RM Staffs. staff strike again

Royal Mail workers in Staffordshire are to go on strike yet again this week, as talks over changes to working conditions have once more broken down. Four days of strikes are planned, for Friday and Saturday, and Wednesday and Thursday next week. Royal Mail have said that managers will be drafted in to deal with some deliveries.

Not even the government want Royal Mail

Royal Mail has lost its contract to collect bulk mail from the Department for Work and Pensions. The £12m p.a. contract has gone to UK Mail, part of Business Post. The DWP are the first government department to ditch RM, but there is now inevitably speculation that others could follow suit.

Cornish posties push the envelope

Anyone who's ever had a problem with a Royal Mail delivery (that's all of us, then) may be comforted to know that they can sometimes work miracles. A Christmas card sent to Cornwall, with only a vague map of its destination instead of an address, actually got delivered. Amazingly, the card, sent with with no street name, town or postcode, arrived with its intended recipient nine days later after a postal worker recognised the name of the addressee.

RM wildcat strike in Leeds

Royal Mail staff in Leeds held an unofficial strike today over the amount of junk mail they are expected to deliver. Deliveries were disrupted to the LS14 and LS15 areas, though Royal Mail said that they were attempting to deliver as much mail as possible. The Communication Workers' Union said that management were not listening to staff concerns, but as junk mail seems to be the only thing that's keeping Royal Mail going at the moment, they might just be striking themselves out of a job.

Staffs. RM strike again

Royal Mail staff in Staffordshire are again on strike, this time over the suspension of a colleague for alleged agressive behaviour towards a temporary measure. Staff in Burslem, ST6 walked out on Friday and Saturday last week, and no deliveries are being made again today. An RM spokesperson said, "This unofficial and unlawful strike is not the way to resolve any dispute."

Have you a first class postie?

So because it's Christmas, let's have something positive to say about Royal Mail for once. Their First Class People Awards are for posties "who are charity fundraisers in their spare time, or have performed a public-spirited act or dealt with an emergency while doing their deliveries." You can make nominations online, by telephone or even by mail, and entries must be received by 8th January.

RM announce price increases

Royal Mail have announced that the price of a first class stamp is to rise by 2p to 34p from next April, and that of a large letter by 4p to 48p. A 100g first class packet will now cost £1.09 and the fee for recorded delivery rises to 70p. Royal Mail state that these price increases mean that pricing reflects the "true cost" of mail delivery more closely.

Full details of the new tariff.

Mail and the detectives

Royal Mail have been forced to hire an extra 3,000 workers to decipher bad handwriting on an estimated 400 million poorly labelled packages and envelopes. The temporary staff, known as 'address detectives', join 1400 permanent staff employed to decipher handwriting and try to match incorrect addresses with their intended recipients. According to Postwatch, five million Christmas cards are pulped every year because they are undeliverable and do not carry a return address.

An RM spokesman advised that "it is important that people properly address their Christmas cards and use the postcode." We think you'd be better off with a label printer!

Staffs. RM strike confirmed

Christmas deliveries of mail are set to be affected after 800 postal workers in 11 delivery offices in Staffordshire went on strike. Today's action is set to continue on Monday, and the backlog of mail caused at this busiest time will affect deliveries up to Christmas.

The strike is over vacant posts which had previously been full-time being downgraded to part-time. The Communication Workers Union says that proper consultation has not been completed, and that Royal Mail are in contravention of a national agreement with them.

Doug Neel, an RM spokesman, said "My understanding is they are looking at further action on 23 December, which is obviously a difficult day, the last delivery prior to the Christmas holidays - which will have a significant impact on our delivery service."

And you thought Royal Mail were bad...

Russian Post has started delivering 4.5 tonnes of letters and parcels that were sent from the United States in 1999. The state-owned mail service said that the mail had been in a ship which had been stuck in a Finnish port for years, but that the post was all in good condition as it had been in an hermetically sealed container.

2500 Post Offices to close

Alistair Darling, the Trade and Industry Secretary, has just announced the closure of around two and a half thousand UK post offices, mainly in rural locations.

The Minister said that the government wished to restructure the network on a stable economic footing, promising £1.7billion to be invested over the next five years. To ensure that 99% of the UK population remains within 3 miles of a Post Office, new mobile Post Offices will be set up, together with more located in shops and community halls.

Though fewer closures than were originally predicted, this is still a blow for thousands of eBayer sellers whose businesses rely on their local POs. eBay selling is often attractive to those living in rural locations where other work is not readily available. To damage business like this hurts not only the individual seller, but the fragile economy of which they are a part. With 5000 closures already over the last four years, many eBayers already have a longer journey to their nearest Post Office. Further closures in rural locations will simply make it unviable to carry on selling on eBay for some.

For others, faced now with long treks to overcrowded town-centre offices, the only option will be collection by Royal Mail instead, or moving to courier delivery, sending ever more revenue away from the Post Office. Just as Lib Dem T&I shadow Malcolm Bruce said in 2004 that "the closure of up to 3000 urban post offices this year will not stop the rot", today's actions have just set the stage for a further round of closures in coming years. Unless the government abandons its current schemes moving more and more services out of Post Offices, things can only get worse.

Instead of creating yet another unnecessary barrier to enterprise, the Minister for Trade and Industry should recognise the vital role of small business in the UK economy, and, whether those businesses are eBay traders or rural Postmasters, do so much more to support them.

Customers "not an absolute priority" for Royal Mail

The UK postal service has been slammed as "chronically poor" by a committee of MPs. Some areas, including London, are particularly badly served by Royal Mail, which sees over fifteen million items a year lost, stolen or damanged.

The MPs also criticised the compensation process offered by RM, which they said was inadequate and overly complicated. The chairman of the committee, Edward Leigh MP, said:

"You would expect that a new regime for the quality of postal services would aim to improve collection and delivery times and reduce the number of pieces of mail lost by Royal Mail. If so, you would be mistaken. Neither of these aspects of performance is targeted under the current regime introduced in April of this year. Given that people are now receiving their mail later in the day and that over 15 million letters and parcels are being lost, stolen or damaged in a year, it is pretty clear that the interests of ordinary users of the post are not an absolute priority."

Royal Mail is also due to announce the closure of thousands of post offices on Thursday.

Thousands of Post Offices to close

Royal Mail are to announce the closure of thousands of Post Offices this week, with rural locations likely to be hardest hit. The announcements will be made on Thursday.

The current network of around 14,000 POs made a lost of £111m in 2005, despite receiving £150m in government subsidies. Postcomm estimate that only 1500 of the 8000 rural offices make money. It's expected that the closure of between 2500 and 7000 offices, phased over several years, will be announced.

Ironically for eBay sellers, Colin Baker, the general secretary of the National Federation of Subpostmasters, blamed his members' plight on more people shopping on the internet.

A DTI spokesman said that the government recognises the social role of Post Offices in rural communities, but that the current size of the network was unsustainable.

Via the BBC, which has information for those fighting to keep their Post Office open.

Another RM strike looms

Almost 1000 Royal Mail workers in Bristol are to be balloted on industrial action, after negotiations over the use of a new parcel-sorting machine broke down. If the vote is in favour of strike action, a week's notice will have to be given of any stoppages. An RM spokesman said "we do have robust contingency plans in place if needed."

Via the BBC.

Happier December in Devon

A 24 hour postal strike due to begin at an Exeter sorting office has been called off.

"We are very close to an agreement and we trust that the Royal Mail will see our actions in a positive climate and put an end to uncertainty for the public and for our members," said a union spokesman.

Amen to that.