Member Info for OliGarch

Newdealz, your earlier post regarding your postie having forgotten about the ballot and not being able to remember how the ballot paper read prompted me to ponder the situation.

I'm pretty sure that the ballot paper was worded to the effect that a YES vote agreed with the motion to accept the deal therefore any abstained votes would effectively count against the motion as it would lower the overall turnout.

I believe that the motion needs to have a minimum 50% turnout to be valid and that over 50% of those balloted need to return a YES vot for the motion to be carried, therefore if 10% abstain then the margins are narrowed down. To validate this, I believe that if, theoretically, 51% fail to cast a vote then the motion can never be carried. This is why Ward and Furey are campaigning for as many members as possible to vote.

Newdealz, I get your point, however, is moving the target to suit the conditions a good thing?

It's akin to asking the PGA to make the greens and holes bigger whilst turfing over the bunkers because not enough birdies are scored or the MCC to introduce a fourth stump for the Aussies.....lol

Newdealz, your postie is obviously not aware of something called "delivery to specification" which means that the Compact Sequence Sorting machines, located in various delivery offices and mail centres, hold back any second class items until they are due for delivery at which point they become treated as first class items and if not delivered on the correct day are therefore deemed to be classed as a service delivery failure.

Redceo, the posters who said that it would not be possible to deliver a parcel with a letter on Sunday are probably correct however if there are failed delivery routes that have backed up during the week then perhaps the delivery office could utilise the Sunday to clear the office in preparation for the new week should budgets allow?

I know from my days as a budget holder that we were asked to save 5% year on year but you don't want to massively underspend as the budget then gets cut however that becomes unsustainable after about three years so you end up staying within budget for two and blowing it open on year three which gives you a bigger budget on year four followed by a repeat of the process. This seemed to keep everyone happy(ish).

Newdealz, "its ok to lie, its ok to cheat, its ok to give poor service as long as you are making money"......

Sound like the Tory party manifesto.....lol

With regards to the USO, it is what it is until it is reformed?

What I do find strange is that Royal Mail and the CWU both agree that a five day USO is sufficient however the business desperately wants to deliver parcels seven days a week. If the posties are delivering a parcel on a Sunday and I also have a letter in the frame then they might as well deliver that as well?

Newdealz, slow day at the care home yesterday.

Don't forget to isolate and lock off before carrying out the earth continuity test..... otherwise it'll be EEBAD for you....lol

https://youtu.be/fNFzfwLM72c

It looks like the CWU are so sure that the vote is going to be an overwhelming YES that they have felt the need to release a podcast on "annualised hours"..... apologies....."seasonal variation" just in case the rank and file don't understand.

Commonsense eh.....vastly overrated.....

AngerSharkz, whether the union are consulted or not is irrelevant with this report as the HSE have clearly pointed out that these failings lay firmly at the door of management.

General Finding:

Significant contraventions of health and safety laws.

Failure to manage health and safety and effectively comply with the law.

Royal Mail were reminded of their duty to ensure the health and safety of employees and others.

No management/monitoring of health and safety and no formal health and safety audits had been undertaken by the site management team or members of the corporate RMG SHE team despite the site being operational since June 2022.

Breach of the management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

No timescales for ‘Action List’ matters to be completed as identified by the Health & Safety Committee.

No suitable arrangements to monitor compliance with health and safety legislation.

Operational Shift Managers/Supervisors, involved in day to day management of health and safety were found to be (a) not competent (b) do not have the full support from key decision makers and (c) are not afforded the appropriate amount of time to carry out their health and safety functions effectively. An audit should be undertaken at the earliest opportunity in order to assist those on site in the effective management of health and safety.

A review of managing health and safety arrangements should be carried out.

Plenty of mention of "management" and "managers" here?

Anyhoo, the SP finished 8p down today. Perhaps it will go up 9p tomorrow.....

AngerSharkz, back to the original point...

Yes, RM do have a series of senior managers in safety roles within the business so where have they been since June 2022? I would hazard a guess that it's not been at the new super hub otherwise they might have seen the issues before the HSE was called in? Issues that have been raised internally within departments such as engineering and are available for mail centre managers and shift managers across the country to view but somehow it all just slipped through the net.

Or perhaps they were asked to stay away by even senior management to avoid causing a fuss. Perhaps this is why the rank and file don't trust senior management?

Well whoopee doo Newdealz, I didn't realise that it was a p1$$ing contest?

