

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i just wish that the news and papers report things better .the strike is on because royal mail bosses have not done what they said they where going to to two years ago .they what a work force to jump how high they say or they are gone if they don,t .the bosses wanted this strike has well thats why they have set up these lighting depots and got eddie storbart to get the post around the country yet if they had done what they said it would have cost them less then what its costing now .last week they whated proper staff who work there to go home on flexie time and to keep the temps in because there wasn,t enough work ,you would have had to come in when they said to make your time up,and alot of people don,t know that royal mail does a lot of work for other companys putting there work before royal mails .the top management get paid too much for ruining it.but there again the unions are just as bad

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Number 2 – why don’t you tell me why the posties are striking? There doesn’t seem to be a clear understanding between them, let alone the general public!

For the record, the Royal Mail and the Government are only reiterating what we, the paying general public are saying amongst ourselves.

If you are an exile, then it isn’t affecting you on that high and mighty pedestal.

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I’ve worked through every strike in my years there (not a Union member).

The Union is big on cracking down on bullying & harrassment yet does that to people who want to work. There were more ‘real posties’ at work at Sun Street than were on the picket li ne. Where were the Express & Star reporters to see this?

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Mr Davies…. strangely pretty much ALL the members of the public i’ve spoken too are 100% behind the posties or do you live in a traditionally ‘blue rinse’ area?
You selectively ‘answered ‘ one of my previous posts and even managed to get completely the wrong end of the stick there!
For the last time..( you may consider actually digesting this before you launch your knee into orbit)for the benefit of other readers…
1, the machinery which you have at last now stopped banging on about was procured 2nd hand from deutche post in germany and manufactured by one of their associate companies mannesman, DP NEVER got the machines to work anywhere near to acceptable accuracy so they dumped them on the first bunch of idiots they could… RM management who, surprise surprise STILL can’t get them to work properly.. the cost was/is astronomical and they are STILL throwing money at it! NOT excatly economical sense wouldn’t you agree?
2nd.. if people like you were to actually put as much energy into standing up to the pernicious corporate culture in this country you would have much better pay and conditions than you currently do and i would guess be a MUCH more understanding/empathic person. Have you ever been involved in any kind of altruistic community/political activity or as i suspect always been out for yourself?
3, you really do not seem to understand the concept of the ‘final mile’, let me break it down simply for you so you might actually understand……..
We are NOT talking about the mail you send to your aunty mable at easter and christmas here… it is BULK postings, things such as household bills, online shopping, bulk banking correspondence/statements etc…..
What happens is instead of the bulk items being picked up from the customer at their billing depot now certain carrier firms with the relevant licences can actually do the same job, i.e. send some bloke in an artic to take them to the nearest RM mail centre to their delivery destination and then pick up the majority of the fee for delivering them. Royal Mail THEN have to transport them to the local delivery offices where they are then broken down further onto the different ‘walks’ or rounds. from experience, 1st hand experience i can tell you that they are very often NOT sorted correctly and they then have to be broken down and resorted… RM does NOT get paid for this… then they are taken to the relevant walk and dealt with. I do not have the exact figures to hand but the amount RM make on each item is highly disproportionate to the fee the carrier charges which is a major part of the dispute, NO carrier in the country could complete the fabled final mile, they just do not have the infrastructure, personnel, vehicles, buildings etc etc…
You complain about getting your mail later and later, IF this wonderful thing were to happen Mr Davies you would be lucky to get your mail once a week! as is the case in some countries, you would possibly even have to go and pick it up yourself, they certainly wouldn’t deliver to rural and outlying areas for the blanket price Royal Mail does, chances are you firm would have to actually employ someone to go and pick up the mail….hmmmm could be a promotion on the cards for you! ;)
The Union HAS accepted that there needs to be modernisation and some job losses, when i was a rep some of this stuff was on the table then and that’s over ten years ago now, they have no new ideas, in fact they have no ideas full stop other than culling the work force.
I attended an area meeting once where we were told we had to take out 7 jobs, my assistant and i worked out a plan whereas we could make a HUGE cost saving of over 300K by reorganising the motor pool alone, their ‘figures guy’ gave a massive smile and said ‘yeah that’ll work’ but the senior manager present was too thick to understand the concept and so it was dropped in favour of culling 7 jobs! THIS is the kind of moronic management that is destroying RM. Not to mention the nasty spiteful ‘management style’ of some of the so called managers much reminiscent of the school playground, i have personally been on the receiving end of it.
When i was a delivery postman for a while i regularly had to fill 7 pouches minimum. Now this was only achievable by ramming as much in as i could then standing on it and using the straps forcing it in, then ramming even more in on top, this is common place because RM are too tight to cough up for enough delivery pouches. The maximum safe weight for a pouch is 16 KG, I used to regularly see people cycling out of the office with 2 or 3 of them, one on the front and 2 ‘bandalero’ style. I used to do regular spot checks on the weight of pouches and MOST of them used to be in the 20K plus range, people did this because of the lack of pouches, i was constantly pushing for more.. so when your mail is all crumpled now you know why!
There are no more 2nd deliveries any more because RM have all but done away with night shifts and so now delivery staff are held in the office to sort mail that was previously sorted the night before…. THAT is why you no longer get your mail in the morning and NOT because your postie is lazy!
now Mr D… is there anything else you would like to distort or does that just about cover everything?
You may like to have a dictionary handy as some of the words may be a ickle bit big for you!

