Tag: Mail Services

The Irish Postmasters’ Union seeks retention of welfare payments

Posted by | May 4, 2008 | |

The Irish Postmasters’ Union (IPU) has called on the Government to retain the Post Office network as the provider of choice for the delivery of welfare payments.

Speaking at the IPU’s annual conference in Mullingar, the union’s general secretary called for the retention of the contract in order to halt the closure of post offices.

IPU General Secretary John Kane said: “The network is currently in rapid decline. There are now 1200 Post Offices following 500 closures in the past eight years and the stark fact is that the future of there being a localised network depends on the retention of social welfare business.”

According to IPU figures, the share of the social welfare contract handled by Post Offices declined from 80% in 1998 to 55% in 2005, as people pay directly into their bank accounts.

The government is currently reviewing the social welfare contract and has yet to make a decision on a future policy regarding the delivery of payments.

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Royal Mail strikes caused by modernisation changes (UK)

Posted by | May 3, 2008 | |

Royal Mail, in it’s application to the Postal Services Commission for relief from the impact of Industrial Action, said that a number of factors had caused a drop in quality of service in 2007 but the underlying cause was industrial action brought on by essential changes to make the business more efficient. It said the changes formed part of the loan it had secured from government to modernise the business.

The application timetabled the impact of events caused by national, rolling, and wildcat strikes but said that it was not possible to “identify every small event that contributed to the wider degradation in quality of service during the year as a result of work to rule and go-slow activity”.

It said that settling the industrial dispute on unsatisfactory terms had not been an option and in finding a solution to the dispute, the transformation of Royal Mail and the funding secured by government had to be protected as much as the long term interests of Royal Mail and it’s customers.

Royal Mail said that as well as industrial action over pay and conditions, it had also experienced industrial action over delivery office closures which again, were part of an overall plan to make the business more efficient. In addition, the new EC legislation relating to 56mph driving speed restrictions for 7.5 tonne vehicles, which became law in January 2008, required the restructuring of Royal Mail’s network operations and duty patterns in delivery, resulting in changes to the start time for over 100,000 delivery postmen and women. It said the CWU had used the changes as both a bargaining and propaganda tool during the dispute.

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Canada Post set to deliver fatal blow to rural mail service

Posted by | May 3, 2008 | |

If you have a rural mailbox, walk to the end of your driveway and kiss it goodbye. Canada Post is engaged in an aggressive campaign to eliminate traditional rural mail delivery. The stupidity of the program is exceeded only by the cost.

Tens of thousands of Canadians have already had service to their rural mail boxes cut off, including 200 in Ottawa. The number nationally could reach the hundreds of thousands if Canada Post has its way.

The problem, Canada Post says, is heavy rural traffic volumes that make delivery to end-of-the-lane boxes unsafe. Rural mail carriers have filed 1,700 health and safety complaints since 2004, and Canada Post is simply putting safety first, says corporate spokesman Sachin Despande.

No one is against safety, but the magnitude of Canada Post’s response is stunningly out of proportion to the problem. There are 843,000 roadside mailboxes in Canada. The corporation is reviewing the safety of each and every one of them, using a complex series of criteria developed by three separate consulting firms.

The cost of the rural mailbox program is $500 million over three years.

Yes, that’s half a billion dollars to deal with what’s actually a relatively small number of health and safety complaints.

The post office is averaging a little over 400 driver complaints a year. More than half of those, the company acknowledges, are ergonomics-related.

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Royal Mail to Explain Why Quality of Service Dropped

Posted by | May 2, 2008 | |

Royal Mail has been requested by Postcomm to demonstrate that industrial action last year, which saw mail pile up in delivery and sorting offices, was wholly the result of transformation plans, and that the industrial action only had caused a drop in quality of service. Royal Mail will present its case at an open meeting on May 14th.

Major stakeholders in the postal market have been invited to this event and given the opportunity to ask any questions they have about Royal Mail’s application; this will help ensure Postcomm has appropriately considered the views of all interested parties before it makes its decision.

In June 2007, Postcomm agreed Royal Mail’s request to suspend – until the end of the financial year – the payment of compensation to bulk mail customers, and to earn revenue that it would not otherwise be permitted to do (due to the ‘C factor’), where industrial action has taken place and quality of service figures have dropped.

Postcomm agreed to the request because it wished to ensure that Royal Mail was not discouraged from taking the steps needed to modernise its business – such modernisation would be to the benefit of all mail users.

Postcomm decided that prior to making any decision it would convene an open meeting at which Royal Mail would present the main points in its application. For it to be satisfied, Postcomm expects

Royal Mail has recently asked Postcomm to suspend the Bulk Mail Compensation Scheme and adjust the value of the C factor in the event of industrial action related to transformation activities in 2008/09.

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Letters are more popular than electronic mail (Denmark)

Posted by | May 2, 2008 | |

Even though today the option is available for the Danes to receive some of their mail by e-mail, e-Boks (an electronic mailbox), online banking and SMS or to visit websites for information, there is still a large preference for receiving a physical letter.

A survey (Qualitative strengths of the letter in a digitised everyday life) which Tranberg Marketing has conducted for Post Danmark demonstrates that this is the case. The Danes were asked how they prefer to receive information from business enterprises, public authorities, trade unions, humanitarian organisations and sports clubs.

Replies showed that, regardless of type of information, the letter is preferred for receiving information from business enterprises and public authorities. For receiving information from business enterprises, 62 per cent prefer a letter, 17 per cent an e-mail, while 11 per cent prefer to receive the information in their e-Boks. For receiving information from public authorities, 58 per cent prefer a letter, 23 per cent an e-mail, while 12 per cent prefer to receive the information in their e-Boks.

The letter is also a clear winner when it comes to receiving information from trade unions, humanitarian organisations and sports clubs. 57 per cent prefer to be con-tacted by letter, 34 per cent by e-mail and 2 per cent through use of their e-Boks.

However, e-mail is a favourite when it comes to receiving newsletters from organisations and associations with a 46 per cent preference for receiving them electronically and a 45 per cent preference for receiving them by letter.

e-Boks users prefer to receive some of their mail electronically, excluding newsletters, member bulletins, invitations, sales letters and insurance documents which they prefer to receive by letter.

Another fact established by the survey is that the Danes are not particularly interested in collecting information on the sender’s own website – regardless of type of information and sender.

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