Member Info for OliGarch

Fruitster, I would be prepared to accept either a one hour reduction and no pay increase or a one year 2.5% pay increase and renegotiate next winter when we know how things are looking with regard to the business. Any bonus payments (to any employee) should be capped and related to the profitability of the business.
A performance pay structure would be difficult to enforce as not all employees perform the same tasks so it would come down to pay unit level which would include all staff in that unit an wouldn't address the problem.
As far as I am aware, units should not be discriminating on seniority with regard to annual leave as this was outlawed about 15 years ago however the number of days/hours annual leave granted is determined by length of service which I feel is perfectly acceptable.
The misuse of sick leave is also a growing concern. RM have a fantastic sick leave policy which is going to be wrecked by those who continually use it as "two weeks extra leave" and every unit has it's share of abusers.
When I started in 1979, the first question I was asked was "who are you related to?" and the second was "have you booked your sick leave?".
I totalled about 25 days of sick in my first 30 years but in the last 10 years I have benefited from 24 weeks of paid sick leave as a result of a hernia operation, two knee operations and a detached retina which are sadly all age related however I am grateful that our policy is so good and would never abuse it.

Raising the minimum wage is good but it won't affect the likes of Amazon as they use "contractors" which is a whole different proposition.

Fruitster, to my mind it either has to be a pay deal of around 2.5% p/a or the SWW. It is unrealistic to expect both.
Incidentally, in my office last year we had a straw poll of machine operators on the night shift who were working a 39 hour 5 night week. The outcome was that they would have preferred to stay on their shift hours but receive an extra 52 hours leave instead. This would have been more beneficial to both employee and employer.

Fruitster,
With regard to fact 1; I can't see RM offering a pay deal that exceeds 6% over 3 years.
Fact 2; a simple mathematical calculation based on 140,000 staff on £13 per hour for 52 weeks leads to the conclusion that one hour of the SWW will cost around £95m so I'm not sure how the CWU can claim this as false. Having said that, a 2.5% pay increase will cost the business around £92m which would lead one to believe that any offer will 2% per annum or less.
Fact 3; the data would seem to speak for itself regarding the SP?

There are several other items on the message and I have just copied a few but my main point is that (in my opinion) RM and CWU currently appear to be miles away from reaching an agreement and I don't see that stance changing any time soon.
How this affects the SP over the coming months is anyone's guess.
Incidentally, I didn't want to turn this into a "pro CWU" post as it is a SP forum however I do think that the CWU come into play here at certain times and this may affect your position as an investor so please feel free to take the information and use it as you feel fit.

Continued...
Fact 2 - Royal Mail’s announcement also states that the company is no longer prepared to agree to a reduction in the shorter working week - the agreement that we have to reduce our hours from 38 hours to 37 hours - Royal Mail said that this would cost them £100 million.
Fact check - This announcement confirmed that Royal Mail was now going to break the pay deal element of the Four Pillars Agreement. The only reason the CWU agreed to a 2% pay increase last April 2019 was that anything above inflation would contribute to funding the shorter working week.
Additionally, there is no way the one-hour reduction cost the business £100 million as a significant amount of that would be absorbed, apart from the part timers 2.6% pay increase.
Lastly, if the shorter working week is worth 2.6% and Royal Mail say they cannot afford it, one can only wonder what they intend to offer on pay?
Fact 3 - Royal Mail have communicated via social media that the CWU are responsible for the fall in the share price and a new profits warning.
Fact check - Simply not true. Between April 2018 and June 2019, the Royal Mail share price hit a high of £6.31 and was looking good for all members who had held their free shares as in the October of 2018 they would be entitled to cash them in tax free.
Rico Back, the new CEO, then decided to issue a profit warning and virtually overnight the share price plummeted to £3.45.
The share price on 6 February had reduced to £1.70 so under Ricco’s tenure the share price had gone from £6.31 to £1.70, no wonder he wants to blame the CWU but the truth is that it happened under his watch.
Fact 4 - Royal Mail claim that they had to push forward by Executive Action, their new strategy as it was behind with their transformation plan time line.
Fact check - Nothing could be further from the truth.
The initiatives that Royal Mail’s strategy is dependent on are flawed.
The Delivery Method trials were a complete disaster at the lightest time of the year. In Stoke Newington’s case the Delivery Office Manager had to ask the staff to cease the trial on a regular basis so as not to fail the work.
AHDC (Automated Hours Data Capture) which is the computerised signing in and out attendance sheet was inconclusive as a concept and totally unacceptable, especially as they want to link it to the hours postal workers are paid.
Resource Scheduler was such a disaster as a resourcing tool that Royal Mail had to demand that the software company had to resolve the issues which meant any resourcing output made no sense. The CWU believe that Resource Scheduler is still a flawed resourcing tool but once again Royal Mail has spent so much money on trying to get it to work, they simply don’t want to accept that it simply is unworkable.
Fact 5 - Royal Mail claim that postal workers are not productive enough.
Fact check - The truth is that productivity went up in Royal Mail by 2.2% in the period leading up to September 2

