Postal Strikes - Adam Crozier

[La_Dolce_Vita]

to be honest i think its bad that the workers can hold a company to ransome over them wanting to stream line there company and make it better,

then again i think anyone that strikes is now worth employing, if you dont like the way the company works then leave and get a diffrent job,

Oh dear, what awful politics you have. I don't know whether you are incredibly ignorant or just callous.

 

For starters you aren't recognising the human aspect of the situation and the fact these worker's lives are based on their work. They have poor pay and poor working conditions. These are both things I would hope you would recognise would need change.

 

There may be efforts to make Royal Mail more efficient and reduce costs by sacking people - but those are people's job and their ONLY way to feed themselves and their families. If they could easily get other jobs with better pay and better conditions, what are they doing striking? You give the impression that some fair market system exist, nevermind whether it should or not.

 

Effectively, you are offering your view that companies, businesses, corporations, and public bodies are quite entitled to continue their existence as absolute tyrannies and place the need to make profits over the interests and values of those who work in them and with which actually do the work. In such a system, the only way to temporarily gain control in these environments is for the people who make the company work - the workers to then stop working.

[gazza]

most ppl at the top have done a certain degree of work etc to get there.

i dont think i know one person that is at the top of there game has not worked hard to get there

 

and i would say how gard you work is a vary good indicator of your salary, you aint going to give the oerson thats allways late and just makes the deadlins the pay rise over the person that works there ass off

 

 

why what would you do to make them prove what there worth, give them a carrot

[La_Dolce_Vita]

I am not saying that those at the top have generally or mainly worked harder than those further down. That is obvious. But when it comes down to salary it is not such a good indicator at all, especially as you move farther up the hierarchy of a company.

 

Lets take this example in the Royal Mail. Would honestly say that a postal worker on £15,000 does 1% of the work than the Head of Post Office each day?

 

why what would you do to make them prove what there worth, give them a carrot

A carrot?

[Rog]

Let’s keep it real.

 

ANYONE who works for someone else is a resource.

 

OK they’re a resource that is in a class of its own but remains a resource.

 

As with any resource they have a value and a cost, and while the value exceeds the cost then the only factors that need to be considered revolve around how to optimise the output of that resource without burning it out.

 

Unions do serve a purpose in this in that they allow resources to be protected from unfair exploitation, and that’s right and proper, but unions that then extend their power to demand that their employer should run his business in line with what the resource wants are simply wrong in every possible way.

 

What I now write relates to the UK and not the Island.

 

In the specific case of the Postal strike the workers should be given a simple choice.

 

Get back to work, or get replaced.

 

The workers get more than a fair pay for the nature of the job, let’s face it delivering post is hardly rocket science, and in fact the T’s and C’s of the postal workers are already exceptionally good. In MY opinion far TOO good, and the result is that the actual gross remuneration package, after all the bells and whistles are factored in, is very good indeed.

 

Take the little matter of a worker being paid overtime for any additional work he undertakes after he has completed his allocated task if he completed that task inside of his normal shift hours.

 

That’s worth reading twice.

 

Then consider how the workload per shift has been whittled down such that in the majority of cases it can be completed in HALF the contracted hours.

 

It rather changes the (not so) ‘poor pay’ when seen in that light just as the (not so) ‘poor pay’ is only part of the gross remuneration packet.

 

Then there’s the ‘we called but you were out’ scam. Don’t bother delivering the parcel, in fact don’t even have it in the VAN. Just stick a note through the letter box and let Joe Soap call in to collect it.

 

Then there’s the pension scam. And the Luddite approach to modernisation. And of course the ‘We’ll get our way because we CAN’ bullying approach by the union, and the ‘don’t give a stuff, THEY won’t let us ruin Christmas for Joe Public’ mindset.

 

I would sack the lot.

 

There’s enough people on the dole who would take up the jobs then open and on far less restrictive conditions than this lot presently enjoy.

 

Apart from anything else there’s the value of the 'pour encourager les autres' concept to send a message to the rest of the public sector that they’re NOT irreplaceable, a message that should be sent and sent soon before the axe starts to fall on the necks of the Turkey Army that NuLabour established.

 

I look forward to seeing the bloated public sector being culled.

