So Royal Mail are going on strike, starting Thursday for just two days. A lot of people are getting on their high horses pointing the finger at the Postal Worker, where they don't even know the half of it. Thankfully, I found this incredible, yet painstakingly long response to an article regarding our decision to strike. This will take you a good 15 minutes, but if you're curious about the strikes, please read, this will clear up some things.

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We think it's fair to say that you, our customers, are not interested in why we are once again striking. It is also fair to say that some of the problems we are going through does not affect you either. What you are interested in is you getting your mail, and whatever mail you send, getting there within the allotted time depending on what service was paid for. But we do think that it is fair to inform you of part of the reason as to why we are striking as it affects you in a big way.

Before we go on let's get one thing out first, it's not about a pay rise, far from it, a pay rise if we are to be truthful is in the mix but is not as a high priority as other concerns we have.

Please just take a minute to see what we have to say.


What's affecting you then?

In 2007 we signed an agreement with Royal Mail called the Pay & Modernisation deal, in that deal there are, amongst other things, a new working practice called 'absorption'. This is one of YOUR biggest problems, whether you are a domestic or business customer!

Before the deal any postal workers rounds that weren't covered due to staff sickness, holidays, or general shortage would be covered by other postal workers on overtime. There would be no shortage of posties willing to do this, so there was never a major problem getting the mail delivered. But now we have 'absorption', what this now means is that any rounds now that does not have a postal worker allocated to it is now absorbed by the rest of the postal workers in the office. With Royal Mail insisting that mail volumes are falling they are under the impression that we now have a lot of spare time in which to absorb other posties work.

This is not the case, not only have we lost 60,000 staff in the business in the last few years (our CEO Adam Crozier has publicly admitted this) but we now have a large proportion of part-time workers which affects the way the mail pipeline works.

Mail is being delayed regularly and in vast amounts around the country in the name of absorption, so managers can report that absorption has happened and the savings have been made, some posties have to leave part of their round in the office, they also are being forced to 'cut off' or stop their deliveries as they have run out of time. Royal Mail drivers have been taken off their packet routes to help absorption, hence packets are left undelivered for days.

This is a mass abuse of the deal we signed in 2007, and posties are being bullied and threatened with taken off pay if they either refuse to do this or happen to cut off.


Later deliveries.

A few years back, Royal Mail ceased the second delivery and you now only get one, but the truth is Royal Mail did not stop the second delivery, they cancelled the first. We now start our rounds at the time that we started the second delivery years ago and now, Royal Mail want even later start times. So while today, if you're one of the lucky ones, you might meet your postman before you go to lunch, you will soon be meeting him just before dinner. We are aware that this causes big problems for businesses all over the UK more especially those that work from home. But that does not seem to matter to Royal Mail, later start times and later deliveries are all down to modernisation, or in other words, new sorting machines being brought in which, would you believe, take even longer to sort the mail. This will also affect our own work/life balance and there are childcare issues, and school run problems, already rising because of it.

You may also be aware before we went to Single Daily Delivery, you could pick up any packets or signed for letters left in the morning around two hours or so later at your local office. That, as some of you may be aware has changed, some places you have to wait 24hrs, most 48 but there are some where you can't get the packet for nearly 72hrs. That's if your office is local instead of on some industrial estate somewhere, and of course if it does not close before lunch.

This is Royal Mail modernisation.


"If you don't like your job, then leave!"

This is what we read about all the time from alleged customers on the Internet news stories comment sections, and, regrettably Royal Mail management. But who says that we don't like our job? You will find that most posties love their job, but are finding it harder and harder to provide the service they want and their customers expect, not just because of the work levels, but more so the bullying and harassment by managers at all levels of the business. Why should we have to put up with the constant B&H and worsening of our terms and conditions, when all we want to do is get on with our job and provide a service to our customers? We will not be hounded out of a job we love in the name of profit, or be made to feel guilty because we decide to defend our current Conditions of Sservice, instead of allowing them to be decimated because of the inherently unfair bonus culture of Royal Mail.


National strike.

The first strike was in London N18 Edmonton against introduction of part-time duties by executive action on 7th March. Cowdenbeath Delivery Office was the first among many in Scotland to strike against Executive Action on 27th March. The whole of London took action throughout June, and over 500 other offices around the country either went out on strike or requested a strike ballot. Previously to all of this some Mail Centres around the country took strike action over their closures, and the lack of real consultation.

London, since June have taken over 16 days of action.

During all that time we have repeatedly asked Royal Mail to negotiate with our Union about, not only the problems that you have so far read about and will read about below, but more importantly the fact that previous agreements are either being ignored or abused. It has now come to the time where enough is enough and now we have, unfortunately, the national strikes.


No more efficiency changes this year.

This is what Royal Mail have claimed but this is not the case, there are many cases on the site where Royal Mail are still pushing ahead with with their changes. Including later start times, full-time positions going to part-time, Pegasus 2 revisions (flawed computer program), night staff being moved to days, full-time staff to prep part-time staff walks, more hours to go from delivery offices...


