Cheque is in the post lads! (Should we save the Post Office?)

Member Name: thedevilinme

Product:	Should we save the Post Office?
Date:	23/10/09 (87 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: long weekend for them

Disadvantages: Turkeys voting for Christmas..

The problem with the postal workers is they want to save their jobs not their business. If there's no business there are no jobs guys. I'm not saying the workers are idiots by going on a series of strikes at this critical time for all businesses as the recession hits a record 6th deficit quarter but I am saying they are blocking out the truth that the Post Office needs to be radically shrunk to survive. When I mean shrunk I mean people sacked and that millstone of the pension reduced. It is that and not so much their work ethic that the government want to tackle. Yes the pension pot has been allowed to grow by Mandelson as a tool to break the union's back and debating position but it is huge and so the Post Office have to off-load some of that dead weight. They just can't sack lazy staff and the union is now hurting them again like they did I the bad old days.

I know both a Post office delivery guy and a manager and both have stories to tell about each other. Managers say that the posties have never been flexible and the unions enforce that as they see job demarcation as future job loses, which is fair comment but not realistic anymore. But with the P.O. the sackings are just to make it function rather than to make the bosses richer, even though the chief exec does get a vulgar bonus linked salary. But his job from day one was to break up the company to help it survive and that can only be done by privatisation in some parts to improve efficiencies. Yes they have taken big job losses in the last ten years but most of those have been in other areas to post.

My manager friend says it's almost impossible to sack a time served postie, even if he stole all the mail and slept his 8 hour shifts. The unions pile in and threaten local wildcat strikes if they have to lose a member and once the employee is locked into a disciplinary process it can take two years to fire him or her. He has two guys who deliver to local villages and their round last less than two hours and once they have sorted they expect to be able to go home and not work the remaining hours. The managers want them to work their hours and come back to the office and help sort for the next day. He kicks up a fuss and they can't do much. The posties are reticent to do that as they feel it purely a move to lay people off. The so called Spanish Practices although a thing of the past our still there in the more left wing sorting offices. If posties can they will drag out their round so to move into overtime and earn time and a half. They almost expect to work a six hour day for £300a week. Post is falling and with the banking recession that junk mail has dried up. But because there's less employed posties the bags are just as heavy and the rounds busy.

The Post Office moved to employ temps to try and circumnavigate the unions and big pension pot problems and now they are going with part-time workers who would also have less workers rights to pensions and holidays etc. This is a purely union breaking Thatcheresque exercise by Mandelson and his time is running out to do it so to appease his personal ego. I'm sure the Tories will gleefully pick up the challenge though.

There has always been a romantic attachment to the posties by the public but those days have all but gone. Most mail is unwanted junk or bills and although some moan it's delivered later and later who really wants to stay home and wait to hear a credit card demand and some companies mail offering you a 15 grand cheque you won in some lottery slop on to your porch or hall floor. The days of getting a letter from a lover in a nice coloured envelope with a heart scribbled on or an exotic stamped one from abroad from friends have gone. I'm one of the few people who still enjoy sending lover's romantic letters (guys, girls love that letter on the doorstep so they can whisk it away to their bedrooms and read it under the covers!).

I would always support a mans right to work when the job cutting exercise is purely about the boss and share holder wanting more money. But that's not the case here and unless they are part privatised through the partners they want to work with then companies like TNT and APS are going to get Royal Mail contracts and the company will crumble away. The Dutch company TNT are the favoured people by Labour and deals are in place when the unions are finally defeated. Although Mandelson demands part privatisation and so competition its worth pointing out that TNT is a monopoly in Holland.

Technology will always be king and any Ludditte attitude will kill your business. We have a new Tesco mini store in Northampton and the tills are all self-service. Times are a changing and staff cost are always a companies biggest spend.
I think it's fair to say the government have deliberately stripped the Post office of its profitable business one-by-one to shrink it and so their profit margins too. But amazingly they made £200 million last year and do have a reasonable business model in place. The end for the Post office as we know it will come when they lose the last mile monopoly, the right to deliver all mail. I can't imagine we will see the day when TNT delivers the mail in different uniforms from different post boxes but you can see the day when those iconic wrought iron scarlet red post boxes, crested by the Royal seal, symbols of the countries glory days, will lose their meaning. In some ways that box is the Royal Mails strongest asset as even the chavs wont dare tip petrol in them or vandalize them as the understand the importance of post and, dare I say it, respect the red box. You see graffiti on bus shelters and phone boxes but rarely see black pen on the red boxes. Even in America they have retained the Post Office as a public service and that suggests the same here.

Summary: Unions V Profit