M
miles
Guest
The London Times is full of stories about police shooting unarmed people, political scandal, child murders, and rampant government ineptitude.
What kind of idiot is running the show?
SATURDAY JULY 28 2001
Royal Mail on brink of collapse
BY ANGELA JAMESON
THE Royal Mail is close to collapse because of a fundamental breakdown in trust between managers and workers, a review of industrial relations in the Post Office has found.
Customers perceive the service as unreliable and are likely to turn to private sector competitors, when they become available, if the service continues to deteriorate, says the hard-hitting independent report produced by Lord Sawyer, the former general secretary of the Labour Party.
“We have no doubt that unless the problem of industrial action is effectively resolved there is little hope for the future success of Royal Mail,” says the report, which calls for an immediate halt to all industrial action.
The review was published on a day when the Royal Mail was hit by the latest in a damaging series of strikes. More than 1,000 workers held an official 24-hour stoppage at a South London sorting plant. It will affect postal deliveries today.
Lord Sawyer’s report — which reveals widespread bullying and a fundamental breakdown of trust between the management and Royal Mail workers — is likely to raise questions over whether the senior management at Consignia, which runs the Post Office, is capable of reversing the escalating industrial unrest within the Royal Mail.
The report stops short of calling for top management to be replaced, but it makes clear that while blame for the continuing industrial unrest lies on both sides, Consignia needs a new approach to people management at every level.
“Mail centres are run like old-fashioned factories where people have to put up their hand to go to the toilet. It’s the sort of postwar management style you might once have seen in a heavy engineering plant,” says Lord Sawyer, who examined industrial relations at seven mail centres. “This is a business where trust, respect and confidence between the parties has collapsed.”
He calls on the Communications Workers’ Union to commit to a period without strikes, in order to give an opportunity to rebuild confidence. He also recommends the introduction of partnership boards at national and local levels, in order to bring about a change in the culture of the Royal Mail.
“Strikes are deeply damaging and disruptive to customers, to the business and to employees. They make the business deeply vulnerable to competitors,” Lord Sawyer says. More than 62,000 working days were lost because of strikes by postal workers in the past financial year. About 95 per cent of the walkouts were unofficial.
The strikes have hit the Post Office at a critical time, as the Government is looking to introduce competition in postal services. Many corporate customers have already transferred business to private sector providers, because of the postal service’s increasing unreliability in the past year.
Postal workers are still “very badly paid” the report finds, but the main complaint from staff was how they were treated by managers.
Billy Hayes, the general secretary of the Communications Workers’ Union, said that the report was as forthright as expected. “It seems like a balanced report which I hope will prove fruitful in the longer term. The discussions over the coming weeks will demonstrate how committed the Post Office is to the partnership ideal,” Mr Hayes said.
Consignia said that it would need time to consider the detail of Lord Sawyer’s report, but that it would sit down with the CWU to discuss it. John Roberts, chief executive, said: “We firmly believe that we can tackle the many challenges ahead and that in the main we have a workforce who share the same aims.”
What kind of idiot is running the show?
SATURDAY JULY 28 2001
Royal Mail on brink of collapse
BY ANGELA JAMESON
THE Royal Mail is close to collapse because of a fundamental breakdown in trust between managers and workers, a review of industrial relations in the Post Office has found.
Customers perceive the service as unreliable and are likely to turn to private sector competitors, when they become available, if the service continues to deteriorate, says the hard-hitting independent report produced by Lord Sawyer, the former general secretary of the Labour Party.
“We have no doubt that unless the problem of industrial action is effectively resolved there is little hope for the future success of Royal Mail,” says the report, which calls for an immediate halt to all industrial action.
The review was published on a day when the Royal Mail was hit by the latest in a damaging series of strikes. More than 1,000 workers held an official 24-hour stoppage at a South London sorting plant. It will affect postal deliveries today.
Lord Sawyer’s report — which reveals widespread bullying and a fundamental breakdown of trust between the management and Royal Mail workers — is likely to raise questions over whether the senior management at Consignia, which runs the Post Office, is capable of reversing the escalating industrial unrest within the Royal Mail.
The report stops short of calling for top management to be replaced, but it makes clear that while blame for the continuing industrial unrest lies on both sides, Consignia needs a new approach to people management at every level.
“Mail centres are run like old-fashioned factories where people have to put up their hand to go to the toilet. It’s the sort of postwar management style you might once have seen in a heavy engineering plant,” says Lord Sawyer, who examined industrial relations at seven mail centres. “This is a business where trust, respect and confidence between the parties has collapsed.”
He calls on the Communications Workers’ Union to commit to a period without strikes, in order to give an opportunity to rebuild confidence. He also recommends the introduction of partnership boards at national and local levels, in order to bring about a change in the culture of the Royal Mail.
“Strikes are deeply damaging and disruptive to customers, to the business and to employees. They make the business deeply vulnerable to competitors,” Lord Sawyer says. More than 62,000 working days were lost because of strikes by postal workers in the past financial year. About 95 per cent of the walkouts were unofficial.
The strikes have hit the Post Office at a critical time, as the Government is looking to introduce competition in postal services. Many corporate customers have already transferred business to private sector providers, because of the postal service’s increasing unreliability in the past year.
Postal workers are still “very badly paid” the report finds, but the main complaint from staff was how they were treated by managers.
Billy Hayes, the general secretary of the Communications Workers’ Union, said that the report was as forthright as expected. “It seems like a balanced report which I hope will prove fruitful in the longer term. The discussions over the coming weeks will demonstrate how committed the Post Office is to the partnership ideal,” Mr Hayes said.
Consignia said that it would need time to consider the detail of Lord Sawyer’s report, but that it would sit down with the CWU to discuss it. John Roberts, chief executive, said: “We firmly believe that we can tackle the many challenges ahead and that in the main we have a workforce who share the same aims.”