I also have a C&G2391 for Electrical Test and Inspection in my portfolio. I obtained this in 1999 at Slough and have backed it up with a series of BS7671 certificates so I know exactly how demanding it is.

I am also IPAF accredited, IoSH accredited and NEBOSH accredited (think automatic, systematic and hyyyyydromatic) so I have a fairly broad knowledge base. I was also CORGI registered for industrial units during the '80s and '90s.

So, do you agree that UK business should comply with the HaSaWA or should employees just be left to use their "common sense" such as ramming a nest of York containers into a fire escape access corridor or carrying out repairs on equipment that they are not authorised to do?

"Newd, Red, which SSOW and H&S regulation do you think is unnecessary?"

No response but I think that we already knew the answer.

"He either forgot or ignored the power switch was on. Apparently a brush with his elbow, Killed him instantly"

He can't have been that competent then?

Don't forget that the HaSaWA also extends to protect those who are less competent or more vulnerable as well.

redceo, newdealz, are you stating that the hasawa is a completely unnecessary piece of legislation and that the uk should repeal this and go back to pre 1974 when we allowed children to play with snowballs of blue asbestos or allowed the coal mining industry to stack up piles of ****/waste just waiting for a landslide into a village and primary school?

the fact of the matter is that this legislation has almost certainly had a positive affect on you over your working life and also the lives of your nearest and dearest although i daresay that you would not admit to that.

Newdealz, I am just responding to another poster on this forum?

It's true that companies come into the spotlight after a brush with the HSE however none of them wish to become known as repeat offenders so let's hope that this is a wake up call for RM? What is true is that if the hub has to comply with "elf n safety" as laid down by the HaSaWA then this could and probably will have an impact on the productivity of the plant as the standard maintenance and operating procedures as laid out by the manufacturer will need to be used instead of the current "suck it and see" attitude and now that the HSE are aware you can be sure that a revisit will be happening very soon and I suspect that it won't be a pre-announced visit either.

As you asked for something positive.......

Before the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Royal Mail actually had an extremely good H&S record and the business seemed to be proud of this fact but sadly it seems that standards have dropped under the current CEO. Perhaps his replacement will take this more seriously?

Redceo, looking at the content of the report by the HSE, it would appear that the business is weaponising H&S against the workforce? The scale of non compliance and incompetence at a very basic level seems to be staggering especially at a "flagship" site.

Looking on our internal system, the last accident report was on the 30th of June and involved an engineer not isolating part of the machine that he was working on and subsequently receiving heat burns. The outcome has yet to be determined however I would wager that the engineers were pressurised by management into getting the machine back in service and that cutting corners on the standard maintenance procedure was encouraged. Who is to blame? I would say that the employee is just aas responsible as his manager for not having the guts to say "this isn't safe" but that sort of attitude just gets you disciplined or fired in true Stockton Rush style.

Unfortunately, management tend to see "elf n safety" as a nonproductive waste of resource despite their mantra of "our employees are our biggest asset" which is one of the biggest jokes in the business.

Redceo, not a protest at all but a cast iron fact and news that I thought all shareholders would welcome.

The problem is that a non unionised workforce doesn't yield any union H&S reps. These reps are trained by independent colleges and training facilities as part of an agreement between the business and the union and very high levels of qualifications can be achieved so these reps can therefore be a net benefit to the business and assist the local office managers whom usually receive very basic training from IoSH to ensure business standards compliance. There are of course a handful of senior managers trained in H&S but these tend to be regionally based and cannot be everywhere all the time.

The bottom line is that a company as large as RM should not be facing down a HSE report such as the recent one at the new hub and surely a threat of the operation being shut down would be both costly and embarrassing?

As a shareholder, I don't think that the risk is worth the reward.

Senior management such as Grant McPherson were adamant that the employee intake in the new super hubs should have no union influence and that includes a lack of H&S representatives as well as only basic H&S training for the work area managers. I suspect that someone called in the H&S Executive before a serious accident happened as reports of H&S breaches and near misses have been internally received for several months and investigations have failed to yield solutions.

It's not going to affect the SP in the slightest although I suspect that some investors will laud the risks that the business is willing to take with it's employees?

I don't think that anyone knows what "system normal" is any more? Perhaps RM service delivery failures as reported daily in the media are now the new normal alongside water companies pumping raw sewerage into our waterways?