Today the Royal Mail have asked us all not to use post boxes so as to avoid backlogs when the strikes are over. There will be no deliveries until next Thursday. My question: since it was privatised, and mail delivery has been opened up for competition, why does this affect me? Why can’t I just post a letter in a post box belonging to some Royal Mail rival?
UPDATE: Royal Mail was not privatised, but postal delivery was opened up to competition except for the last mile.
In the mean time, if you live near a nice old Post Office building and like using it: hurry up! Near me there’s one in Post Office Road — POST OFFICE ROAD! — that’s going to be closed when they move it into WHSmith. Has it really come to this?
Comments
77 responses to “Royal Mail strike”
So, they’re telling us that post will take a week to arrive and we shouldn’t even rely on that? I don’t think I’ll notice the difference.
Almost as bad as hotmail.com then.
Walking past a post box today I noticed it has a sign taped to it reminding people not to use it!
And when the Labour party conference was here the other week they’d blocked up all the post boxes in the vicinity as well.
Trying to tell us something…
The Royal Mail should never have been privatised. It should be treated as sacred by the government and the staff should be paid a fair rate in order to keep the service running smoothly and efficiently. If the government didn’t waste money on general inefficiency then it shouldn’t be a problem maintaining a service that is vital to everyone in this country.
Still it’s not fair. I’m a student and I was not aware of the strike and I’ve ordered tones of books, and equipment to do my work. I can’t even get any of my work done because of royal mail messing up like always. I say fire the people that moan too much and hire people that want a job and can’t even find one!!
These people are just taking it too far now. FIRE THEM ALL!!!
I think “fire them all” is a little harsh… 😉
Where does the utter rubbish about no mail deliveries come from? Everyone knows its back to work and deliveries, it is just more propaganda from The Leighton controoled media, just like its being reported the strike is about a pay rise when its about pension robbing and changes to conditions of work.
Correction tp revious post. It should readrubbish about no mail deliveries until thursday, when its back to work wednesday. Sorry.
I reckon we’re a pretty typical example of a business that uses the Royal Mail a lot – when we realised this was definitely going to happen we tried a few things to minimise the impact but at the end of the day 90% of our business is sent out by mail and 90% of that by Royal Mail. We started about 17 years ago and a lot of it has been hard graft. We will be devastated by the cashflow implications of this and our 23 staff are probably worried about their jobs. I agree that the mail is too essential and should NEVER have been privatised and forced to meet the challenges of a free market. It doesn’t make sense to have 2 or 3 people delivering to every house every day. What would the global warming implications be of that! This is partly due to the problems with final salary pensions schemes and I don’t want to get political but if Gordon Brown hadn’t taxed dividends and the actuaries used out of date longevity tables allowing companies to take pensions holidays the pension scheme at RM wouldn’t have been 1.7bn in debt and forced to take out a loan for 17 years to cover it. Lots of businesses that have final salary schemes (we don’t) have to pay 30% of each employees wages in contributions. the UK economy has a tough ride ahead over the next 20 years as the effects of Gordon’s disasterous strategy is played out.
Aside: this page is currently the third Google UK hit for “royal mail strike”. It’s just me and the BBC covering this…
In response to the post saying strike ends Wednesday. That is like people saying it is Two 48 hour strikes. They return to work Midday Wednesday. They only work until midday. As for the pensions and change of working practice nonsense, the company can’t afford to pay them more because the service is so poor business customers are going elsewhere. If a single postie had a brain they would think Rover did this and now there is no Rover. Just shut down Royal Mail let someone else have a chance.
Don’t they realise that if they strike, there is a huge backlog of work when they get back, over & above their usual workload…..is it really worth it ??
Excellent website. I think we should all learn a lesson from this and move business risk away from snail mail altogether.
In essence the force that was once Royal Mail has dethroned itself
These strikes effect everyone not just the workers, it’s one thing to strike – it’s another thing to strike and effect other people’s life’s. i have been waiting for coursework related stuff that is being sent through the post and i am now going to fail the assignment!
so that’s a big fat THANK YOU! to royal mail because i am still waiting for my book list too.
A great start to uni.
They never think about others, they just want what they want. How greedy these people are!
I’ve applied to post office a million times and they wont take me on, but they are willing to take people on that will strike everyday because they getting paid 1p less then everyone else.
If they did a better job I would bake them all cookies for Christmas 🙂
Does anyone know when the post will become normal because I am stuck in a loop hole where I cant do work due to the fact I still have not received my goods.
So anyone can shade some light on when will the delivers become normal?
The Royal Mail needs a good kick up the arse i am a self employed courier and see postmen + women every day acting like they have all the time in the world .I went for a job interview with them once what a farce ! You wont get a job with them unless your a relation they are a bunch of incompetent hillbillies .
Hey Sariena I know what you mean and I’m sorry that you’re in that mess. I’m kind of in the same stat where I’m waiting for books for final year project. Which university your in and what course you do?
First of all, Royal Mail hasn’t been privatised and there are no plans to do so. The postal market was opened up to competition with agreement from the EU, with other countries following, which now looks very unlikely to happen. This has led to lots of other companies creaming off the most profitable mail, processing it, but still leaving RM to deliver ‘over the final mile’ (the most expensive bit). At present no other company is set up for bulk delivery of letters, but it will come – only in the major cities where money can be made.
Under RM’s Universal Service Agreement they have to, by law, charge the same price wherever a letter is sent within the UK. That equates to costing 0.5p across London, which at the moment subsidises the £17.50 cost of 1 letter being sent from London to the Scottish Isles. Zonal pricing is just around the corner!!
This is the fault of the government turning a service into a business (postal services are now the most regulated industry in the UK), not Royal Mail, who are struggling with antiquated equipment and old fashioned working practices. The bosses are currently trying to change this, but the CWU are preventing any forward movement with these strikes which solve nothing.
Bottom line is RM is over-staffed and under-invested and needs to modernise if it is to survive. You may knock RM, but imagine what it will be like if foreign companies take over and use the continental methods. UK is still the only country that has deliveries to every UK address, 6 days a week (not including strike days).
The strikes for delivery staff finish at 03:00 Wednesday morning, so there will be a delivery Wednesday.
The Ignorance on this subject amazes me. Perhaps people might like to do just a few minutes research before they start spouting utter drivel and just making their ignorance look like stupidity. Royal Mail has NOT been privatised, it still belongs to the people of this country. We are back to work Wednesday but it will be 3 or 4 days before we are back to normal. It’s not something we embarked on lightly.
Competition in this industry consists of Royal mail postmen delivering rival mail at a loss. The service you have known for over 200 years is on its last legs thanks to this government and believe me when it does go under the alternative is going to be just as bad if not worse and you will be paying European sized prices 2-3 times higher than you are paying now.
But the sound off it , I am not the only student waiting for books! Thanks RM another person you have let down.
Also I like to point out that when I was younger post use to be delievered in the morning before I went to school, but now I dont get it till after 2pm!!
What sort off service is this??
I think Paul sums the whole thing up. A service that was set up many years ago may never have invisaged the amount of addresses there are now, yet they are still working in very similar fashions, MANUALLY.
Zonal pricing makes sense, I always think its quite amazing that I can post a letter today and more often than not the recipetent in Staffordshire is opening it tomorrow and that costs me less than 30p, could anyone travel to Staffordshire overnight for that same amount? If you travel in London you would know the more Zone’s you travel through the more it will cost you…..not Rocket Science really.
I appreciate this doesn’t change that our business is also suffering from the strike action but at least we are all in the same boat.