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Having just read these coments i feel compelled to write having lived at the same address for 20 years and have recieved an appallingly bad level of service from RM with many letters never arriving at my house and many incorrectly delivered to me that should have gone to some one else i have sent letters to my self to test the system for 1 month every day on my way to work i sent my self a letter posted first class in the main postoffice in wolverhampton total of 20 letters in 1 month of which i recieved 14 where did the other 6 end up? now i contrast that to where my wife is living a small village Banyang in Buriram Thailand it really is in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of the jungle she does NOT have to collect her post or pay extra and it arrives promptly and at the right address . in the last 2 months I have sent 20 letters to her of which most get there in 4 days a couple in 3 days and a few 5 days maximum none missing on the other hand same time period she has sent me 20 letters 4 have never arrived 2 took over 3 weeks the rest about 7-10 days .when i enquire at RM what am I told “probally a problem with the Thai postal system ” so is that why for 20 years ive had rtrouble with my post it keeps going via Thailand ! As a customer of RM I just expect a decent level of service not lame excuses and passing the buck before going out on strike how about providing the level of service we pay for?

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Number 9 – thank you for chapter and verse, but we are not interested in the slightest. Are you interested in how other professions work on a daily basis in the current economic environment having to make sacrifices for continued employment?

All we want is a postal service that “does what it says on the stamp” and delivers and not strike!

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The postal workers are cheesed off because what was once a “cushy” job has now evolved so that they are having to do a bit of graft!

They have expressed their anger because some of the sorting offices now have machinery that can do their jobs quicker and more accurately than they ever could. They need to realise that in a competetive marketplace, EVERY business needs to improve their service and make efficiency savings where possible. The postal workers even signed an agreement on this matter.

Clearly they are nothing more than dishonourable liars to go back on the agreement that they signed and then have the audacity to claim, “it’s not about the money, we just want to continue giving good service”!

Well let me tell you, the postal service has been getting worse and worse for years and years, costing the public more and more.

I genuinely believe that they have seen an opportunity to hold the country to ransom, however, they expected to get more public apathy than the couple of morons that have suggested that they are being hard done to, on this site.

If Royal Mail stand by their convictions, these idle idiots will fold faster than Superman on washing day.

Surely they realise that in such a technologically advanced world with email, faxes and e-commerce, fewer people are needing to use the postal system. Packages can be sent by courier faster and cheaper than royal mail. The business needs to be evolved and the system/workers need to be streamlined.

If people stop using the services then none of them will have jobs. Then any prospective employers will laugh heartily at their application forms whem they read the previous employment section.

Merry Christmas.

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Number 16 – we are not uneducated, we just have opinions that differ to your own. In a democratic society, not a Stalin type society you and the unions would like, people are entitled to differ. You are not the mouthpiece for the nation, you have opinion you believe we all should have….wrong!

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My retort, Von-Funkenstein, was due to your opinion that all other commentors were selfish and uneducated. Just because you present the facts as you see them, maybe a view that is not held by all post workers, who knows? Does not mean we ignore them.
Our opinion is driven from the frustration of having a postal service that decides to strike in the first instance.
Hence, my knowledge/experience is as a customer, who along with numerous other friends, some who own businesses affected by this strike, can see the detremental affect it is having.
Therefore, stereotyping all others as uneducated is not helpful, pretty much like the postal strike.

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