P&P REACTION: UK strike
Reaction and comment on the news that Royal Mail workers will stage a national walkout. Some say “irony’s a wonderful thing”, although I doubt that many members of Royal Mail’s top table will agree come tomorrow morning when, on World Post Day, they are greeted with newspaper headlines that a national postal strike will go ahead.
Whether the bigwigs at the CWU deliberately released results to clash with World Post Day may never been known – but the news has led to some interesting insights:
John Modd, Triangle Management Services’ director of mail, said: “There is unfortunately a tragic inevitability about today’s resounding vote by CWU members in support of strike action about modernisation – which others might call a fine example of burying your head in the sand.
“For at least fifteen years senior managers in Royal Mail (of which I was one) have tried and failed to get across the need for fundamental change in the face of increasingly harsh competition. For pretty much all of that period there has been consistence resistance from the CWU to the reality of change. Perhaps its greater ‘success’ in getting its message across reflects the fact that Billy Hayes has been at or near the top of the CWU for all that time, whereas top management turnover has been huge.
“The solution is, and always has been, privatisation. Governments of both political parties have known this and floated ideas but always backed away in the face of the conservatism of vested interests.
“No doubt, as in the past (most recently 2007) there will be a fudged agreement which keeps things on the rails for a period. Meanwhile the people in Royal Mail add self-inflicted decline on top of the market and technology changes of the real world.”
Dave Ward, CWU’s deputy general, greeted the ballot results by saying: “This is a huge vote of no confidence in Royal Mail management. The company has tried to make out that problems only exist in some local offices, but postal workers across the UK have now spoken and they say no to Royal Mail’s arrogance.
“Royal Mail has never really been engaged in modernisation. They’ve been running down the business, running down services and cutting costs and it’s that business plan that postal workers have overwhelmingly rejected today.
“There’s still an opportunity to reach an agreement before any national strike action takes place.
“We need a national agreement which secures a fair deal on modernisation and reward for the efforts of postal workers in transforming the business. We want reassurances on job security, covering both redundancies and full-time part-time ratios.
“Crucial to an agreement is fair workloads with agreed standards of measurement. Constantly disciplining postal workers will not improve efficiencies but will drive an ever bigger wedge between workers and what they are told is modernisation.
“We’ve seen cuts and increased workloads and now we need an agreed roll-out of real modernisation. Aligning the interests of customers, employees and the company as a whole is a pre-requisite for the successful modernisation of Royal Mail.
“The government must act now to resolve the pensions deficit which is crippling the Royal Mail’s finances and chances to modernise effectively.”
Mark Higson, Royal Mail’s managing director, responded by saying: “It is clearly reprehensible for the union to continue to hold strikes when Royal Mail is not planning any further efficiency changes for the rest of the 2009 calendar year and the priority facing everyone in Royal Mail is to deliver the best possible service to customers in the run up to Christmas. We have held more than 70 meetings with the CWU over the last few months and we call on them now to stop the strikes, get back round the table and talk.
“The union leadership agreed to these changes but have reneged on that agreement and now they are reneging on their repeated offer to call off strikes and are intent on disrupting customer service as much as they can even though nearly 60% of our postmen and women did not vote for strike action. The union says it supports modernisation and wants to serve customers – but again these prove to be empty words.”
“Every letter is important to us and we apologise unreservedly for the disruption and inconvenience our customers have suffered as a result of the CWU’s strikes.”
“As we announced last week, we have now successfully completed the major efficiency changes planned for 2009, both nationally and in London, under the 2007 Pay and Modernisation Agreement and there is no going-back on them. These changes are absolutely essential if Royal Mail is to survive in an increasingly tough communications marketplace – and against a backdrop of sharply falling mail volumes in the UK and around the world.
“As always, the company will be focusing on delivering excellent customer service over the vitally important run-up to Christmas when letter numbers reach their seasonal peak. Royal Mail again calls on the CWU to abandon its unjustified strikes and to help the business deliver the service our customers deserve.”
Who do you agree with? Do you side with the CWU or the Royal Mail? Please comment below.
