Sunday 21 June 2009

A Tale of Two Companies

British Airways is asking thousands of staff to work for nothing, for up to one month, to help the airline survive. The appeal, sent by e-mail to more than 30,000 workers in the UK, asks them to volunteer for between one week and one month's unpaid leave, or unpaid work. BA's chief executive Willie Walsh has already agreed to work unpaid in July, forgoing his month's salary of £61,000. Last month, BA posted a record annual loss of £401m, partly due to higher fuel bills and other costs. BA has said that hundreds of staff have responded positively to the request.

From the BBC News Website

Workers at seven Royal Mail delivery offices in Scotland have been taking part in a 24-hour strike in a row over job cuts and services. Royal Mail said about 330 staff at two offices in Edinburgh and others in Dunfermline, Cowdenbeath, Grangemouth, Bathgate and Irvine were involved. About 160 distribution drivers in Edinburgh were among thousands in the UK who took action on Friday.

From the BBC News Website

Am I the only person who thinks that Royal Mail staff need, to use a term oft-used by our friends across the pond, to wake up and smell the coffee? We now live in an instant communication age. The Internet, mobile telephones, satellite feeds, wi-fi have all made communication not only immediate but, in most cases, reliable. The opposite, it seems to me, of any business plan Royal Mail may have in operation.

Many people now pay bills on-line and communicate by either e-mail or text. Can you remember the last time you sent someone a letter? Until recently I used to send a cheque to pay my credit card bill; paid my council tax (albeit reluctantly -see Rants passim) by queuing at the post office and sent things such as greeting cards through the post at least a week in advance in the hope the recipient would get the card in time. On occasion they would get nothing at all - I posted £20 in gift vouchers to my mother a couple of years ago and she never received them. Doubtless, some postal worker with a smug grin had helped themselves. Now I pay the majority of my bills on-line. Not only is it infinitely quicker but I know that payment has been received at the other end - and I'm not relying on some couldn't be arsed postie to do their job properly.

Royal Mail's latest strike action - timed, it seems, to affect those who have sent Father's Day cards - will affect many people who still rely on the creaking postal service to deliver. The majority of items I receive through Royal Mail these days is junk mail. So their antiquated views on industrial relations won't really affect me unlike their strikes of years gone by.

Perhaps Royal Mail should take a look at the real world - such as events presently happening at British Airways.

It's time to get real.

9 comments:

Caledonian Jim said...

And it's high time the greedy, arrogant incompetents at the Royal Bank of Scotland were brought into line.

After taking £20 billion of taxpayer's money as they put people out of their homes and out of business, I see they're spending £300,000 on "hospitality" (i.e. staff junkets) at Wimbledon. To be acting like that as unemployment rises and people are struggling is a disgrace.

Strawberry Girl said...

The rich in general have a sickening sense of entitlement Jim. As for the post I have yet to mail two overdue bills because they raised the rate two cents in one month and the Orem post office where I usually get one cent stamps took out there little vending machine!! SO I would have to figure out how to by 1 cent stamps from their ATM type postage meter, stand in line to get stamps or paste on another stamp (from what used to be the rate) and none of these options appeal to me!! Well you know where I will be tomorrow... resisting the urge to glare at the poor post office worker who I will inevitably stand in line to talk to to get 1 cent stamps (and perhaps another book of em'!)

June said...

It really does amaze me in this economy and soooo many people losing their jobs how some companies still have their heads up their asses and are not living in reality. There was some bank that got some bail-out money and they were going to send some of the executives to Hawaii for a conference. When people heard about it, they quickly cancelled it. Just un-friggin-believable...

Light In The Black said...

Can't agree with your views at all on this one.

It's all about principle. The BA situation makes me cringe and re-inforces the oft aired view that we now live in a country where the rich get richer (quicker) and the rest of us have to make do.

Very big of Mr Walsh to forego his month's salary. In doing so he's playing Mr Popular, or at least trying to be seen to do. For a humble employee at BA at the bottom of the food chain - excuse the pun - giving up a week's wage, or a month's salary - could mean real hardship. I don't know about you, but in my household, every penny is a prisoner and accounted for.

If my employer asked me, right now, to give my meagre wage up for a week, I simply couldn't, no matter how laudible and noble a gesture it would be.

Your point about communication though is valid, but Royal Mail is still important for many reasons.

There is no justification whatsover for exploitation of workers, at any level.

Postal workers, despite the screaming Daily Mail bylines, along with other public sector workers, are not all workshy layabouts. Equally, working conditions are important.

Once we get Mr Cameron into power, swept in on a tide of apathy and Tory England getting their way, watch out for more draconian measures and unemployment.

There will be sorry tales of even more exploitation than there is just now.

You have been warned.

Mike Smith said...

Welcome, Light in the Black. Good to read your views.

Joanna Jenkins said...

Oy! I hear you. I'm totally paperless on bill receiving and bill paying. Here is the U.S. they are thinking of cutting mail delivery from 6 to 4 days per week. Makes sense to me!

As for Mr. BA Exec-- I'm not sure a one month pay cut for him will not hurt as much as a one month pay cut for the lower payees but it's a start.


You're right, time to wake up!!!

Adullamite said...

Totally wrong about Royal Mail Mike.
This is all about the privatisation which will still deliver millions of mail items, mail is increasing even though personal letters decrease, and private companies will soon take over.
Thousands of RM jobs have already gone, more will go, the man at the top will get his £3 million bonus again and another 20,000 jobs will be lost.
Private mail will soon arrive, as will the £1 letter, increasing according to distance, daily deliveries will decrease, especially in outlying areas, and Thatcherism will have won again.
The service element in RM has long since been lost, and those who criticise postmen have no idea what they talk about!
There again some like to see man thrown out of work.

Lilly said...

As for BA if they cant afford to pay their staff they cant afford to service their planes. They were always my airline of choice. Never again. So that's BA and Qantas of the list.

As for the mail, I send way more parcels then I ever did. I don't know I am a unionist and I support strike action and privatisation is not a good thing of services such as this. Look at what was doen to prisons.

At least that RBA guy forfeited 40% of his pension. And as Caledonina Jim said in his comment it was news here that one of our banks spent $400,000 just entertaining its staff over a weekend on a goregous island. Mmmm, it should be a crime given they just put up interest rates yet again.

Depressing I am going to get a glass of wine and hope tomorrow is a better day.

Mike Smith said...

Adullamite - I can understand you defending the Royal Mail but in these parts the mail delivery service is quite shocking. That's the main reason I rarely use it now - it's unreliable and costly. No one wants to see people lose their jobs but the customers they are meant to serve are the ones who suffer - not for the first time. If Royal Mail staff don't think they need to adapt to modern times then they really do need to think again - because fewer and fewer people will use them.

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