You the tax payer.

You are being mislead by the media and the Government regarding billions of pounds of tax payers money being used to prop up Royal Mail and our pensions, this is not the case and a blatant lie by all. For many years the treasury have taken our profits from us for their own gain, add nearly 13 years when due to tax reasons Royal Mail did not pay into our pension scheme, and yes the treasury got that money as well, you the tax payer owes Royal Mail billions of pounds. Any money recently received by Royal Mail from tax payers has been a loan and has to be paid back at commercial loan rates which means that the tax payer has once again benefited from us.


Privatisation.

This is a simple one, the Government have said that they will take over our pension deficit only if we get part-privatised. The crux of this is that you, the tax payer, will pay for our pensions, but a private investor will not have to so they will just get the profits. Our Union Leader remarked on this at the Labour Conference by saying the Government were privatising the profit and nationalising the debt.

The tax payer will have the debt, while the private investor will get the profit!

We, the humble posties do not need to tell you what happens after a company is privatised, you only need to look at your utility bills, train fares and your bank statements for that.


Mail volumes.

We agree that mail volumes are down, but not as much as Royal Mail say, we accept the recession has had an effect, but again, not as much that Royal Mail has said. With 60,000 jobs gone, bigger rounds, over one million new homes built in the last few years with more to come, a few letters less in our post bag, when you add the mass increase in packets due to e-commerce, there is no leeway in our duties like Royal Mail think. Add the fact that Royal Mail now count the mail differently with a disagreed and flawed process, then you have false traffic figures.

What is in the boxes that they send the mail down to Delivery Offices, is very much under estimated and has been shown to be so by royalmailchat members counting individual boxes.


Independent report on Royal Mail.

Last year the Government requested an independent report on Royal Mail (The Hooper report), this found many flaws with the way the business is being run, including lack of transparency by the business with its figures and the fact that Royal Mail management were not up to the job.


We are not against modernisation

WE ARE NOT AGAINST CHANGE - We signed up to the Pay and Modernisation Agreement. Royal Mail ignored Phase four till we started local strikes.

WE ARE AWARE THERE WILL BE JOB LOSSES - 60,000 gone in recent years.

WE ARE NOT ASKING FOR A PAY RISE PER SE - We had a pay freeze this year which was imposed against the spirit of the 2007 agreement.

WE ARE NOT AGAINST MODERNISATION - But we haven't seen it in deliveries unless you count longer routes with heavier bags.

WE OFFERED A MORATORIUM ON STRIKES IF ROYAL MAIL DISCUSSED CHANGES - Royal Mail refused saying it was a stalling tactic but now they want it when disagreed systems are in place.

WE ARE NOT AGAINST WORKING HARD - The Union suggested having independent organisations help both sides come up with a fair and balanced way of measuring workload and standard - Royal Mail refused.

The 2007 agreement allowed local units to have innovative attendance patterns, and these were agreed in some units with full Royal Mail involvement. Yet without consulting the CWU (as per the agreement) they unilaterally enforced change on these working arrangements. The agreement also allowed a local earnings package,this has been taken away by Royal Mail.

We are and we will strike against..

Bullying and Harassment such as;

- Being suspended for pointing out H&S concerns.

- Being sent home without pay when we can't complete a delivery in the time allotted especially if managers are not willing to walk test us or check individual posties frames to see how busy they are.

- Genuine overtime being struck off when you go over your contracted hours on a busy day.

- Being sent home without pay when you can't do the half hour flexibility when asked - even though personal reasons are meant to be taken into account as per the 2007 agreement.

- When you do the half hour flexibility and not being able to claw it back or be paid it on overtime as per the 2007 agreement. Or being given it back in five minute chunks.

- Changing our start and finish times on a weekly basis without negotiation.

- Using a flawed computer program to work out rounds with un-agreed walk speeds.

- No independent H&S review after accidents at work - Staff being blamed for accidents without thorough and external review of all pertinent matters by an independent body.


Spanish practices do not exist.

The reality in modern delivery offices is that the posties slogs their guts out everyday under the gaze of managers ready to sack them for the slightest indiscretion. Many many part-timers are bullied by managers into doing unpaid over time day in day out. All overtime has to be OK'ed by management and most posties are too intimidated to go see their manager to ask for it. A lot of our guys do hours of overtime per week for nothing.


Give the Public a service.

Yep that's Royal Mails job and guess how they do that;

- Close 3,500 Post Offices.

- Reduce the service at 1000s of others.

- Allow the Government to withdraw some of the services you used to be able to get at Post Offices.

- Ceased Sunday Collections (now for anyone to get anything on Monday you need to send it before 12:30 on Saturday.

- Cancelled Bank Holiday Collections.

- Cancelled second Delivery

- Made the first delivery later than the second ever was.

- Laid off 60,000 workers through various means.

