Member Info for OliGarch

200iq, normally I would agree with an overtime ban but there's no point in an overtime ban during Christmas pressure as we have an army of Angard/Christmas casuals during December.

Scamp, where did you hear about VR? I haven't heard anything in my office.

Hi DerekR, thanks for the information regarding the £50m fine.

AB, my understanding was that the Whistl action was against RM from late 2014 when they complained that RM were "over competitive" and they had to shelve plans to create their own delivery force in London.
I may be wrong thought?

As I stated yesterday, it looks like Moya has left Rico with a £50m tab to pick up...lol.
I wonder if Rico has a Moya Greene voodoo doll?

200iq, my shift allowance is pensionable as is my overtime and Sunday duty :-)
You must be on a later contract?

Wolves, drivers are not classed as "unskilled workers" as they have some big responsibilities.
I think that £35k is quite cheap for a class1 HGV driver.

Oggie that's the problem. It would cost RM a Kings Ransom to let all the old militant buggers go on VR.

200iq, at 16:35 you posted;
1. Who gets £30k a year pensionable pay?
Answer - your average OPG gets circa £27k plus pensionable allowances for shift work which brings most up to around c£30k+. Some of our drivers regularly smash £35k without breaking sweat.
2. Paying 2 years pensionable pay up front would save 2 years full pay over the next 2 years so no need for a divi cut.
Answer - you are correct but there are additional costs involved in replacing, training and retaining new employees. Yes, over the next 5 to 10 years it might work but by then our competitive edge would be most likely lost?

Apologies for coming in late on this subject - just picked up my phone at the end of my shift and noticed this.
"RMG is now willing to offer Voluntary Redundancy to anyone with over twenty years service and only a couple of years to go before retirement".
That's bizarre as only 4 months ago Rico assured us that the headcount would be managed through "natural wastage".
Crikey! If that's true then my mail centre/retirement home could be emptying out soon!!
Under the MTSF (managing the surplus framework) agreement anyone offered VR with over 20 years service is entitled to two years pensionable pay, so an OPG on £30k will get £30k plus if under 65 will get an enhanced (made up) pension. This means that if you are in the "golden zone" (over 55/under 65 with 20+ years service) it could be very appealing, however as already pointed out this could cost RM a fortune as 3000 employees could cost £100m+.
Surely it can't be true?

F-F, you may not be able to spy on them all?
I work in a mail centre that doesn't have any parcels automation. It is anticipated that the introduction of a parcel sorting machine (within the next 3 to 5 years) will remove around 12 duties per shift so we may not all be here!

Fruitster, but RM do make a profit.
I don't understand the last sentence "Live with it or leave, to do a job thats part of the govt jobs"?

Fruitster, disbanding the joint working group didn't help as it was set up to keep things on track.

F-F, what's your summary of the bigger picture?
I receive videos and propaganda from both CWU and RMTV. Is there something that I'm missing?

Scampthedog, you have summarised the story bang on. I would also like to add that a joint working group was set up to keep the cost savings on track in order to deliver the shorter working week however when Rico took control he sacked all the managers that were involved with Sue Whalley being the most prominent.
It will now be very difficult to get this back on track.
It was estimated that the cost of implementing the second hour of the shorter working week would be £100m but it could cost RM more in list revenue in the long run if things turn ugly.

Red, in the interests of equality don't forget the girls, gender neutral and gender fluid groups...lol

Hawkey47, "They could amalgamate Parcel Force and RM. Why on earth do you need to separate delivery companies?"
That's far too logical. Anyway Rico has decided that Parcelforce is going to be a separate company.

It would be fun to watch the government of the day transferring the USO to a competitor.
Can you see Amazon emptying post boxes and sorting the letters or non uniform boxes and jiffy bags? I think that there would be quite a lot of resistance from Bezos especially as there are rate caps on price increases.

I'm talking theoretically here but just supposing that IA went ahead and it was a disaster for the business, large customers left in their droves and say 40 % to 50% of mail volume disappeared before Christmas.
What would be the fallout? If there were mass redundancies then it would need to be in processing and admin with mail centres merging.
However there would still need to be delivery staff. Even with reduced mail volumes there is only so much ground that a postie can cover in a shift so the staffing would not decrease proportionally which would be quite inefficient.
On the upside there would be some short term gains in selling off the properties that were no longer needed or on leases that were no longer viable (RM have sold a significant amount of property over the last 5 years as it is more beneficial to lease).

Red, it would appear that the SP took a back seat in discussion yesterday due to the announcement from RM to challenge the validity of the CWU IA ballot.
Personally I don't think that it will pass muster in court but it all depends upon the wording of the challenge - the devil's in the details.
Either way, IA or not I don't think that it will rattle the SP by more than a few pennies on a temporary basis but it will give the big money boys something to play with until the GE.
I think that things will start to pick up in the New Year once the GE is out of the way.
Unfortunately I don't think that the next PM is going to have a working majority and it may even be a hung parliament which could really impede Brexit which we really need to get out of the way so we can all move on.