[ZrByte]

Originally Posted by jamiefrost

Which part of these modernisation efforts are they striking about?

From the Royal Mail website

• Not working all the hours for which people are paid. A significant number of delivery postmen in some units in London complete their walks up to two hours before their scheduled duty finish each day yet are unwilling to help out with other tasks for the remainder of the working day. The 2007 agreement set out that people should work the hours for which they are paid.

We do that allready

• During the summer when mail volumes are low there is less work to do. By asking each delivery postman simply to deliver to one or two extra streets, some of their colleagues’ summer holidays can be covered without overtime. Many London delivery units refuse to cover additional streets.

That is a blatant lie that RM have used several times in the past to make us look lazy. Domestic mail volumes drop but mail weights and packet deliveries actually increase by about a third so the deliveries take about as long.

• Refusal to work to revised delivery routes generated by computer aided planning, which is used in postal organisations around the world and is aimed at making us more efficient.

Again, We are already doing this in my office. It took nearly a year to implement in my office because RM bought the software from an American company so delivery points are estimated to be on the edge of the pavement for houses and just inside the foyer in flats, which is rarely the case.

• A refusal to accept the use of more part time workers in delivery to enable us to be more flexible and match the workload, even though we have guaranteed that no-one who works full-time will be forced to go part-time.

I'm part time and so is another 1/5 of my office. And the managers have already bullied 2 people into quitting because they wouldn't take part time hours, and another 1 to take a part time contract and supplement his wage with another job because he couldn't afford to do it.

• In Mail Centres, there are demarcation lines which date back decades - so, for example, Distribution drivers refuse to work in the mail centre even when they have no driving to do but there is work in the mail centre which needs attention

Not entirely sure about this one because we are not a mail-centre but from what I have heard today in work when I asked is that this applies to overtime only and its not representative of a normal working shift (At least in our area). Royal mail have a nasty habit of bringing people in on overtime with the promise of one type of work and then shafting people with the other jobs that they haven't agreed to do and often don't know how to do.

---------- Post added at 12:19 ---------- Previous post was at 12:17 ----------

Originally Posted by punky

Why don't the strikers use work-to-rule?

Probably because the action doesn't **** off the populus enough. Let's face it, even industrial action in the private sector involves screwing the public one way or other by blockading fuel depots or rolling roadblocks.

We will always be inconvenienced because that's the most criticial bit of industrial action

Tried it, doesn't work.

---------- Post added at 12:20 ---------- Previous post was at 12:19 ----------

Originally Posted by Chris

This is typical union scaremongering and you shouldn't be taken in by it. Similar was said prior to the privatisation of BT more than 20 years ago, yet thanks to the universal service obligation they are still compelled to run lines to remote farms and crofts and to operate phone boxes in 'socially necessary' locations where they may not be profitable. The universal service is as healthy as it has ever been, with the outcome of the Digital Britain report now being that the universal service obligation for data services carried over the phone line being enhanced from the miserly few kilobits as it currently stands, up to at least 2 meg and perhaps more.

I hope your right because I'm a customer too you know.