Who is to blame for the post strike?
Union leaders say the business secretary Lord Mandelson worked with Royal Mail to "undermine the dispute" - but ministers say the suggestion he vetoed a deal on pay, conditions and modernisation is "fantasy."
So who do you think triggered the walk-out? Is it a battle between workers and bosses? Or is it - as the unions claim - down to politicians getting involved behind the scenes?
On the phone in with Nicky at 9.
We'll be discussing this on the 5 live Phone-in at 9. You can get involved in many ways:
- Text to 85058
- Call 0500 909 693
- Twitter @bbc5live
- Email breakfast@bbc.co.uk
- Post on the 5 live Breakfast facebook page
And you can follow the debate live between 9 and 10 with 5 live Now, which pulls together you contributions in one page. Find out more about 5 live Now.
Jump to more content from this blog
About this blog
Subscribe to 5 live Breakfast
You can stay up to date with 5 live Breakfast via these feeds.
5 live Breakfast Feed(ATOM)
If you aren't sure what RSS is you'll find our beginner's guide to RSS useful.
Podcast
5LNPI: Do you have sympathy for Gary McKinnon?
10:21 Fri, 27 Nov 09
Do you have sympathy for Gary McKinnon? He's the British computer hacker who could be sent to the US to face trial. He's admitted to hacking into American military computers, and has since been diagnosed with a form of autism.
Download or subscribe to this programme's podcast
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~49~RS~)
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
Royal Mail management and a pro-business servile 'Labour' government (watched applaudingly by a Tory opposition) have deliberately provoked this industrial dispute in order to mitigate the argument for privatisation
No industrial dispute is about a single issue and the essence of this dispute is to deter neoliberal privatisation policies that were the real cause of the economic meltdown and credit crunch.
For workers in the private sector to make simplistic comparisons between their working practices and the Royal Mail is futile and is exactly what the politicians want as it detracts from the real issue. Every enterprise is different with differeing economic circumstances requiring differing working practices.
Throughout your discussion, you are no doubt going to dominate the airwaves with whingeing small business owners complaining how the industrial dispute will harm their business. The reality is the UK has had 32 years of unchallenged neoliberal privatisation pro-business and small firm economic policies and look at the result. Economic meltdown, £billions of bank and business bail outs and a chronic national debt. Banks were bailed out to protect small businesses so who are they to criticise public ownership and investment in the Royal Mail?
You can guarantee if the Royal Mail is privatised it will only be a matter of time before the taxpayer will have to bail it out again just like they've bailed out their precious banks.
Complain about this comment
I sort of agree with some of Nick Vinehill's points. Having been affected for months by local postal strikes I have made it my business to ask our local postmen how they feel about the Mandelson/Crozier plans for them, and I cannot help but feel that not only are there some very basic difficulties for them if these plans are implemented, such as being physically unable to complete their walks in the time allowed, but also they feel incredibly aggrieved that at the top of their organisation is a man just literally coining it in while the service, and their jobs, disappears before our eyes.
Where is Crozier? Anyone heard from him? It is a vital service and he is fiddling while Rome burns.
Complain about this comment
I am puzzled. I heard (i) An alleged agreement had be reneged on therefore the strikes go on and (ii) Sign said and same agreement and we have ourselves a deal? Ok. What did I miss? Because until I am told, the words six of one and half a dozen of the other come to mind.
And finger pointing at one another and effectively apportioning blame for it all else where is school playground stuff. I thought adults were running our Royl Mail services - not immature adults!
Subject: Resist these attempts to make justice secret
Anagram: Kith USA jet set CSI - Post? Matter secret - esteem
Complain about this comment
Why can't some people get it into their heads that the CWU are NOT! against modernisation. It is in the interest of the CWU to ensure the survival of the Royal mail for its members ( and the UK public! ) not to see it fail.
The CWU vision of modernisation is to develop new services, get into new types of markets, properly introduce new technology and to move the business on with the full involvement of the workers and not have them marginalised.
The RM management and Mandelson's vision of modernisation is to cut services, cut pay, cut full time jobs into part time jobs, down size the business and sell off the Royal Mail to a foreign postal operator. Foreign postal operators who in many cases are having severe problems in their own home postal markets and who are not themselves ham strung by unfair competition rules that Royal Mail have to contend with.
It's up to whoever to believe who they want, but as a Royal Mail worker I just feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall trying to get the reality of what is actually happening right under the British public's nose over to some people.
