Member Info for OliGarch

Newdealz, why do we need the unemployment figure to go up? Surely the utopian dream is gainful employment for all in order to increase taxation and decrease the reliance on Government handouts?

Redceo, you obviously woke up in a comedic mood this morning.....lol

PP, taking mail out of circulation for a particular address would potentially mean that both outgoing and incoming residents would both have their mail delayed to be sorted manually.
We had the opportunity to develop the software back in 2010 when the sequencing machines were first introduced and the idea was that every resident of every address would would have their own delivery point code which would have meant that an automatic redirection could have taken place should a resident move (even temporarily for university students etc..) however it was deemed to be a bit "Big Brother" and probably would have fallen foul of GDPR anyway but the biggest hurdle was the extra financial investment required for software.

I seem to remember that when Thompson took over as CEO he introduced himself as the son of a Nottingham miner. Given his age, I wonder if his father was a striking miner and this is Thompson's "Maggie" Moment?

JB, it looks as though you can ignore my earlier, rather cynical, post although I still think that the board have an ace up their sleeve?

As I posted last week, the trigger for the commencement of negotiations (as far as the union are concerned) is resolving the disciplinary issues. This will almost certainly take several weeks by which time the business should have completed most of their revisions.
Are the board concerned that their plans may produce a worse service?..... Probably not but that's the whole point of the exercise which is to rightsize the business so that the down balance matches the across balance. This is the only way that the board can go back to the Government and say "look, it's clearly not working so we need another review".
I'm hearing from several of the smaller mail centres that their early shift operations are being stopped completely and the late shift operations are being pared back (full time posts being reduced or downgraded to part time) and that the VR exercises are now complete with many early shifts ceasing form the start of the new financial year. The offices concerned don't have any parcel automation capacity so it looks like the precursor to another mail centre review?
I'm not sure how any of the above will affect the SP or whether the City will view this as good news? Only time will tell.

JB, I'm not sure why the engineers are being offered 7% followed by 4% but the admin staff are only deemed worthy of 5% followed by 3% when it's almost certainly the case that the LA's are on a much lower basic rate to start with?

"Oligarch - I was referring to the CWU pension fund - about £20m in deficit in last annual return."
That's a relief.....lol

Hounddog, on the subject of pension schemes and deficits, are you talking about the Combined Defined Benefit Scheme (2018 onwards) or the Royal Mail Statutory Pension Scheme (2008 to 2018)?

Putting personal arguments on the back burner and getting back on point, I have been listening to the recent videos released by Dave Ward. Here's my takeaway - hopefully I read the narrative correctly.....
The CWU and two assigned board members are going to sit down and sort out a deal. First they need to issue a statement and then both sides want a conclusion within three weeks but the CWU won't agree to issue a statement before the executive action is halted and the disciplinary issues resolved.
Now, in a previous role, I was involved in quite a few disciplinary cases and I can assure anyone on this forum that it can take anywhere between a month and six months to reach a conclusion depending upon circumstances and I believe that nationally there are around 160 cases to resolve although I stand to be corrected.
The executive action has been going on for about seven weeks now so by the time that the disciplinary issues are resolved, I reckon that the BoD will have pretty much done the 1250 revisions by EA.
My conclusion is; don't expect a deal between the bod and the CWU to be concluded any time soon.
How will this affect the SP?.....who knows but I would anticipate it to float around the 220p to 240p as it has done recently until there has been a significant change?
Will the executive action revisions work?..... probably not and we won't know for a while but if they don't then I think it may be too late to reverse..... only time will tell.
The good thing for Simon is that if things don't work out then he can walk away (with a golden goodbye) and leave the mess for someone else to sort out while the workforce and shareholders shake their heads.
Remember, the workers sometimes win and the shareholders sometimes win but the CEO never loses.....lol
Anyone else have a differing opinion?

Redceo, "the cause of the delay"..... gotta say that made me laugh.
You clearly have no idea of my role within the organisation.
I'm sure that you are so upstanding that you have never taken advantage of a situation.......

Dynamo, McAulay's managerial style will be manna from heaven to many of the shareholders who see too many militant union workers and too many managers with their own ideas?
Someone who will grab the bull by the horns and drag the workforce to compliance. Perhaps he will release a 2023/24 financial year calendar with twelve photos of himself wrestling bears and sitting shirtless on Siberian Tigers.....lol

Hounddog, the CEO should have answered the questions as they wer asked.
"Did you prioritise parcels over letters?"
"Do you track your employees?"
The correct answer to both was "yes."
Simples...
As we all know, this straightforward approach is akin to signing your career death warrant so it's never gonna happen plus the Select Committee meeting would only have lasted ten minutes instead of an hour and three quarters.

Redceo, the advantage of Special Delivery is that it is a guaranteed service with built in insurance.
Royal Mail set out the terms and conditions of this service and one of those is a full refund if the item is not delivered in the specified timeframe.
The delivery posties will usually cut off at a pre determined time, say mid-day, to ensure that Specials are delivered and signed for by 1pm.
I take it that you are the type of person that does not claim on insurance policies and warranties or indeed complains about poor service?

JB, you are correct in that I have been in the business long enough (too long some might say/post.....lol) to know that we have some employees who are mischievous. I am also not naive enough to think/know that office management can also try to bend the rules to make a bad situation look more favourable.
During November, December and early January it was "normal" practice in my mail centre to prioritise parcels over letters due to physical size, the potential to bulk out the office and reduce furniture availablity and I believe that McAulay tried to get that point across however it cut no ice with Mr Jones.
In early December, we were also instructed to deal with what was coming in on the day and to work our way into the late November backlog from the outbuilding if there was available time. Again, not right by the USO but I can see the logic with a limited amount of room and staff as we were around 60% down on the usual amount of Christmas casuals .
These "instructions" were not communicated on notice boards or flip charts as I believe that our local management team are a little more savvy than most?

Hounddog, are you saying that a company that has a workforce with a high retention rate is asking for trouble and should look to reduce the average service time of it's employees? What would you consider to be the maximum service before an employee is fired?
Incidentally, I believe that Ricky McAulay has over 30 years service and the previous CEO, Rico Back, was an employee from 1999 to his resignation in 2019. Perhaps you are right after all, 17 years is too long.....lol

JB, it's strange how the written word can be interpreted in an entirely different context by different people. I have re-read Dynamo's post and still read this as an anti whistle blowing measure but I sort of see why you read what you did.

Sid, granted that "you don't need a 1st class degree, MBA or PhD to the job" but that goes for a vast swathe of the UK workforce. The point that you are missing is that of recruitment and an available alternative workforce that wants to do the job of a postie. As I posted a couple of days ago, there is currently a labour shortage in the UK and there's plenty of alternative work that many would deem to be more attractive.

The CMA......lol...... they're so useless that their General Secretary wrote to Dave Ward and Terry Pullinger after the pension reform went through Parliament to thank the CWU as the RM managers benefitted however CMA/UNITE didn't lift a finger to help.
The RAC would have more clout.

Sid, "Cwu and it's members are happy to get paid by RM, but at the same act like rats and feed negative things about the company to media and Facebook/ twitter."
Ahhh the joys of 21st century life. If you think that's bad, you want to see the comments that the employees leave on the official company social media.
Still, as a shareholder, I want my investment to feel legitimate. I don't really want to invest in a company that is going to fiddle the books because we all know how that pans out don't we?