The Royal Mail postal strikes go on. It’s a Monday morning and we are into the second week of postal strikes, meaning we won’t be receiving any mail until Thursday at the earliest. Does this piss me off? Yes it does, however, not 100% for the same reasons as everyone else. I am in the mood for a complete rant now.
I hate strikes for utility and useful(?) services, I really do. They disrupt everyone to some extent but I suppose that is the general idea. However, have a think about how you would feel if your hours were changing, you were ending up with less pay overall due to some system changes, your pension is looking very shakey due to modernization and there is the possibility that you might even be made redundant soon. Stuff like this is all happening to the postal works right now so it’s not surprising they are a little pissed off, however, are the unions just trying to orchestrate an overture that the Royal Mail cannot realistically perform in this day and age? I don’t know all the details so it is very hard to comment on who is right and who is wrong here.
One one side we have the unions - I loathe the union monster, they have their place but they have far too much power. Instead of being just a voice to the worker (something I agree with), they often have the power to dictate company policy in regards to workforce and can quite easily bring a company to their knees. All this while the ‘leaders’ roll around in their fancy cars paid for by subscriptions and ‘donations’.
On the other side is the company. Companies nowadays are a beast, especially public companies. Driven by the obligation to their stockholders, they must do everything to provide a profit, even at the expense of their workforce if (and often is in their eyes) necessary.
Now, my beef with the postal strikes is that the Royal Mail should not be pushing so hard for a ‘profit’ in that they have to almost completely neglect their workforce! This should be a public service, using the money it makes to do it’s job properly and that is delivering mail and parcels to people and businesses. I understand that there is a lot of competition now from couriers etc, but these are companies that need to make a profit to pay out to shareholders etc. Surely a company that doesn’t have to answer to shareholders and provide a larger profit all the time (I don’t mean make a loss either) can be competitive and yet provide a good service doing what it does best?
Both sides seem to be seriously shooting themselves in the foot. Royal Mail seem to be on a big decline now - shutting post offices left, right and centre and providing an inferior (in my eyes at least) service that what we have been used to in the past. The workers (and unions) on the other hand are holding the company to ransom but seem to have already pulled the trigger. Amazon have already pulled their plug on using the Royal Mail as their primary delivery option and after these few weeks, I’m sure they will lose other lucrative contracts. Less large contracts will of course mean less money flowing in and so the downward spiral continues - Is it too late? Carry on unions, soon your workforce will be out of work completely. Will the companies they go to allow you to dictate as you have in the past? I doubt it - soon the gravey train will be over.
I, for one, would like to see the Royal Mail survive, but in their original state. Prices go up, of course they do (transportation costs must have rocketed), there is no denying that, but is there any need for this crazy size thing we have to adhere to? It’s gotten to the stage where I have to shove a few stamps on an envelope, knowing I have overpaid as I haven’t got the time to find the exact measurements and try and find out what payment bracket the item now lies in! Where are our post offices? If we are lucky, in W H Smith’s now. Where did the 2nd post go? Oh, that’s right, there is only one delivery each day now, and that is normally at about 11am where I live. I hear Saturday delivery will also be scrapped soon… Bring back our old postal system!!! I am not blaming the postal workers who are going on strike for these changes by the way, but management decisions. I am sure the delivery guys (when they actually work) do a fine job.
The alternative to all this will of course be the corporate behemoth. A company like Deutsche Post will take over contracts and we will be at the mercy of a system held accountable to the shareholders (if it isn’t already) who will do anything to make a profit, at the complete detriment to the customer. It seems to be this way already, but why? Quite probably there will be several companies in control of the system - one for collections and deliveries, one for sorting and another for business accounts. There will be absolutely no turning back then…