Member Info for OliGarch

Newdealz, so what you are effectively saying is that the daily/hourly fluctuations are not related to the company itself and are just a part of the overall FTSE mechanics?
Does this work for most FTSE companies or is it specific?

The irony of the imposed 2% pay adjustment with £200 back pay (to be paid at the end of July) is that most of our late shift view this as three days of industrial action paid for by the business in advance.

50%????? Where did you get your data from?
The figure for sheltering (those with pre existing medical conditions) in my office was less than 3% of the workforce and there were a few that refused to shelter. This was on the advice of the UK Government.

Annualised, sorry "Flexi" hours may suit office workers who are logging on and working from home however there is a good percentage of current posties that started the job on the basis that they would finish in time to collect their kids from school. With the proposal to move start times forward by three hours this would mean rearranging their whole family life so potentially meaning that their partner would need to change their working hours in order to collect their children.
On top of that, there's the record keeping. Some staff will have banked additional hours over the year and will want those hours back only to find that they are unable to do this.
Zareena Brown has said that flexi hours would be dealt with on an employee by employees basis but it's going to be an absolute nightmare for the local admin teams and will probably need a couple of full time managers just to keep on top of the situation in larger offices.
Giving an honest assessment, it looks as though our senior managers have drawn some of the proposals up without giving much thought to the fine print, much like the bloke that lives in 10 Downing Street...lol

The Sky News article states
"Royal Mail said further talks are due to be held and it still hoped to resolve the dispute.
A spokesperson said: "We believe there are no grounds for industrial action.
"We offered a deal worth up to 5.5% for CWU grade colleagues, the biggest increase we have offered for many years, which was rejected by the CWU."

This is a cute play on words on the part of RM.
The actual breakdown is 2% unconditional, plus a further 1.5% if the changes to employment conditions are agreed and implemented with the further possiblity of an additional 2% bonus (so not consolidated into pay) if your office stays in budget.
Effectively it's 3.5% and a bonus scheme and not even the managers count the bonus scheme as a realistic possibility these days.

Redceo, the only real comments from RM have been articles such as https://news.sky.com/story/royal-mail-pay-row-heads-to-ballot-that-could-lead-to-strikes-later-this-summer-12637853.
It is true that RM CWU represented grades will receive an extra 2% in their end of July pay but this hasn't been negotiated and most workers in my office are treating this as an unsolicited gift.
postman58 is pretty much on the money in his summary and there was a "televised" live event on the RM internal propaganda media called Workplace a couple of days ago.
This event had Zareena Brown (Head of People), Grant McPherson and a couple of other senior managers in attendance to answer "live"questions but looked fairly scripted. Neither Simon Thompson or Ricky McAulay were in attendance. As far as I am aware, this is not in the public domain and I actually had to download the RM People App and sign up as an employee in order to watch it.
As far as pay is concerned, talks have broken down, RM have imposed 2% and that's it.
The "event" concentrated on just two areas that RM wanted agreement on how the workforce could work to receive an extra 1.5%. One was flexible working over the course of the year. So they would be asking the posties to work around 37 hours a week on average and be available to work longer or shorter as the workload dictates. This could be 32 hours in the summer months and 44 hours in the winter months. This would be managed at a local level and staff would be paid for the average week of 37 hours across the year. This could cause quite a few headaches for the delivery office manager especially if staff have to manage childcare?
They haven't mentioned changes to the network yet so starting three hours later. So a 10am start could mean a 7pm finish during November and December?
The second topic was reduced or doing away with twelve of the thirty two allowances. I think that this will be easier to negotiate as most of these allowances are out of date. The offer is to pay two years of allowances as a buy out and many of the receiving staff will be closing in on retirement by now.
So I suppose that the next "live" event will be on changes to the network (starting and finishing three hours later) , mandatory Sunday working as part of the normal hours, two tier pay for new entrants and the (up to) 2% bonus scheme (not guaranteed) if your office stays in budget.
In response, the CWU are now adding a second ballot over the proposed changes that form the legally binding Pathway to Change agreement. It could get tasty......

Ispy, ahh Consignia....best company that I have ever worked for (eyes most over in nostalgic haze). I believe that we had a decent wage rise that year as well? Of course it was a complete and utter waste of time and money..... wasn't that Crozier's idea?
I was trying to keep the conversation within the boundaries of privatisation but in reality nothing much has changed. Middle management are still clueless and RMG are leaking cash from every orifice.
Redceo, I understand the concept that no one employee is indispensable, not even the CEO but what I find funny is that the higher one climbs up the slippery pole the shorter your employment will be with the company.