I have been receiving WhatsApp messages from both RM and CWU for the last 18 months. Obviously each side are going to put their spin on a situation but lately the posts have been quite far apart from each other. The latest update is from the CWU in the form of a myth buster.
This includes statements such as;
Fact 1 - Royal Mail now hires an actress to make their media announcements. The actress, on behalf of Royal Mail, claims that Royal Mail has made a 3 year pay offer to the union.
Fact check - The fact is that there is no detail given to the CWU of any offer. Royal Mail has communicated that it is would be prepared to make a 3 year pay offer but could not fund the shorter working week. They are saying that they will continue with their intentions of imposing revisions and changes onto the workforce.

Teslo, you are quite correct in that it is purely speculation.
I don't understand why some on this BB are drawn to thinking that RM are going to be sold to Amazon. Why would Amazon be remotely interested in purchasing RM which is highly unionised? Why wouldn't Amazon just sit back, wait for RM to self destruct and then offer to take it of the government's hands for £1 (like master Bates did with Chelski) as that would make much more sense?

Teslo, I think that you should read the document again?
Agreed that the shareholders own the company, but if goes into liquidation then there is nothing left to own. At this point any shares would be worthless and the government would take control of the business as it has an obligation to guarantee the USO.

So Teslo, getting back to my point at 14:30.
"Teslo, there is absolutely no way that RM will go into administration or liquidation as it would be the subject of government intervention before it got to that point".
You now have the answer.

Teslo, on the 31st of March 2014 the National Audit Office issued a report to the House of Commons regarding the Privatisation of Royal Mail. It is available to download from nap.org.uk.
On page 7 it states
"Privatisation has reduced taxpayer risk to support the universal postal service, but the government retains the ultimate responsibility. The government is responsible for ensuring continuation of the universal postal service. The UK population enjoys a more extensive universal postal service than is required under European
Union law, including Saturday collection and delivery. Royal Mail has responsibility for
delivering the universal service and is the only company with a national network and scale to provide this. Private capital has created an equity buffer to protect the taxpayer, and Ofcom could intervene if it assessed that the universal service was under threat or the company fails to meet service standards. A special administration regime would be triggered if Royal Mail should collapse, although the government has not quantified the
financial implications for the taxpayer if this occurred (paragraphs 1.2 to 1.3, and 2.22)"

Teslo, there is absolutely no way that RM will go into administration or liquidation as it would be the subject of government intervention before it got to that point.
I also don't see the SP going to zero either as that would be to value RM at zero and we all know GLS is worth north of £2bn on its own. Even without GLS this stock is worth so much more with or without the threat of IA.
Looking at the SP graph over the last week, it appears to have developed a "heartbeat" in the £1.70 range. I suspect that it will be this way for a while.

Teslo, DerekR, I can't envision either TP or DW announcing anything jointly with RB let alone the temporary cessation of dividend payments.
Having said that, I never thought that I would see the current President of the USA cross the Korean border in order to shake the North Korean leaders hand so stranger things have happened.

PP, as I understand the situation, the current reduction in dividend payments would roughly equate to just under £1bn over 5 years. I believe that the remainder will be taken as a loan? I stand to be correct here should anyone have more reliable information.

So, Poor Pensioner fits the bill nicely ;-)

Morning PP. So that's what PP stands for.... Poor Pensioners....lol

Teslo, you have raised an interesting point with regards to RM buying back it's own shares at a rock bottom price. Is there anything legally stopping that from happening?

https://youtu.be/9EH1G4EwljM

PP, I don't have a Facebook account. Is the Royal Mail Chat Facebook page available for anyone to view?
Do you have a link please?

PP, o thought that you meant to say 'oaf'...lol...damn predictive text.
Predictive text can make fools of the best of us. You have to read things back when using predictive text, the other day I typed 'bigger' and it was changed into the 'N' word :-0