Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Rick]

48hr strike last week, another this week, and another outage planned next week I believe, causing huge disruption. It seems a shame that the country is being held to ransom because some postal workers have taken umbridge at new employment conditions, and decide to walk out. If there was a viable alternative available to the public, the PO would fold pretty quickly I think.

The complaints I've heard so far are no worse than the changes endured by employees of many large companies (been there, done that).

Am I alone in being thoroughly fed up of this PO disruption?

Rick

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[pigtin]

It seems that trade-unions do not learn from history, can you remember the last strike that gained a long-term advantage for the strikers?

In the 70s I was secretary of a (multinational) company's ASTMS union group. I got out when it became obvious that some officials were bent on a wrecking operation. With no thought for the employees ultimate fate.

Our family firm are paid, and pay our bills through computer transfer, in order to reduce banking costs and also reduce our reliance on "snail mail".
The post-office workers are behaving like 'Lemmings'. Market forces will always prevail.

[buzzy bee]

Hi

Postmen should get paid less in my oppinoion not more, they don't bring our post untill the pm some days, useless in my oppinion! What happened to getting your post before work, oreven better being greeted by it when you wake up!????

Cheers

Dave

[Rick]

or twice daily deliveries, remember them?
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[Penman]

Hi
I have actually seen a postcard, sent early in the morning, telling the recipient which bus to meet later in the afternoon, when the sender would be arriving for tea.

[Rick]

Thing is, a one-off strike is a bit inconvenient to the general public, but not a nightmare necessarily. A string of 48hr walkouts so close together though really disrupts everyone, and once the PO lose the goodwill of the public, there'll be few people outside of the PO who have much time for their motives, or grievances, genuine or otherwise.

For the record, my local postie is great, but if I were him and feeling narked about changes to working conditions, I'd be retraining and getting out.

Rick
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[pigtin]

I know it should be in the jokes section, but I just received it and it's uncannily topical.

Dear God
One for all you non believers
There was this fellow who worked for the Post Office whose job it was
To process all the mail that had illegible addresses.
One day, a letter came to his desk, addressed in a shaky handwriting
to God.
He thought, "Oh, boy, better open this one and see what it's all about."
So he opened it and read:
Dear God,
I am an 83-year-old widow living on a very small pension. Yesterday,
Someone stole my purse. It had $100 in it, which was all the money I had until my next pension check. Next Sunday is Christmas, and I had invited 2 of my friends over for dinner. Without that money, I have nothing to buy food with. I have no family to turn to, and you are my only hope. Can you please help me?
The postal worker was touched, and went around showing the letter to
all the others. Each of them dug into his wallet and came up with a few dollars. By the time he made the rounds, he had collected $96 which they put into an envelope and sent over to her.
The rest of the day, all the workers felt the warm glow of the kind
Thing they had done. Christmas came and went and a few days later came another letter from the old lady to God.
All the workers gathered around while the letter was opened. It read:
Dear God,
How can I ever thank you enough for what you did for me? Because of
Your gift of love I was able to fix a glorious dinner for my friends. We had a very nice day and I told my friends of your wonderful gift.
By the way, there was $4 missing. I think it must have been those
Thieving at the Post Office.

[Job-Rated]

Royal Mail is apparently now run by the Dutch. They want to get richer, so they implemented a plan to get workers to do an extra 3 hours work for little or no extra pay. 3 hours is half of a Postie's shift, so they get two workers to cover half a shift each & sack the Postie. They aim to 'lose' 40,000 workers.
I am on the Postman's side, even if it has affected me personally.
The disruption has cost me £45 for a re-test on my S10 because the steering parts which were sent initially were incorrect & the replacements were posted, not couriered, thus getting delayed at the sorting office & making me miss the 10-day re-test window.

[UKdave2002]

I don't know the detail of the PO strike, however I do have some sympathy for an organisation that has to operate in an uncompetitive environment; The PO has to collect and deliver from every village in the UK for the same price, the new operators can pick and choose what they do, great we could all make money just taking mail to and from the main city’s in the UK, and then punters be charged a fortune if it mail had to be picked up or delivered to a small market town, what service do you want?
I think we either have to agree the PO is a Public Service or all the competition have to provide a similar service. Trying to make the PO a competitive service under these conditions is a joke. Again I have to stress I have no idea what the strike was all about! May be unrelated.