Royal Mail is being sold short, sold out, and if some greedy people have their way, sold off! just like every other public service in this country has been over the years, and who have all failed with regards to their objectives as privatised companies.
Complain about this comment
Who's to blame? From what the union and others have been saying, Mandelson seems to be unduly complicit - but that doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
Complain about this comment
the service i recieve from the postal service now is bloody awful, the postman didnt create this so the bosses for me, useless as are most british bosses
Complain about this comment
Royal Mail management and a pro-business servile 'Labour' government (watched applaudingly by a Tory opposition) have deliberately provoked this industrial dispute in order to mitigate the argument for privatisation
=========================================================
Of course the deal thrashed out two years ago with the unions which they are now trying to quash has nothing to do with this?
Still don't let the truth get in the way......
Meanwhile the posties are all huddled round the burning oil drums singing "The world owes me a living" and their employer is losing £££. So expect to see even more redundancies in the future.
Complain about this comment
Perhpas if the posties are doing a job that if halted, could bring the country to a stop, then they should be paid a bit more? Not millions, like the bankers, but perhaps 20K a year?
I blame the conservative goverment, 79-97, for all of this, and sweatshop Britain.
Complain about this comment
Imagine how rampant the unions would be running, wreaking Britain even more than brown has, if Thatcher hadn't legislated to bring their self-destructive militancy under control.
Complain about this comment
'Imagine how rampant the unions would be running, wreaking Britain even more than brown has, if Thatcher hadn't legislated to bring their self-destructive militancy under control'
That doesn't excuse the other extreme that we now have- people working for sweatshop wages and bankers and bosses who are seen 'rightly' to be beyond the legislation of the government- whose excesses can't be curbed. No one should be more powerful than the goverment, as it represents the people. If these posties are doing something that's so important, they should be paid commensurate with that. You have to reach a balance. £20K a year as a starting point seems fair to me. How much does the boss of the royal mail get? What would happen if he went on strike?
Complain about this comment
Explain how Grodn "saved the world" again, Cheapy - especially given the economy contracted AGAIN this last quarter and is set to continue to do so.
Complain about this comment
I blame the conservative goverment, 79-97, for all of this, and sweatshop Britain.
==============================================================
Same old same old from Darryl - self confessed dole merchant.
Thatcher dragged this country from it's union dominated mess but true to form we now have a economically and morally incompetent Labour party who have taken us straight back to 1979. All we need now is the dead unburied and a trip to the IMF.
My only fear is that Cameron will not be as strong as the sainted Margaret.
Complain about this comment
"Longest, deepest recession since records began."
Complain about this comment
' Thatcher dragged this country from it's union dominated mess but true to form we now have a economically and morally incompetent Labour party who have taken us straight back to 1979. '
Another myth, peddled by the conservatives. People have sympathy for the posties, as they are poorly paid and overworked. We are not in the situation as 79. And Cameron will only make work pay more than dole by cutting dole to a minimum, not by paying people more. And please don't use the term 'Sainted Margaret'. It does my head in.
Complain about this comment
Another myth
------------------
What part?
The dead unburied?
Labour going cap in hand to the IMF
Complain about this comment
"Another myth, peddled by the conservatives. "
Only in the eyes of the blinkered. Those of us that lived through the period and bore witness can't be hoodwinked by your lame attempts at New Labour sycophancy. Spin doesn't work on us.
Complain about this comment
'Only in the eyes of the blinkered. Those of us that lived through the period and bore witness can't be hoodwinked by your lame attempts at New Labour sycophancy. Spin doesn't work on '
I lived through that period. and it doesn't excuse the other extreme that we have today. I heard two people talking on the bus yesterday. You get treated terribly at work now. You don't know where you are. Working times are changed from week to week. you are promised bonuses and don't get them. There's no need for it. If people worked hard without the whip, there we wouldn't have this situation.
Complain about this comment
So you're saying it is worse now, after twelve years of your beloved Labour being in charge - and yet you still think it's the previous governments fault?
Priceless!!
Complain about this comment
' So you're saying it is worse now, after twelve years of your beloved Labour being in charge - and yet you still think it's the previous governments fault?
Priceless!!'
Priceless and true. The conservatives only plan to make people work harder for less.
Complain about this comment
And the hits just keep on coming.
ROFLMAO
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS