Member Info for OliGarch

mike1974, in response to your earlier comment this morning "Change and job losses are inevitable and essential if RM is to survive let alone thrive, if Rico offers decent VR packages in order to achieve those job losses then he will have no opposition at all from the workforce,"
I attended a Q&A session with Rico Back the day before our shareholder AGM. One of the questions raised was to do with job losses and redundancies and Rico's reply was that there will be no VR packages offered as all losses would be via natural wastage.
I'm not saying that I agree with him, just reporting.

https://www.facebook.com/981299138616232/posts/2495642783848519?sfns=mo

I heard that he had thrown a "sickie"?

RoyAlMail, I don't know which mail centre you work in but my office would absolutely have the capability and capacity to process mail across the early and late shift leaving a skeleton crew on the night shift.
Under the MTSF agreement, shift allowances are protected for up to 36 months.
According to Fruitster, "Sadly for the militants they are not a nationalised company anymore and accordingly the owners or shareholders are free to do whatever they wish with those assets if productivity doesnt improve and that is sell them to owners that will be more ruthless."
I'm not entirely sure that he has his facts 100% correct but that seems to be the mood music from non RMG investors!

RoyAlMail, if RMG were allowed to dissolve the 1st class service and provide a budget standard 2 day service with next day delivery as a much higher premium service then they would have bought themselves an extra 24 hours to process the majority of the mail. Our processing night shift exists mainly in order to process the 1C that has been posted on day 1 for delivery on day 2. If it were possible to delay delivery of that mail until day 3 (2nd class) then that mail could be collected and segregated on the late shift of day 1 then left for the early shift on day 2 to process and sequence. Inward mail could be delayed to arrive at mail centres for 05:30 on day 2 and outward mail would be en route to mail centres to arrive at 05:30 in time for the early shift. Because an early shift already exists, approx 80% of the would need to transfer from the night shift to day shift effectively leaving a skeleton crew on the night shift to deal with the premium service mail.
How does this save money you ask?
Well, the night shift premium payment to OPGs is £82.69 per week (£4300 per year) and the day shift premium is £0.00. A small mail centre will have around 80 staff on the night shift so if 60 staff transferred to the day shift then that would save the unit (60x£4300pa) = £258kpa and that's for a small office. Multiply the £258k by 39 mail centres and you are looking at a saving in the region of £10million.
Losing the night shift may not necessarily mean a headcount reduction but it would be a huge saving on the staff costs.
Just a final note...
I'm not saying that I want this to happen but RMG have a CEO who is looking at ways to make savings. If I have given this some thought, don't you think that his team have also done the same?
He visited our office the day before the shareholders AGM and one of his thoughts was on getting rid of "unnecessary allowances" such as workplace coaches and TPM so he must also have shift allowances in his sights?

Quite right Red. Everyone should do a full days work (I certainly do) and the management should pick up on the slackers (which they are sometimes reluctant to do 'cos that usually means upsetting a family member).
We also have an issue with certain religious groups where one community member will outrank another so in certain instances the manager can become subservient to his employee.

I beg to differ Red but Rico has already lobbied the regulator to reduce RMGs Universal Service Obligation. Surely this should make shareholders happy as staff salaries are RMGs biggest outlay so reducing the headcount should be welcomed?

Fruitster, it's all in the maths. If RMG manage to convince the regulator to drop the USO obligation down from 6 days a week to 5 days a week then up to 20,000 jobs (hopefully casuals/Angard) would be casualties.
If RMG could convince the regulator to drop the 1st class service and just have one class (2 days to deliver) then entire night shifts could be dropped in 39 mail centres. Just think how many OPGs and managers could be culled. Good for the share price though?

RoyAlMail, if you are taking 2 weeks leave then all they have to do is give 2 weeks notice which is little consolation if you booked a £3k holiday in Disneyland six months previously, so it's little wonder that staff take the easy route and go sick or go sick later on in the year (Christmas Pressure) to get their own back.

RMG have just released a comms to all employees. At the bottom of the page it states "we still don't know what this dispute is about".
I don't know whether to laugh or go for an early pint at Weatherspoons (FFS imho dyor).

PS, JB. I work in a small specialised unit of 7 staff. If one of us goes sick, our line manager's first response is to start cancelling leave although it would have been booked up to 2 years (yes that's correct - 24 months) in advance regardless of whether you have booked and paid for a luxury foreign holiday or not. Is that fair?

JB, I wrote this article as a bit "tounge in cheek" in order to provoke some reaction from the non RMG shareholders who think that RMG employees are a bunch of lazy sickies who suck the life out of the company and drag the share price down.
Since 1979, I have taken 88 days sick leave, so just over 2 days per annum. 12 of those sick days were due to an " accident on duty" which still counts as sick.
Rico's latest plan was to not pay employees for the first 3 days of sick leave, but as I am now older and can maintain my lifestyle on a much lower income (even lower in 2023 when my RM POPS1 pension kicks in) I would be quite happy to see the bar raised to 10 days, damnit make that 20. Ok, it may make my line manager's life more difficult but then he gets paid the big bucks to sort the staffing out.
All I am saying is that the majority of people will play the system and look after number one. If the system allows you to indulge then "when in Rome".....

Red, any strike action will be damaging for both the employees and the employer.
If Rico gets this wrong he may not have the opportunity to 'walk away' before the shareholders decide to replace him.
Think in terms of the English Premier League football, it's always the manager that takes the walk of shame whilst the players remain when things go wrong. It's easier to get rid of the boss than the workforce!
The fact that he has £2 million invested is irrelevant.

If the CEO gets this wrong he has the option to walk away. Don't forget that most senior managers don't normally stick around for more than 4 years (Moya Greene was an exception) and are usually after shot term gains.

Nuri, it essentially means that a huge swathe of the CWU & Unite membership are sticking 2 fingers up to Rico and his team. Not really surprising as the shareholders did pretty much the same when he transferred from RMGLS to RMG.

Fruitster, I can't see your ideas sprouting wings any time soon, although I quite like the idea of NOT being paid for the first 7 days of sick leave on the grounds that if you're not being paid then your line manager would not have grounds to contact you. Also disciplinary procedures would be null and void for that period. This would also be great for taking short term unpaid leave which is currently very difficult to do.

Nuri, you have qualifications to PHd level but get paid the same as a postie £23kpa plus potential allowances? Really? Perhaps you don't need the income but I think that you will find that most people educated to degree standard expect a better salary. Qualified social workers are on around £35k+++

Fruitster, judging by your comment "The way you do that is raise salaries straight away, but take away all longterm sickness perks, which is rife within rmg i.e any sickness leave more than 10 working days per annum will not be paid" leads me to believe that you haven't experienced working for RMG. Yes there are a small percentage of **** takers who take it as a given that they can have an extra 14 days leave due to the sick policy but this is not the norm. Many of us only go "sick" when we are actually ill. One of my colleagues with 39 years service had a double hip replacement last year and was out for 13 weeks with a 13 week phased return to work. Previously he had taken 10 days sick since 2000. Under your thinking he would have received no pay for 10 weeks! Ludicrous.

Fruitster, did you really mean this quote?
"they are not a nationalised company anymore and accordingly the owners or shareholders are free to do whatever they wish with those assets if productivity doesnt improve and that is sell them to owners that will be more ruthless."
I think that you will find that although classed as a "privatised business", the RMG board of directors still have to comply with a raft of legal protections. They can't simply "do whatever they wish with those assets if productivity doesnt improve and that is sell them to owners that will be more ruthless".

I Spy, do you have a link for that?