Hello 13C,
Hope you all had a great half term and are looking forward to some more pre-Christmas Business Studies!!!
Below are links to various articles relating to the postal strike in the UK (copy and paste in the links). Please have a read through the articles and familiarise yourself with some key terminology.
We will be looking at Human Resources in the run up to Christmas and these articles should bring some theory to real life.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8335182.stm - The latest news
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8320025.stm - Origins of the Royal Mail Strike
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8260701.stm - Q&A The Royal Mail Strike
Those articles were very interesting to read, and basically confirmed my judgements that postal workers need to get over themselves, stop preventing change and if needs be, just get themselves to the job centre.
ReplyDeleteRather than being a service they are rapidly becoming (or frankly, are), a total nuisance! Ha.
Hahaha. Moniquaaa you should be a politician!
ReplyDeleteBelow is a lengthy reply from Mr Withington guys - have a read. I'm sure you must have a response Monique!
ReplyDeleteThere are clear and present problems in sustaining today the delivery of mail in form of the Royal Mail when now faced with open competition in so many of its previously lucrative markets. But why does it always have be the workers who suffer? If your criticism of the postal workers is focused on their union's decision to call for strike action, please note the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Article 20
Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
Article 23
1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Too often people will seek to defend the rights of specific peoples and especially minorities whose plight they wish to highlight, whilst conveniently forgetting how we should all enjoy certain protections under the law. If your objection is to strike action; consider what alternative action a collective workface can take in the face of perceived injustice.
Disputes such as the postal strike are often incompletely represented by the media so true objectivity is often sacrificed for the sake of 'newsworthiness'. Inevitably, the complainant will often by cast in the guise of the 'bad guy', especially when the impact of such complaint affects innocent bystanders (ie the general public and small businesses) negatively. Take the final paragraph of the BBC online news story about the origins of the present dispute:
'But with CWU members now out on another nationwide strike, the great prize of replacing confrontation with trust between the 'two sides, seems as far away as ever.'
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8320025.stm)
The BBC is chartered to maintain neutrality in its reportage, and yet notice the implication found in the first clause of the first sentence. In the context of the final three paragraphs of the story, Royal Mail is painted as patient and sympathetically modernising, while the union is painted as bent upon stiring trouble.
Inevitably, Royal Mail is faced with a problem of assets and turnover compared to the cost of its commitments and other outgoings. Clearly it managed to turn a profit for the first year in many last year yet if its attempt to reduce the burden of the pensions bill is to equate modernisation with job losses, it suggests a lack of imagaination at best.
As a footnote to this, did you know that the Labour Home Secretary, Alan Johnson was the leader of the Communication Workers Union (the same one now on strike) that successfully campaigned against the privatisiation of Royal Mail in the 1990s? I wonder what conflict of interests he would have suffered had he instead been Minister for work and pensions!
A new article that has just been posted on the bbc wesbite, stating the strikes have been called off until next year:
ReplyDeletehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8345423.stm
Very interesting sir! I think its amusing they are postponing it! There is a hidden message....Postmen etc want their presents at Christmas! haha. Without the post they cant get them!
ReplyDeleteWell, that was certainly quite a response. Whatever I retort will frankly never be as sophisticated and definitely won't be backed up by legal sources! However, I will still try to defend my point of view!
ReplyDelete(I think) One of the main reason for Royal Mail's plans of job cuts is due to not having enough money - and making a huge loss? So evidently money somehow needs to be saved, and what are the options?
a)Reduce spending on current pensions (thus angering retired postal workers)
b)Reduce the size of pensions for future retiring postal workers (thus angering the current workers)
c)Cut jobs, but still manage to commit to a safer future for those remaining within the company.
And so jobs losses are in reality, the only worthwhile and potentially most effective solution. Unless you are suggesting (as the strikes seem to be) that the company should continue with their massive deficits, not get rid of any staff, and just continue to run at a loss! Actually, perhaps if the union hadn't won the strikes of the 1990s and Royal Mail had been privatised, then we wouldn't even be in this situation now. :)
Both sides agreed to improve relations and establish "a radically different culture".....
ReplyDeletehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8347201.stm
Inevitably both sides will claim to have triumphed but maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Question is, how much damage has been done betwen the parties and how much business has been lost in the process?
Nice one Sean - I suppose every job has its perks.
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting view, Monique. However, Royal Mail was created as a brand, yet the postal service is a public service. Education and the NHS may similarly be viewed as public services, and they are not required to turn a profit. The difference appears to lie in short term political expediency and the potential for saleability. Government insists that Royal Mail must compete in a private market. Its parcels division has successfully been given over to competition but the core business that remains is hostage to the principle on which the postal service was founded - a common pricing policy. How do you modernise a system that prices any 100 mile or 1000 mile delivery the same as a 1 or 10 mile delivery? (They did, admittedly alter the charges according to size of letter or parcel, but a distiction had always existed on weight.) Government does not want to upset the voters by explaining how such a policy is unsustainable and giving the post office a way of avoiding redundancy and changing working practises to the detriment of employees. Is the workforce therefore being punished to avoid an embarrassing real-world price restructuring?