More Postal Strikes

More strikes next week.... rolling strikes next week - all week!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7038899.stm

From a work standpoint, it's killing us. We work in recruitment and still send out lots of job info by post and get a lot of applications by post.

We've had to stop sending info out, as we can't guarantee it'll get there at all! We've also had to deal with jobs that close, but we haven't got all the applications in from the last lot of strikes!

Argh!

Thats all we need a few letters i sent of came back to my address (apologies scorpio) for not recieven it yet hun, dopey gets sent it back to me ,god only knows why ,but it will be back in post in morning , xxdk

It's a real pain the rear,

Important letters of ours have never reached their destination and I had to go to the office this morning to Fax it over,to the other office were dealing with.

I've got stuff here to post and awaiting delivery of stuff,it's dreadful.

I think this has done a lot of harm to a lot of people but mainly to the Royal Mail, after all I'm finding out what I can do online now so they have lost some of my business already and I'm pretty certain other people have as well!
Becky

Me too! People were always a bit distrustful of the post anyway (i.e. next day delivery etc) but this will put the boot in.

I'm currently scanning and pdf'ing a lot of letters to email out instead of posting them.

What I can't work out is - the postmen are striking over pay (as well as other things) but by striking, they won't get paid anyway! If their pay is so low to begin with, surely they can't afford to strike??

I've never understood it either lol!
Becky

The other thing you have got to know is that there is a massive backlog of mail sill in the different sorting offices around the country.

Just to put this into some kind of perspective, my postman who by the way has being going into work each day because he can't afford to lose his wages has told me that it will take a couple of weeks after the strikes have finished to get the mail deliveries back to normal as there is over a ¼ of a million unsorted letters and parcels in the main Brighton sorting office that still needs to be attended to on top of what arrives each day.

Its not just pay they are striking form its working conditions aswell, also there has been trouble with pension contributions aswell. They feel that losing a the odd days pay will be worth it in the long run, after all if they stood back and did nothing that would give the heads of the PO the go ahead to do what they please.
Most have not took this action lightly and it has been a last straw. As for the unoffical strikes I think they may turn the public against them so then again things must be pretty bad for the to take this action.

They are saying backlog wont be right till after Christmas, however feel for the postmen as if its true they are about to lose a lot of hours etc and conditions for them will not be good, there is always something more to these strikes and I am sure they would not strike if not necessary as their pay not huge, however its a real pain, poor Toby missed the cards in the door on his 3rd birthday!

I'm sick of these strikes, I do a lot of business on ebay and it is holding me up, yes I know this is only a small thing compared to big companies etc. However I think that the longer the strike goes on the less the public will be behind them.

Striking is actually playing intot he royal mail's hand in a way, true they are not getting the letters delivered, but people are still paying for postage at the Post Offices etc then there are no wages to pay the strikers, so royal mail is winning both ways. After the strike is over the workers whill still have to do the work which will be even harder to do then. The best way to hit them where it hurts is to work to rule, firstly the deliveries will be late, secondly they still have to pay the wages of the employee's and thirdly the big companies may be able to impose fines on royal mail for late delivery. That way the workers get paid but the work doesn't get done.

Ian