Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
The good news is that the union seems to be totally onboard with a takeover bid.
The breaking news of an impending takeover bid for Royal Mail Group (IDS) by Daniel Kretinsky is another significant moment.
The truth is handing over the ownership of one of the UK's most prestigious institutions to a foreign equity investor cannot be right. But neither is the current model or direction of the company.
The truth is Royal Mail needs a new ownership and governance model that builds a postal service for the workers and customers and not one built solely focused o shareholder payouts and driving down the service and the terms and conditions of the workers.
The CWU will be campaigning publicly and politically to deliver this change of direction.
Dave Ward General Secretary
Henky, I'm playing devil's advocate here but if you are a long term investor then surely the buy in price doesn't really matter as you cannot be down unless you sell at a loss? I would agree however that there are probably better dogs to back at the moment......
There is however good news ahead for the UK operation. I have it on very good authority that the new CEO is keen to reintroduce world class mail which will no doubt save a whole heap of cash and increase productivity?
Redceo, to be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure why Seidenberg appointed a CEO for RM? Pfaff is taking care of business in Europe and North America, seemingly without issue so it shouldn't be beyond Seidenberg to take care of the UK operation? He obviously knows what he wants so putting another body in the way can only complicate matters further plus it will be an extra Pfaff when he has to sack her in a couple of years time?
"I believe the new Guvnor is capable of getting us back on course. I'm content to give him time"......I believe that the new RM CRO is called Emma Gilthorpe although to be honest I'm not sure what her pronouns are?
Let's play Devil's Advocate......
Let's face it, Britain is currently corrupt both morally and financially. The current UK Government is too inept to actually make a decision....on anything...... Gen Z don't want to work for RM and the over 50s are too knackered. Now is the time for the incoming CEO to take the bull by the horns and implement her master plan to finish off letters for once and for all whilst the national mood is so apathetic. By the time anyone of any importance notices it will be too late to do anything about it.
There must be plenty of RM shareholders out there who just want to see the SP get to 300p or so and they will cash out as they can't see this as a long term investment any more.
All in my opinion of course.
"Let's be honest Simon was a pushover!..... that's disappointing to hear especially as so many on this forum were going on about what a strong leader he was for taking on the union and how he would deliver his vision of the future.....
GLS has indeed assisted IDS.....Agreed, it's one of the reasons why RM originally purchased it :-)
CWU has done the opposite........Yes from a shareholder perspective however it's too late now as the old guard are retiring/going part time/no longer care and with such a poor new recruit retention rate, plus a million unfilled job vacancies nationally and 9m on some type of benefit, the UK operation is going to struggle going forward?
Https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/08/quit-royal-mail-falling-apart
Derek, I remember recently reading that the current number of walks is 56,000 and the proposed changes will see that reduce by between 6,000 and 9.000? If this is true then that would see a 50% reduction since peak on 2002.
Https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1044571/royal-mail-ofcom-plea-reveals-financial-distress-is-worse-the-market-believes-1044571.html
Unfortunately, I have to say that I agree that this could be the short term outlook for 2024/25. In my opinion, there will eventually be a turnaround in the business but the UK operation has the turning capacity of a super tanker whereas it's competitors have the ability to make changes much more quickly.
It's also interesting to note that the UK operation will now have the last three parcel machines installed before Christmas pressure despite Thompson trying to renege on this as he wasn't convinced that they were required.
Darbo, surely the retention of new recruits doesn't have anything to do with letters as the RM BoD have reminded both employees and shareholders many times that this is a parcels business that delivers letters as a side hustle?
I suspect that Gen Z have worked out that there are more lucrative and easier ways of earning £13 an hour than trudging the streets in the rain delivering parcels. Even the offer of a retention bonus isn't enough to get them to stay and a 15% retention figure says that RM need to look into this with urgency if it wants to deliver its product.
I have no skin in the game as an employee, however I do as a shareholder and I can see that any changes that are agreed by RM, OFCON and the CWU will need to show a significant improvement in quality of service and part of improving QofS is to have the correct staffing levels otherwise it's never going to work.
JB, "DW/MW did mention some interesting stats including only 14% of all traffic is now included in the USO and some 85% of new starters have left if that is the case this needs looking at urgently as part of the whole recruitment and staffing process.".....I think you will find that there is a logical answer as to why 85% of new recruits don't last more than a year. If these are Gen Z then I'm surprised that the figure isn't higher?.....lol
On a different note, there has just been a news item suggesting that the UK operation can save around £300m by the proposed changes to delivery standards but it will mean around 1,000 job losses. This figure equates to just under 1 job loss per delivery office on average. The CWU has put the figure at 6,000 however this would still not save around £300m? Given the wage bill is the single largest outgoing for RM and that the infrastructure will not change drastically, it's hard to see where this figure comes from.
Simx, "it appears as if Seidenberg has found more efficient ways to comply with the USO without the requirement of parliamentary approval"...... which makes you wonder exactly what Greene, Back and Thompson were doing all along? Why didn't they all know about this hack?.....lol
Simx, as Derek has correctly pointed out, the system peaked at circa 20bn letters per annum in 2002 and RM had the automation fleet to cope with this volume, however over the last decade the automation fleet of CFCs, IMPs and iLSMs has been drastically reduced by between 50% and 66% in most mail centres. Apart from high days and holidays, letter box collection has fallen through the floor so that (roughly speaking) for every letter with a stamp on there are 10 downstream access letters which are processed at a significant discount as opposed to the current 85p that Joe Public pays for.
"Just look at what's been written on this board about what will have to be done to change the USO. Ooh it's going to be so difficult etc., no it isn't it's a piece of p*ss"
You are conflating two different issues here? With regards to changes to the delivery specification, we have known since privatisation that OFCON has had the power to suggest and implement changes to delivery specification without the need to go through Parliament however changing the USO from 6 days to 5 days, or indeed 4 days is a well documented process.
JB, "seems a very sensible approach that could have been written 12 months ago".
Indeed, however 12 months ago the objective was still about crushing the workforce and the union. Creating a sustainable solution was a secondary consideration?
Brendyboy, any recommendations made by OFCON will be debated in the House of Commons however in my opinion this isn't going to happen until after the next General Election (plus we have seen some blatant filibustering over the last month from labour MPs) so who knows what the new intake of sitting Members of Parliament will vote for?
Pumpky, it's good to hear that your office is delivering letters every day. Unfortunately not all areas can make this claim therefore the offices that cannot deliver letters every day due to staff shortages or sick leave must be making huge savings?
I find that the abrupt absence of TheMoneyShark quite strange however this poster started out as AngerSharkz a couple of years ago and had the account deleted in June 2023 leaving just the last goodbye message which then vanished after a couple of weeks. Allegedly a deal had been struck with the admins here because someone was trying to find out their personal details and speculation was that AS had posted something bad about another poster who wanted to take matters further.
A week or so later up pops TMS who starts off being passive but soon shows the aggressive traits of AS. It is strange how the posting stopped so suddenly without the account being deleted? Perhaps the admins have just suspended the account or perhaps something major has happened to TMS. Either way, it's a lot more pleasant.
Dowsie, "I’m pretty sure if IDs delivered letters 1 or 2 days a week it would make massive savings I think ofgom said if ids went down to deliver letters 3 days a week the savings would be up to 650 million pounds a year".
I'm not seeing a massive reduction in staffing levels locally despite the reduction in daily letter deliveries so presumably the staff are busy delivering parcels?