Royal Mail Strikes

#424

I believe this will be aimed at slowing down the sorting of mail over the weekend, to further add to the disruption going into the following week.

Royal Mail website down again this morning and no login access available using the Royal Mail app either.

Therefore, you have the luxury of being able to track up to 5 deliveries without being able to log in! :roll_eyes:

#428

My collection yesterday was not bad. She reckoned a lot of the extra from last week’s strikes had been uplifted on Saturday.

I only added 4 items in a single sack to her load. Yesterday was my first evri day and those were the only ones they would not take.

#429

Sorry, I’ve been on my jollies.

I can’t say, I’d be inclined to say it’s a glitch or new pricing.

#430

As I’m down to just a couple of RM per day (just one today so far) and some days it could be none at all, it won’t be long before they call time of my free collection.

This is a stupid question but it’s never been an issue for me before - I assume I can just take whatever click and drop stuff I have along with the manifest to my local post office and leave it with them?

#431

You can do so, but just bear in mind if you have any tracked 24’s or 48’s. Post Offices shouldn’t take these, but some do and some don’t. All Sorting Offices accept the Tracked 24 / 48’s though.

#432

Cheers. I’ve never had tracked on my account. All I use is RM24, RM48 and Special. Everything that would have gone RM48 is now with Evri, so all that’s left is the odd 24 and Special.

#433

Strikes still look to be going ahead :frowning:

Not seeing much in the media about the talks that were supposed to be taking place yesterday and today.

#434

Look on Cwu titter or Facebook and you will find out what’s happening

#435

I do but they don’t seem to post anything about their progress or attempts at resolving the dispute unfortunately.

Mainly their posts are aimed at gathering support for their strike actions.

#436

2 negative 1 star reviews for me this week alone for late delivery :frowning:

#437

5 negative feedback so far in November, all can be related to the Royal Mail strikes. Also been refunding more INRs and late delivery than usual to try and avoid negative feedback where possible.

#439

Absolutely spot on.

I watched the same interview and thought that his bevaviour was contemptuous. No wonder the union have got the right royal hump with him.

#440

I guess he can see how the business is going from the inside and if we are to believe them then it’s already on its arse before granting however much the unions are asking for in pay increases.

I have sympathy for the position the workers find themselves in but I think the game is effectively up for Royal Mail as a business as it stands at the moment. They’re being dragged down by the loss-making letters side which they can’t get out of and they can’t reform the parcels side fast enough to remain competitive.

Ironically the strikes are just hastening the demise of the whole lot as they drive parcel customers, like me, away. They’ve not been the most competitive or offered the best service for a while but it’s been acceptable enough that inertia has kept most customers on board.

Having to write-off the busiest period of the year would have suicide for most online retailers so we’ve been forced to find alternatives. I for one will probably not return in any meaningful way when they eventually sort this mess out.

#441

Whilst I do feel that Steve Thompson has set out from the outset to turn the pay negotiations into a wider negotiation about change and has deliberately provoked the union. It’s a bit of a misrepresentation to say he wasn’t at negotiations. He’s certainly has been in negotiations. He wasn’t in the very last one prior to the black friday strikes. That meeting ended very quickly after the union and RM agreed no further progress would be made that day as the union had rejected the RM’s supposed best and final offer. Whilst his absence doesn’t play well on social media in reality I doubt it changed anything

#442

He refused to say if he was at any negotiating meetings. That to me says that he wasn’t. Why would you not say otherwise? All he would say was he was “involved”. That isn’t the same as being in “the room”. It’s like being a little dictator and issuing orders from your bunker to your generals. You are involved in “events” but you’re not there “at the event”. If you don’t turn out, people believe you’re being disingenuous, which of course, he is, because he has an agenda.

Whether or not his absence changed anything is a matter of opinion? To me, if you want to end a dispute or get a resolution, you do everything you can to get to that point. He is not interested in getting to that point, the way I perceived him this morning. And whilst he tries to wield the big stick and the union waves the deflecting shield, sellers here will be pulling their hair out (and maybe even their teeth), worried sick about if they’re going to have a business themselves in the New Year.

I can see threads appearing on this forum in the New Year from sellers who have had to pack up because either a) they couldn’t get their goods out to customers without making a loss or b) they have been suspended on Amazon for failing to deliver on time. In the meantime, Steve Thompson will have a wonderful Christmas and Dave Ward from the CWU will have a wonderful Christmas.

What was interesting was (when Dave Ward from the union was interviewed later on this morning) he firstly said this was about redundancies before he mentioned pay?

#443

Nope. This stems from CWU posting on social media that he wasn’t in the final meeting before Black Friday. Separate posts from them make it clear he was in other negotiations with them on previous occasions.

I’d agree that from an appearances point of view he did the wrong thing. CWU had though just rejected what RM are saying is their full and final offer. Both parties agreed that there was no point in carrying on that meeting. As with all things there’s the PR game then what actually happened.

Unfortunately I’m fed up of being held hostage even though I have a level of sympathy with posties on the pay issue (less so on the modernisation aspect). So come the new year we will be looking for a courier for our parcels.

#444

And yet he refused to confirm this when repeatedly asked this morning? Why not just say, “yes, I was there or no, I wasn’t there”? Everybody involved knows if he was there or he wasn’t but he doesn’t want the wider public to know. Why?

A lot have already done so too. However, my concern is for the little businesses who rely on RM because of the cost factor for letters / large letters. They don’t have an alternative that is cost effective, unfortunately.

What was also interesting this morning was a separate survey had been done on the top 5 couriers in the UK. None of them scored more than 3 out of 5, every one of them had issues themselves so it’s not as if sellers can simply jump onto a good courier either.

#445

It is all part of the politics. Just look at the statements/tweets from CWU and it is clear that CWU wants to dominate the entire negotiation, and apparently having the CEO present is a win to them.

It is all a silly game with real consequences.

#446

No idea.

But if you follow both parties on Twitter you do sometimes get to see some of documents that are swapped - eg Thomspon’s response to CWU call for talks and to their business plan

The CWU members weren’t balloted on redundancies. The strike action started before any talk of redundancies. When they were talking recently it was about the compulsory redundancy element and the severence package, they’ve already accepted that a level of redundancies are going to happen.

#447

We do a large element of LL business. That part will have to stay with RM - they will become carrier of last resort for us