[Update] The Royal Mail strike thread

Originally Posted by bjorkiii

Its a well known that this is all the fault of the conservatives policies ever since that cow thatcher stopped school milk its all gone wrong , only thing conservative governments are good for is causing community discord.

This post needs to be nominated for some sort of award.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by bjorkiii

Its a well known that this is all the fault of the conservatives policies ever since that cow thatcher stopped school milk its all gone wrong , only thing conservative governments are good for is causing community discord.

I dunno, I think the Unions in the 70s did a fairly good job of that.

I am no fan of Thatcher's (far from it, she did a lot wrong IMO), but she did leave the economy far more healthy than she found it.

Originally Posted by bjorkiii

Its a well known that this is all the fault of the conservatives policies ever since that cow thatcher stopped school milk its all gone wrong , only thing conservative governments are good for is causing community discord.

Lest we forget - BBC on this day 15 June 1971

The last paragraph reveals some interesting information, which never seems to get mentioned.

Harold Wilson's Labour government stopped free milk for secondary school pupils in 1968

And then from the context bar on that page

However, it also revealed that she advised against cutting free school milk for all children on the grounds it would "arouse widespread public antagonism

[Arthurgray50@blu]

If everyone is going down the Iron Bitch Road, she totally ruined this country, if everyone followed her way this country would never have survived, she conned the housewifes of this country and the voters who were doubters, if the Tories were in now, they would arranged for the unemployed to work for peanuts to clear a backlog of mail, or the benefit would be stopped, they would also scupper any deal with the CWU, unless it was agreed by them and it wouldn't hurt the government coffers, while MPs are fiddling every penny out of the taxpayer, they would make absolutley certain that the CWU wasn't being 'overpaid'

don't

[Osem]

Originally Posted by foreverwar

The last paragraph reveals some interesting information, which never seems to get mentioned.

Well we wouldn't want any facts to get in the way of the argument would we....

I have to point out that School Lunches becoming crap was down to her watch though foreverwar.The monies were withdrawn supposedly to pay teachers wages and thousands of school kitchen services were tendered out to the cheapest bidders.

We all saw where that ended up....several generations of school children eating junk food in the middle of the day and over excited hyped up children full of additives,sugar,salt and fat.

However back on topic which is actually The Royal Mail Strike.

[Turkey Machine]

So is any postal service for standard mail that's comparable to Royal Mail in both service and charges?

Grats on hitting 24000 posts Mags!

[Osem]

I doubt it. So far as I can see, the situation's rather similar to that which BT found themselves in when the telecoms market was opened up years ago. Even now many companies still piggy-back their services on BT's infrastructure as the costs involved in building their own would be prohibitive. Private mail companies would have the same problem providing a universal delivery service for many of the same reasons.

Originally Posted by Turkey Machine

So is any postal service for standard mail that's comparable to Royal Mail in both service and charges?

No - but then the fact that Royal Mail alone gets a VAT exemption probably has something to do with that.

[punky]

Originally Posted by Chris

No - but then the fact that Royal Mail alone gets a VAT exemption probably has something to do with that.

And Royal Mail was built exclusively with as much public money as it needed.

Its nigh on impossible for private companies who have to seek their own funding to compete with that.

[Osem]

Having listened to yet another radio debate on this issue this morning and heard a number of RM staff state their various views, I don't really think my opinion has changed one iota. I have sympathy for anyone whose job and/or terms/conditions are changed for the worse (or even lost) but in the real world that sort of thing happens all the time and especially so in the middle of a recession. I really don't see RM staff as a special case - they'll just have to accept to the sort of commerical reality most of us have had to live with for years. The choice we have is to shape up or ship out and find something else if we don't like the job we're in.

Whatever the outcome of this battle, the union will not win the war and IMO their ill-considered action will serve simply to antagonise their customers and hasten the demise of RM as we currently know it.

[Pierre]

I really don't see RM staff as a special case - they'll just have to accept to the sort of commerical reality most of us have had to live with for years. The choice we have is to shape up or ship out and find something else if we don't like the job we're in.

absolutely spot on.

They're dinosaurs, they should have tried working in the telecoms sector for the past 10years.

Change is continual, there are re-orgs and redundancies at least 1-2 times a year, but you get on with it.

If they are so reluctant to be in an industry that is having to change and modernise then get out. There's plenty that have actually lost their jobs in the past 18months would happily take their place.

Don't the unions realise that the 70's was nearly 40 years ago. The world has changed, they way companies are structured has changed and the way they need to manage their workforce has changed.

Get back to work and stop bleating about it.

I think saying:

Arthur Scargill, the miners' leader who single-handedly sent Britain's coal industry into oblivion 25 years ago

is Harsh.

[Flyboy]

Especially as it is untrue.