Royal Mail – Good riddance
Carrying on my recent spate of off-topic thought-spewing onto my blog, I thought it only prudent to share my views on the current postal strike and what effect I reckon it’ll have on us, the Royal Mail, and the staff lining the pickets.
Bad timing and a shot in the foot
It’s getting to the point where the public are beginning to resent the Royal Mail workers for their strike action, believing that it comes down to greed and a lack of foresight.
I’m one of these people. Britain is in the deepest recession for a very, very long time, and most of us are lucky to be in a stable job.
Now is not the time for this kind of action. The business obviously doesn’t have enough money to give you extra – why start pointless strike action for something that’s not really possible without cutbacks (including staff)? In addition, this is not helping to stimulate economy. In a time where businesses are collapsing left right and centre, an unreliable postal service being brought to its knees by its workers is certainly not what they need. The extra expense of courier services as well as complaining customers only puts more strain on an already fragile economic situation.
Workers have also shot themselves in the foot with this, too. Instead of panicking because of the lack of mail, businesses have been converting to other courier and mail services. Couriers have been thriving because of the strike action, and as a result of this boost in business, will be able to behave more competitively in future. They’ve proven their dependability, flexibility and moreover quality of service – all things that the Royal Mail fail to provide.
Why would businesses move back to using Royal Mail after this strike? Customers want their purchases and mail arriving in a suitable period of time (often overnight in some cases) and it just feels to me as if other services provide this much more reliably than the now outdated and outgunned postal service.
That’s my short take on it. As always, you comments are more than welcome – and normal web-related service will resume shortly!
Leave your comment below. Go wild! Just curb the naughty words.
Hi Tom,
I completely agree with you. But don’t just stop with the postal workers, I am fed up with hearing from all whinging public sector workers complaining that their pay increases are not enough. Personally, as a self employed person, if times are tough I have to draw my belt in. I don’t get help from government handouts and I certainly don’t get a little letter telling how much my pay increment will be this year. When times get tough I have to, at best, leave my prices the same and front the increases in tax, fuel bills etc out of my earnings.
I think the time has come for a Thatcherite approach on the public sector. If you don’t like the conditions find another job, there are thousands of others who would be glad of it.
Phew, rant over … Bev