 

As for executive pay, I wonder if most people realises just how bloody hard it is running a big business.

 

I really doubt it.

[Rog]

Effectively, you are offering your view that companies, businesses, corporations, and public bodies are quite entitled to continue their existence as absolute tyrannies and place the need to make profits over the interests and values of those who work in them and with which actually do the work.

 

Of course they are!

 

That's how things are and how things MUST be!

 

If you think it through there is a need for a business to optimise each resource and to do that the welfare and morale of the human resources needs to be factored in.

 

But the reality remains that a business or an enterprise runs for the benefit of those who stumped up the wherewithal to set it up and for its customers, and not those resources that form part of the process!

[jimbms]

Be they right or wrong I wont go into that debate but it seems this strike has actualy done the future of royal mail delivery a great harm and will cost jobs, if what I read is correct Amazon, Play.com and several others have now signed contracts with other delivery services and dumped royal mail for good, if others follow which I am sure will happen to ensure xmas deliveries and future ones it means the royal mail will have lost out on a large chunk of their income.

[scarbunny]

I have to agree with Rog on this one, the postal workers are taking advantage of their position, they know that when they down tools it cost the UK economy both time and money, some thing no one can afford to waste in these times.

 

If the Royal Mail had any balls they would issue an ultimatum like Regan did in 1981, I'm sure it can't be that hard to find people to carry a bag around the streets. Much easier than replacing 11,000 Air Traffic Controllers.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

ANYONE who works for someone else is a resource.

 

OK they’re a resource that is in a class of its own but remains a resource.

I prefer the term tool, but yes you're right.

 

As with any resource they have a value and a cost, and while the value exceeds the cost then the only factors that need to be considered revolve around how to optimise the output of that resource without burning it out.

This is the problem. Because in this appalling system we have people are considered as nothing more than resources, tools, and commodities. But you're right that is exactly how the person/individual is treated in the current system.

However, I don't agree with it all.

 

Unions do serve a purpose in this in that they allow resources to be protected from unfair exploitation, and that’s right and proper, but unions that then extend their power to demand that their employer should run his business in line with what the resource wants are simply wrong in every possible way.

Somehow I think you will have an extreme narrow and limited version of what is unfair exploitation. The whole manner in which waged workers are treated is exploitative.

 

The workers get more than a fair pay for the nature of the job, let’s face it delivering post is hardly rocket science, and in fact the T’s and C’s of the postal workers are already exceptionally good. In MY opinion far TOO good, and the result is that the actual gross remuneration package, after all the bells and whistles are factored in, is very good indeed.

If in your opinion their salaries are too good then you I assume you think there is some form of greed behind this, which is quite preposterous considering that such strike action won't actually gain them much if they are successful and which will cost them pay in the short term.

 

But what sort of wages are we talking about Rog? Do you know them?

 

Besides, wages should not necessarily reflect how hard people work. I think it rather terrible that people receive such low salaries for spending most hours of their working day being stupid. If people have to find wages work to support themselves and the best they can get is to operate as machines then I think that requires a better compensation.

 

As for executive pay, I wonder if most people realises just how bloody hard it is running a big business.

 

I really doubt it.

Hard? It may be. But how hard? You allude to something about market value above, as if a pure market system determines wages, but what can we say in this case? That the executive pay is determined by the market? Rubbish.

 

And considering how hard the executives work - how can anyone say that their wages are proportionate to the effort they put in, especially when it reaches the millions.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

Of course they are!

That's how things are and how things MUST be!

It isn't as things should be. If you thought we lived in a free market system, which we don't, it would make sense - though it would still be deplorable.

 

If you think it through there is a need for a business to optimise each resource and to do that the welfare and morale of the human resources needs to be factored in.

Well yes, you are correct. The ancillary tools (people) used in the workplace do need to be monitored in a capitalist system in case their productivity declines or is affected in some way.

However, as you are aware, such an interest is purely based on the profitmaking motive, and as such do not necessarily accord with the welfare and morale of people. Besides, the very fact that people are nothing more than tools and commodities, are nothing more than slaves within a tyrannical system actually, and operate as machines in the workplace who have no control over their work forces them to be inhuman. If people act stupid and have no control then there is very little left that reflects their 'human nature'.

