So a company has it’s workers work throught out a pandemic, earns said company £703 million and £758 million annual profit, pays £900 million to share holders, £3 million in bonuses to top management, £158k bonus to the CEO for hitting financial targets, gives 300k bonus shares to the two CEO’s, yes Royal Mail has 2 CEO’s, buys a Canadian haulage company for £210 million. Then comes to the workers, the ones who earned all that money, and imposes a 2% payrise, plus the promise of another 1.5% if we agree to loss of allowances (£25 a week for me), loss of sick pay, later start and finish times of 11 am to 7 pm, annualised hours meaning they can put me on 5 hour shifts in summer then 11 hour shifts in winter an at Xmas, compulsory Sundays at no extra pay. You think that’s fair and we should know our place!?
Somehow, ‘royal’ mail should have had that title taken away some time ago.
Whilst the trains have a great public front, the RM union doesn’t and ‘people’ expect mail to arrive. The changes to law to allow agency staff to cover (though where are they getting agency seeing as it used to be from EU countries?) doesnt help ouwt.
A gen election is 2 year away at least, and the current clown car in control sure ain’t helping workers.
Do your minimum, get paid, and look elsewhere. Because the RM sure doesnt have loyalty to it’s employees.
I think there will be a queue for VR.
I was about to post this and say looks like the strikes worked out for them, but 10k jobs is huge.
Aren’t most people just going to use FedEx, DHL etc?
It’s scare tactics to try an break the strike. They want new staff so they can give them new contracts on 20% less pay. Ultimately they wanna split parcels and letters. They want parcel drivers to be self employed, pay for their vehicle, no sick pay, no holiday pay, etc.
For those wondering why the stock has been on a rollercoaster ride, this should help clear up any confusion.
That sounds pretty brutal, so they’re getting pay taken off them from what they’re already on?
I guess you could say scare tactics but a company can easily get rid of many by saying they financially can’t afford to keep everyone in this current climate.
Guess we will see what will happen. Seems to be swings and round abouts really, inflation goes up everyone wants pay rises inflation goes up everyone wants pay rises again, strikes strikes on permanent operations
I think Royal Mail could be in real trouble and in a way not everyone is talking about yet.
We all know that the letter business in in terminal decline. Most people assume that parcels will be the growing area of the business.
I work for an online sales company. Royal Mail can’t be beat on under 2kg parcels. They used to be about half the price of sending with a courier at volume (2nd class v next day courier, but great for sending small cheaper items). However over the last couple of months a number of couriers are not offering parcels up to 3kg for less than Royal Mail with faster delivery AND tracking thrown in for free.
If other couriers get into the small parcel segment, Royal Mail are going to be hammered
I truly wonder how this will play out.
I recently got my replacement Romanian passport and it took one day to arrive from the Romanian embassy in London to my place.
It got mailed from the embassy on Wednesday and got posted on Thursday, a day when officially speaking there was a strike on! For the record the Romanian embassy stipulate that you have to use special delivery to have it posted to your address.
All I can say is way to go, Royal Mail!
In the next 6 months I need to renew my UK drivers license and in the next year I need to renew my UK passport.
I truly do wonder how things will pan out in the future?
Will I be using Royal Mail for these services? Or will it be cheaper and/or easier to use FedEx, DHL or UPS?
I truly hope Royal Mail can recover as not only do I have a small number of shares but historically it’s a national icon kinda company.
You’ll find your delivery was a Manager, Agency worker or Strike breaker.
Royal mail are paying agency workers more than regular workers. Rather than give us a pay rise?
We are starting to lose contracts … Boots being one of them.
Royal Mail just dont seem to care , they have involved Evri to help with strikes … Evri are now advertising they are cheaper than Royal Mail.
Its obvious that RM want rid of the letters & small packets business … But driving it into the ground & upsetting employees & customers isnt the road to go down to do this.
As mentioned before on other threads I work for a German owned parcel delivery service here in the U.K. The turmoil at RM is only playing into this company and other delivery companies hands. My company is currently starting to build a new massive hub close to its existing one and looking at improving/opening new regional hubs. From the outside RM looks like a rudderless ship. As a British icon I hope it survives. But with past and current activity that hope diminishes quite regularly.
Shares in Royal Mail owner IDS have lost more than 50% of their value this year due to an array of issues. The firm’s latest half-year report doesn’t project a bright future either. Nonetheless, the stock could be a moneyspinner, despite the risks involved.
Would love to discuss the potential volatility surrounding the stock and where it could be heading next.
I’m surprised the share price didn’t dip more on earnings… I’m an RM employee (for now), so not the best person to discuss this with.
I don’t currently own IDS shares (have done) & probably wont consider owning more until internal issues are resolved.
Hey! Thanks for commenting! Like you, I was surprised too, but I reckon extreme downside had already been priced in at that point and earnings came in above consensus. Do you see any resolution anytime soon between RM and the CWU?
Re resolutions: I’d like to think so… But we have a 2 day strike looming this Thursday/Friday … Its a pretty dirty fight & both sides are hurting the company.
Yeah, it’s definitely a shame… All the best to you, nonetheless!
Royal Mail posted a 6 month loss of £219 million. However they fail to report they gave approx £570 million to shareholders, bought a Canadian haulage company for £210 million, invested a few hundred million in 3 parcel super hubs, hired hundreds of hire vans that were unused, banned any overtime for Royal Mail staff but gave the overtime to agency workers who cost more. It’s all a con so the Czech billionaire can buy them cheap an Simon Thompson, the CEO, can leave with a multi million pound golden hand shake!!
Insightful stuff, Steven. Any references for the claims made in the financial report? Would love to see this so that I can report it!
This gives you Royal Mail’s version of events. I work for Royal Mail and i’m a member of the CWU so i get to see everything. Everything i stated above is fact mate.