Member Info for OliGarch

Rick "Royal Mail on the other hand are pushing through unachievable changes. It's a delivery company which appears to be failing at delivering".
Exactly and I believe that the BoD are manufacturing the situation so that they can force the regulator to apply for a reduction of the USO although I have no idea how long that would take. It will be interesting to see if RM are fined for poor QofS and also how long they are allowed to continue to get away with it?

Newdealz, here is a Sky News article regarding the £200m loss from strike action.
https://news.sky.com/story/royal-mail-owner-puts-cost-of-strikes-at-200m-and-questions-resolve-of-cwu-members-12795699

Silky, the UK operation may not be profitable at the moment and will be posting significant losses for 2022/23 but as AngerSharkz has already pointed out the balance sheet shows around £1.7bn in liquidity.
If GLS was split from Royal Mail then that would be a whole different conversation but that has not happened......yet.

Ispy, I can confirm that several major plus some minor building projects (mainly to facilitate the planned parcels automation and Delivery to Specification programme) were suddenly shelved during December 2021. According to a senior manager at the time (since left the business), this was due to "funding issues".
It was confirmed last summer that there will be no more investment in parcels automation until further notice.
Given that parcels is currently where all the action is then I think that's a significant statement.

Newdealz, I'm not sure if that factors in unpaid wages. The £200m loss figure was touted by Thompson. I do know that the wage bill is around £10m per day which would be close to £200m. Of course he could have been talking about lost revenue but it wasn't made clear.

Newdealz, my belief is that the BoD knew that the business was in trouble in December 2021 however never had a cohesive plan to recover. Even if the CWU had accepted all of Thompson's proposals last May and allowed wholesale changes to the business, I don't believe that their plans would have turned things around to the point that USO targets would be met and the UK operation would have broken even.
RM UK were £92m down in the first quarter and the strikes have cost around £200m. Thompson has been making wholesale revisions since last summer and there has been no strike action since Christmas Eve so the Q4 figures should be interesting. Anything other than a profit in Q4 should be seen as a failure by the BoD in my opinion.

My take on this message is that negotiations are not going very well. I'm not sure if or how this will affect the SP.

The Communication Workers Union
Just now.
Negotiations with Royal Mail Group continue. We are putting together plans to update our senior officials, branches and members tomorrow.

What is happening in the workplace is completely unacceptable and we are in a very serious situation. Once we advertise the sessions we will need you all online.

Broch, I replied to your deleted post before it was deleted so it now looks a little odd when you look back at the post history.

This was my earlier point "but even more importantly from the government's perspective they need to be protected from having to deal with the fallout in the event of a failure".

This is one of the problems when a government decides to sell off "critical infrastructure" but then caveats it with regulation. Admittedly the public need to be protected from unscrupulous business practice but even more importantly from the government's perspective they need to be protected from having to deal with the fallout in the event of a failure.
I'm not sure how many countries have sold off all their critical infrastructure but it would be interesting to know if the UK is in the majority or minority.

AngerSharkz, it possibly is all bluff and bluster from OFWAT in order to appease the general public. Having said that, I don't suppose that the water companies will take too much notice as they are owned by foreign companies anyway?

Redceo, it will be interesting to see if OFWAT carry this out.
Personally, I would like to see the terms of their licence increased so that they are fined more heavily for pollution of rivers and seas and also the need to increase UK storage capacity which has come to the fore more recently as is the case with gas and electricity.
As for potentially flowing through to the postal sector we will need to wait and see.

Anyone know why Broch's 09:54 comment was removed?

Just seen this relating to water companies and OFWAT.
Perhaps a sign of things to come?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/20/ofwat-watchdog-shareholder-payouts-water-companies-targets

Broch, so you are happy with the state of the current negotiations are you?
Revisions are still taking place during the negotiations.
The disciplined/sacked members are being dealt with by an independent review body.
It's a huge backtrack from the pre Christmas mantra of Dave and Andy.
Step One...... don't they manufacture bamboo underwear?

Back to square one? I wasn't aware that the negotiations had ever reached square one.....lol

Newdealz, "there is one other option, give them both a pair boxing gloves and chuck them in the ring, winner takes all and gives in..."
That wouldn't be pretty. I met Thompson during a site tour and I have bumped into Ward outside the Houses of Parliament (not work related). I can tell you that Thompson would come in as a middleweight and Ward would definitely come in at Heavyweight or even super heavyweight as he is about 6'4" and built like a brick outhouse. He also has previous for assaulting a copper years ago.
Speaking as a boxer that moved up from light welterweight to welterweight in my thirties, I can tell you that it would be a bloodbath.....lol

Fire and rehire....
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-cracks-down-on-fire-and-rehire-practices
"Employers should be deterred from using this controversial tactic and must ensure they do not mistreat employees. If they do, they risk poor relations with their employees, and will open themselves up to the risk of legal claims".
Doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent? If I was an employer looking to do this it certainly wouldn't put me off.
It's worth noting the use of the word "should"?
Typical lame Tory policymaking.....lol

Newdealz, on past performance, I would think that the UK Government would be powerless to stop a P&O style "fire and rehire" although in the current situation of the UK having over a million surplus jobs over available candidates then this tactic could easily backfire?