- Close delivery offices and amalgamate them into Super Delivery Offices on industrial estates miles from bus routes.

- Bring in a complicated and expensive postage system. (Pricing in Proportion).

- Increase handling fees for Import from £4 to £8.

- Increase the surcharge of underpaid items to £1.

- Increase stamp prices above inflation.

- Agree a price with DSA competitors to use our network which means we subsidise them to the tune of 2p per item.

- Take 5 years to spend half of the 1.2 billion the Government loaned them, but we are still yet to see the machines in use on a UK wide basis even though trials are going well according to Royal Mail.

- Removing Mail Cycles and replacing them with cars and then claiming they are doing everything to reduce carbon emissions.

- Half day closing for all Callers Offices and a delay of up to 72 hours before you can collect parcels/letters after getting a "Notice Left Card"


All of the above is not exhaustive, but we are, thank you for taking the time to read it.

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I think this post has made it very clear. If you're from the UK, send this around, let others realise why we're really going on strike. Though personally I doubt this strike is worth it, Royal Mail will continue to do what they want.

For now, take care.

Hey children.

Right, first thing's first, I figured I'd tell you that I've got a birthday coming up soon in just over a week, on the 16th October, in which I will be turning 22. There will be cake, lots of cake, so I expect to see you here because I can't eat it all on my own and it would be nice to have some company.. Male company that is.

The comic I mentioned to you all isn't really getting anywhere, and now I'm not even sure if I want to go ahead with it. In fact, I'm thinking of scrapping the whole idea and returning to my own again, there were some powerful words back before when I made the decision, and in all honesty, this person was right in what she said and I had the same attitude towards my own work, which was not to care whether it was bad, yet I somewhat ignored it as well as ignored myself. Expect it to return, even if it hadn't been away for long.

Lastly, uh, not important, but I might be away this weekend since I have my three days off, I'm thinking about joining some fellow countrymen on their journey to York, but I'm having my doubts about going. Mostly because I'd have to drive there and I'm still not very confident about making such long trips in my car, and secondly it could be a hit or miss thing with whether I'd enjoy being there or not, since I'll be meeting new people, and I won't know whether they will be awesome, or bad.

Oh yeah, if you got this far, I started to use the additions on this journal, woo.

Take care.

Toshi - The Comic is now over with. I've enjoyed doing them, but it's time to move onto doing something fresh and extend my skills further. Have no fear though, for I have just announced a new project over at my beloved home, Yoshi's Corner. Go ahead and have a read.

Thanks for reading the comics, but some things just have to end. Love you all for it though.

Keep checking back, I may update with more information about it in the future.

Ok I'll begin by saying that recently, I got myself a new laptop. I saw this baby for cheap at Asda (WalMart to you yanks) a couple weeks back, and it possessed some good specifications considering its cheap price. It's an ASUS X58L, and it's no monster of a machine, but it's fast enough and actually quiet enough to use for general use, and omglol no more annoying CLAKCLAKCLAKCLAKCLAKCLAK sounds from the fan anymore. Had to get used to the new layout though, since I've moved from Windows XP to Windows Vista, a move I don't care for so don't respond with "lol shit OS dood". It can also run flash games without slowdown so that instantly gained some cool points, since my previous one couldn't run a flash game for 5 minutes without everything going into bullet time. Still, it's a beauty.

Some people may know that I've also been kinda getting my head stuck into a new MMO that was released by Nexon about a week (I think) ago too, known as Dungeon Fighter Online. I've been playing here and there, but I've decided to just put it down and forget about it. Why? Well, the region locking is not a positive point, so I've had to manipulate the internet into thinking I was actually in America in order to get myself on it, but that also denied me any ability to party with anyone who was genuine. Bugger. Anyway, from what I did play, it's cool, and I recommend if you enjoy action fighters, especially those with a Streets of Rage twist in it, just enhanced a bit with magic and skills, but bastardised a bit thanks to the changes they mixed into the American version, that being in comparison to the, apparent, awesome versions currently out in Taiwan, Japan and.. some other place that exists on the world map.

Lastly, the announcement. I'm considering stopping Toshi - The Comic series altogether. I have my reasons, those being that they're just not as good as they used to be. I sometimes read them myself just to get an idea of how much they've changed, and I realised that they do drag a bit with poor attempts at gags and scripting the later we go on through them, and I fear it'll just get to the lowest point where I'm just hanging onto any idea that comes to mind, kind of like Matt Groening, I think. I'm not entirely sure that this is the right thing to do, but I feel like I have no choice, I see many others who produce comics themselves, and I feel inferior to them in comparison, despite my mindset being on "pro-simplicity", yet I think that's what drags it down, since I know most people probably wish that they were a lot more visually appealing instead of being pixelated and rushed, despite saying that I only go for the gags, not the artwork.

Anyway, I shall leave you with that to ponder, since I'm off out with some friends tonight and I must get myself ready. Take care folks until next time.