700 non-management staff suddenly have new duties and no salary increase
Royal Mail has been subjected to ongoing asset stripping since the day it was sold. It was a public institution, built using taxpayers money for almost 500 years and then sold to a handful of Tory donors and friends of the Chancellor. Within 3 years of the sale there had been over £1 billion in dividends paid and while 20% of the company is owned by staff and small shareholders, the rest is owned by big investors. Investors like BlackRock, the largest shareholder, who hired George Osborne (the Chancellor in charge of the sale) for £650,000 a year as an “advisor”. The corruption is so fucking obvious.
On the one hand as an outsider looking in, I’ve generally found the royal mail as a service to have improved during my usage of it. Things such as being able to have someone collect something I need to post and even bringing the postage label for it with them now and the tracking + signage of packages all seems to work very well.
On the other, as someone who is currently working for a certain large supermarket chain (I’m sure you’ll work it out), I see this as the same line of progression as what happened at my job. They cut off all new managerial positions (including those mid-training) and created an entirely new role with the same responsibilities but without the same level of pay.
They also consolidated several departments and put it under the responsibility of one person, where as before each department would’ve had a manager.
Also specifically on the delivery side of things, they’re running on the absolute thinnest of margins that on any given day I feel like the whole thing could collapse. They cap the number of delivery vans frequently because of how short of staff we are and they constantly hire a new round of temps every few months just to let them go as soon as their contract is up, rinse and repeat.
Everything is timed to an insane level such as breaks and time between shopping you’ve picked for a customer and the next. It’s all very robotic and they keep increasing the rate at which you need to work to be considered acceptable. Manager’s are having mental breakdowns over this because of how stressful their jobs have become.
This should be a second golden age for the royal mail. Instead they just seem to stumble from blunder to blunder.
I had a parcel sent to me on the Wednesday after Christmas. It was meant to arrive on the Friday but never turned up.
Royal Mail was then completely closed for *three solid days* – Saturday because it was New Year’s Day, Sunday because it was a Sunday, and Monday because it was the bank holiday for New Year’s Day.
I can understand that they might be struggling with staff shortages, but how can a national delivery service justify shutting up shop for three just because the calendar has turned another page?
The shops were open on all three of those days, if they really want to run a business that picks up extra trade from people who prefer to shop online they need to provide a similar level of service.
*”The company axed a fifth of its managers – around 2,000 posts – in June 2020, shortly after the start of the pandemic.”*
They get away with this because they can. Always the problem when private interests take over the running of public services.
Is RM a public service? Yes because it simply wouldn’t be possible to have this kind of service, including letters, from a private operation. It wouldn’t ever be profitable.
When people say “we should privatise this service so it can be run like a business!” they seem to forget just how often businesses go bust.
That’ll be the much celebrated Tory free market economy at work ..where competition drives down prices and improves service, just like it did for trains, busses, water, utilities and of course, the post office. And still people vote conservative at local elections.
He walked straight out of the flaming wreckage of Test and Trace and into the head office of the Royal Mail, and now a year later they’re taking a month+ to deliver letters. And he’s being paid a £525k salary plus bonuses.
Top heavy business’s always doomed to failure. Historical facts. Look at Westminster, so top heavy it’s bringing the country down.
Amazing what happens when things are sold off to private entities…
Tbh I’m not sure a lot are needed. Postmen don’t take much managing.
12 comments
700 non-management staff suddenly have new duties and no salary increase
Royal Mail has been subjected to ongoing asset stripping since the day it was sold. It was a public institution, built using taxpayers money for almost 500 years and then sold to a handful of Tory donors and friends of the Chancellor. Within 3 years of the sale there had been over £1 billion in dividends paid and while 20% of the company is owned by staff and small shareholders, the rest is owned by big investors. Investors like BlackRock, the largest shareholder, who hired George Osborne (the Chancellor in charge of the sale) for £650,000 a year as an “advisor”. The corruption is so fucking obvious.
On the one hand as an outsider looking in, I’ve generally found the royal mail as a service to have improved during my usage of it. Things such as being able to have someone collect something I need to post and even bringing the postage label for it with them now and the tracking + signage of packages all seems to work very well.
On the other, as someone who is currently working for a certain large supermarket chain (I’m sure you’ll work it out), I see this as the same line of progression as what happened at my job. They cut off all new managerial positions (including those mid-training) and created an entirely new role with the same responsibilities but without the same level of pay.
They also consolidated several departments and put it under the responsibility of one person, where as before each department would’ve had a manager.
Also specifically on the delivery side of things, they’re running on the absolute thinnest of margins that on any given day I feel like the whole thing could collapse. They cap the number of delivery vans frequently because of how short of staff we are and they constantly hire a new round of temps every few months just to let them go as soon as their contract is up, rinse and repeat.
Everything is timed to an insane level such as breaks and time between shopping you’ve picked for a customer and the next. It’s all very robotic and they keep increasing the rate at which you need to work to be considered acceptable. Manager’s are having mental breakdowns over this because of how stressful their jobs have become.
This should be a second golden age for the royal mail. Instead they just seem to stumble from blunder to blunder.
I had a parcel sent to me on the Wednesday after Christmas. It was meant to arrive on the Friday but never turned up.
Royal Mail was then completely closed for *three solid days* – Saturday because it was New Year’s Day, Sunday because it was a Sunday, and Monday because it was the bank holiday for New Year’s Day.
I can understand that they might be struggling with staff shortages, but how can a national delivery service justify shutting up shop for three just because the calendar has turned another page?
The shops were open on all three of those days, if they really want to run a business that picks up extra trade from people who prefer to shop online they need to provide a similar level of service.
*”The company axed a fifth of its managers – around 2,000 posts – in June 2020, shortly after the start of the pandemic.”*
They get away with this because they can. Always the problem when private interests take over the running of public services.
Is RM a public service? Yes because it simply wouldn’t be possible to have this kind of service, including letters, from a private operation. It wouldn’t ever be profitable.
When people say “we should privatise this service so it can be run like a business!” they seem to forget just how often businesses go bust.
That’ll be the much celebrated Tory free market economy at work ..where competition drives down prices and improves service, just like it did for trains, busses, water, utilities and of course, the post office. And still people vote conservative at local elections.
Feel the need to mention that a year ago Royal Mail appointed the [former managing director of the Test and Trace app](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jan/11/royal-mail-appoints-simon-thompson-chief-executive-ocado-nhs-test-and-trace) to be the new CEO.
He walked straight out of the flaming wreckage of Test and Trace and into the head office of the Royal Mail, and now a year later they’re taking a month+ to deliver letters. And he’s being paid a £525k salary plus bonuses.
Top heavy business’s always doomed to failure. Historical facts. Look at Westminster, so top heavy it’s bringing the country down.
Amazing what happens when things are sold off to private entities…
Tbh I’m not sure a lot are needed. Postmen don’t take much managing.