OK, someone please explain this to me. I'd assumed that the postal strike was about pay, but from what I've since heard on the news and the radio, it isn't about pay at all. It's about postal staff's objections to 'modernisation'.

Now tell me if you think I'm being harsh, but does anyone else think that that is a little childish?

Modernisation is an every day fact of ALL areas of industry. For example hospitals are constantly introducing new methods of doing things, new pieces of machinery etc etc. And you know what, we adjust. We learn to change our practice. Because we accept that usually these things are brought in to improve the quality of the service (just as the postal service is saying that their changes will improve that service)., even if getting used to them is a pain initially. We don't act like children and refuse to work because something is changing!

At a time when so many people are unemployed, shouldn't these postal workers be getting back to work, learning to adjust, like everyone else, and get their job done. And be glad that they actually HAVE jobs? Not to mention the fact that people need their mail!

I agree with you. Tbh, it's really daft and i just want my god damn mail!!!! lol

This reminds me of the people where I work who refuse to do things a newer, more efficient way. They are stuck in the "old ways" and just will not change. I can do things 10 times faster than they can because they do it the hard way and I do it the easier, faster, more efficient way. Such as, my boss will sit there and hand write an email for me to type up, which takes him 20 minutes rather than spend the 20 minutes typing the email himself and sending it himself. Then it takes me about 3 minutes to type the email and send it because I type over 90 words a minute. He could even just stand there and tell me what to say in the email and I could type it as he spoke it which would take less time than him writing it out. There are many instances of things like that here.

When you work for a government entity or a pseudo-government entity, it tends to be bureaucratic. A lot of people don't particularly like to streamline the bureaucracy because less work means less jobs and nobody wants to lose their jobs, especially if it's a government entity because they know they're going to get the money. In a corporation, the company wants to streamline and be more efficient to save money and cut jobs, but for some reason government entities don't care about that sort of thing.

To add to this... Government entities do not care about being more efficient because (in the US, I don't know about the UK) they have to spend the money they are given each year or else the next year they don't get that much money. They don't make a profit, so they don't get to "keep" the extra money they save by being more efficient. They lose it. It goes back to the Central Government (or state government, local government, etc) from which it came. If they use what they are allotted each year, then the next year they get to ask for at least that much. If they end up using more money than they are allotted, then the next year they can ask for more funds. So they will spend, spend, spend JUST to use the money they're given.

Come the end of the fiscal year, where I work, everyone looks at their budgets and they go on spending sprees to be sure that they use all of the money they have in their budget so that next year they can request at least what they had this year.

I agree with you! They should be glad they have a job at all and get on with it, and if they don't like change then find something else!

I don't understand how striking is going to get them anywhere. The 'big guys' aren't going to listen if they've already made their minds up and invested in various things.

I don't think it is childish, the postmen are have to do more administrative stuff now, which is why we no longer have our two daily posts at a regular time, it used to be 9 am and 2 pm where I live, but now they are at randoms times, sometimes we just get one post a day at about 5 pm, the new method hasn't improved the service it has made it worse.

Having to do more, not are have to do

Yeah, well we have more administrative stuff to do in hospitals now too. But you don't see us going on strike. That's just the way the world is nowadays... everyone has more paperwork.

And I'm not sure you can assume that the problems with your post are all due to modernisation. Or can you assume that the NEW changes they're proposing won't actually help improve the situation.

Yes I can, when our post men gets on his bike and has to fill out forms detailing which addresses he has posted to, how many letters each house had, did anyone have a parcel, were there any hazards and since our local sorting office (in fact most of wales are trying to do this) is trying to gain permission to go back to the old system of separate workers for separate jobs as since the admin workers have been removed every has gone tits up.

I agree, they are meant to be extremely overworked now.

We haven't had any problems with out post anyway.

But I don't think they're striking so as to get more admin workers... At least not from what I've read, but I could be wrong.

I also wonder if this sort of thing is more of a problem in more rural areas (like Aberystwyth). I'm not sure the same thing is happening all around the country. For a start you'd never see a postie on a bike here! But then my postman is totally useless anyway. I order a lot of things online (books, gifts etc) to save myself time as I'm so busy with work and studying and don't want to have to go and walk around the shops for things. But my postman never bothers to actually carry my parcels from his van to the door. He just fills out 'Sorry you weren't home cards' (even when I AM home! He just doesn't ring the bell! On numerous occassions I've been sitting in the house, heard the letter box go, gone out to the hallway and found a 'sorry you weren't home' card. THEN I have to wait 24 hours then go into town to pick it up! Which sort of defeats the purpose of ordering online to save time :P). This has happened so many times now that I've actually complained.

So, while I'm sure the vast majority of postmen aren't like that (I've never had any problems while living elsewhere), I have little sympathy for my postman at the moment when he can't be bothered to do his job properly.

Ours all have bikes, one postman goes around in a van with parcels. Post has always been a bit slow here because the road and rail links are so bad for non-local post but since the changes have been made waiting a week for a 1st class letter that is not local has become completely normal where as at home you wait two days at most. Here if we aren't in when the postman comes we only have to wait two hours until we can pick it up from the sorting office, sometimes though he has just dropped it in our shed and then left us with a little note telling us where it is.
I don't think the use of a bike is just rural, back home (grantham) the postmen use bikes a lot and it is quite a big town.

The BBC did a feature, asking postmen their views. They keep being given longer routes and no extra time to complete them in. Also there are too many managers, and we all know what problems that creates.

Well I can understand why they'd be upset about that... but the same thing happens in lots of places. Hospital staff are also being given more work and no extra time, and it's a pain, and we moan about it. But we don't strike over it. :P

But from what I was reading online, that isn't actually what their argument is about. It's about bringing in some sorting machine that will sort the mail for the postmen for their rounds (so it may actually reduce their work load, but they just don't want to have to change how they do something).

Yeah I heard about that too, but it didn't say that was why they were striking. I heard that the postmen wanted modernisation and the managers didn't.

I think different people are striking for different reasons.

So now I'm even more confused!

I don't think they've done a very good job at showing the public why they're striking!

It must be a pretty lame strike - I got post every day of the strikes this week and last so far!

It isn't happening everywhere, where I live one postman out of all of them is striking.