 

But the reality remains that a business or an enterprise runs for the benefit of those who stumped up the wherewithal to set it up and for its customers, and not those resources that form part of the process!

They may have stumped up the wherewithal, but they don't get ANYWHERE without the people who do the work. The owners simply control the resources.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

I have to agree with Rog on this one, the postal workers are taking advantage of their position, they know that when they down tools it cost the UK economy both time and money, some thing no one can afford to waste in these times.

Of course they take advantage of their position, that's the point. If the workers are not needed then a strike can have no effect.

And these times are such due to the very failings of the current system and decisions taken by those who control the economy. Such bad decisions and the awful processes of the finance system have led to the situation where those at the bottom have suffered and now have no pay rises and have to linger on poor pay and conditions.

[Rog]

Hard? It may be. But how hard? You allude to something about market value above, as if a pure market system determines wages, but what can we say in this case? That the executive pay is determined by the market? Rubbish.

 

Not at all. The market that affects executive pay includes parameters such as the capability of an individual to run his own enterprise and the need to make being salaried preferable to that, the market demand for scarce management knowledge, skills, and experience, and track record.

 

And considering how hard the executives work - how can anyone say that their wages are proportionate to the effort they put in, especially when it reaches the millions.

 

Right. Let’s take a specific.

 

How about a man who is the project director for the delivery of a turn key solution to deliver an alternative telecoms system for an NLO (new licensed operator) for a country.

 

A whole country.

 

Initial roll out contract value? US$ 60,000,000.

 

(final contract value after last phase US$ 600,000,000)

 

Initial contract duration? 30 months to cut-over.

 

Liquidated damages exposure? Sliding scale up to current contract value after 6 months over run on cut-over date plus cancellation / renegotiation of full final contract.

 

How much salary and what other perks should such a man be offered as a remuneration package in your opinion?

[Lonan3]

Not at all. The market that affects executive pay includes parameters such as the capability of an individual to run his own enterprise and the need to make being salaried preferable to that, the market demand for scarce management knowledge, skills, and experience, and track record.

Worked well in the banking world, didn't it?

[scarbunny]

I have to agree with Rog on this one, the postal workers are taking advantage of their position, they know that when they down tools it cost the UK economy both time and money, some thing no one can afford to waste in these times.

Of course they take advantage of their position, that's the point. If the workers are not needed then a strike can have no effect.

And these times are such due to the very failings of the current system and decisions taken by those who control the economy. Such bad decisions and the awful processes of the finance system have led to the situation where those at the bottom have suffered and now have no pay rises and have to linger on poor pay and conditions.

 

But part of the problem the postal workers have is that they don't want modernisation, they are actively protesting about Royal Mail trying to improve their working conditions.

 

Yes the whole point is that they are taking advantage of their position, however as they are a vital part of the nations infrastructure they are able to force Royal Mail's hand in making unreasonable and undeserved increases in, for example, pay as if they don't the country is screwed and the Royal Mail will face fines and huge damage to their reputation. As it is the workers have done untold damage to their employer meaning in the future there could be even greater need for redundancy or pay cuts.

 

Its the same problem that comes up from train drivers, they get massive amounts of money for sitting on their a***s pushing a lever because their employers know they can't afford strikes to take place. Where as the Police and Fire Service have to make do with lower pay for more demanding jobs because they are unable to strike.

 

Power to the people, and all that but I bet they come crying to the Government when there are mass lay offs because the Royal Mail has lost millions of pounds of business from the major online retailers thanks to the actions of the workers.

[slinkydevil]

Where as the Police and Fire Service have to make do with lower pay for more demanding jobs because they are unable to strike.

 

Agree with most of what you say but the Fire service did strike a few years ago. I think that's when they get the army in as cover.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/200...ute/default.stm

[scarbunny]

Where as the Police and Fire Service have to make do with lower pay for more demanding jobs because they are unable to strike.

 

Agree with most of what you say but the Fire service did strike a few years ago. I think that's when they get the army in as cover.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/200...ute/default.stm

 

 

Yep I remember it happening, and completly supported them as at the time train drivers earned on average £10k more a year, I'm pretty sure not long after that the current regime made it illegal for them to strike in future, I think it also applies to the Police as well.