Why would I want to terminate my contract of employment? I'm not unhappy with my current employment situation. I think that the actions of the current BoD are bizarre but I guess we should expect the bizarre from a CEO that is out of touch with their workforce?
I'm talking about the fact that my employer has imposed an increase to my pay without consultation. I could of course take the 2% as a gift from the company but it won't stop me from asking for a pay rise.
The business claims that they simply don't have the finances for a pay deal in excess of 2% however commonsense's financial analysis yesterday and today blows that myth out of the water.
Then there's the sheer waste and inefficiency within the business itself. As a shareholder yourself you would be livid if you could do your own inspection of the physical state of the business and the amount of wastage whether it is equipment that is purchased and not used before it is scrapped or projects that fly for a week or two only to crash and burn without trace mainly with horrendous costs and implications. I shudder to think about how much the failed electric vehicle projects that will never come to fruition (despite much airplay on RMT) have cost the business over the last five years. I know that you have to crack some eggs to make an omelette but we haven't seen scrambled eggs yet!

Redceo, "Both shareholders and staff have an option to accept the award or terminate the agreement".
That may be true for the shareholders, however I have had a 2% increase in my pay imposed upon me. I didn't ask for it, I have no way of returning it and I certainly didn't agree to it.

Redceo, unfortunately with 32 allowances on offer depending on location and job description and the fact that not every postie/OPG is a full time employee, it's difficult to say what the median wage is.
The Daily Mirror reports...
"Simon Thompson - Royal Mail chief executive took £753,000 in pay and perks last year - 23 times what its average employee earned".
If true then this would make the average wage for RM £32,739, however I can tell you that in my office it's a lot lower, nearer to £26k or £27k.

I believe that any fines levied by OFCON are handed over to H.M.Treasury? I stand to be corrected of course.

Commonsense, regarding your comment yesterday regarding the cash available to RMG.....
"The answer is nearer £1.2bn !! They have two bonds of Euro 900m ish combined which offsets the cash to give (ex leases) net cash of £300m as per last reply end March. That debt is super cheap at 2% ish and repayable 2025 and 2026 ish"
Are the £900m bonds used as securities for the business? If so then this is "dead money" as it cannot be used for day to day expenditure.
The net cash of £300m sounds good but when it's held up against a company the size of RMG then is it really? A 2% wage rise payable in July will wipe 10% off straight away.

Mailgirl, I don't know exactly how much revenue each item of DSA generates (perhaps JB will be better informed) but I would think that 11p is in the right area.
We have to bear in mind that DSA currently accounts for around 80% of delivered letters so less DSA wouldn't be good for business. If a postie is delivering a parcel it's always better if there's also a letter to be delivered as well?
Having said that, the DSA volumes would have been roughly the equivalent of the decline in letters box collection since the mid '90s so it could be argued that revenue would be fantastic if all the DSA had a second class stamp on it?

Mike, it has nothing to do with EU legislation. It is regulated by the Postal Services Commission. The idea was to break Royal Mail's monopoly on letters in order to generate competition and was seen as a precursor to privatisation.

JB, "maybe the government should refuse the money and say to pay it as a bonus/cost of living payment to RMG frontline workers"?
It's a nice though however I suspect that it will get lost down the back of the sofa and end up financing some quango or another?

AngerSharkz, ironically a lot of the planned buildings projects (certainly in my geographic area) were brought about by the companies desire to increase their parcel network capacities. The workforce have been led to believe by our management teams that these have now been shelved indefinitely.

Commonsense, I'm not sure that Royal Mail is as cash fluid as we think that it is? I have recently learned that quite a few building projects have now been shelved indefinitely. According to our mail centre manager "we just don't have the funds to carry out building alterations beyond essential maintenance so we will have to make do with the space that we have".
Philip Graham the Royal Mail interim Head of Global Safety held a couple of Teams meetings last week and admitted that 250 of the 1250 delivery offices were no longer fit for purpose and required major upgrades or relocation.

Commonsense, just received my letter from HR to tell me that I will be receiving a pay increase of 2% plus a lump sum of around £200 on week commencing 29th of July.
I wonder if RR stipulated any strings for 4% plus a one off £2k payment?

Just playing catch up with today's news on TV and I noticed that the ticker at the bottom of the screen warns that criminal barristers, teachers, nurses and doctors are considering balloting for industrial action.
Meanwhile, Heathrow airport has requested that airlines cut their schedules by 10% due to a lack of staff.
Better start dehydrating those freeze dried staff that we've had in storage for such an emergency.....lol

The last time there was a ballot for industrial action, Royal Mail brought in a large quantity of Angard staff on six week contracts to cover. They then took the ballot to court and won meaning that IA didn't happen and then we were awash with staff that we didn't know what to do with for the remainder of their contracts.
I'm not sure how many Angard staff are still on the books but judging by last Christmas it's not going to be as many as normal as many took the opportunity to go to the supermarkets for better Ts&Cs.