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talkinghorse

Listed below are comments made by talkinghorse between Wednesday, 1st July 2009 and Wednesday, 21st October 2009.

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Bank reform: The radical way 5:06pm on 21 Oct 2009 38

Tony Blair(Banker 17 mill last year) Alan Johnson ex-postie
Bank reform: The radical way 4:38pm on 21 Oct 2009 Q. Why did Brown,Mandelson etc. Bail out the banks and not the RM pension defecit?

A. Because when they get chucked out they want to do a Tony and not a reverse Alan
Tories bash the rich 5:57pm on 07 Oct 2009 I'm heartily disappointed. The clarification about existing pay has just lost the tories any postman votes. Most posties would like to see other cuts at the top as well
Benefit cuts consensus? 6:35pm on 05 Oct 2009 The main thrust of the article is that there is no difference between new labour or the real tories policies.

I am working class, working in a manual job and i'd like my political party back now please if all you middle class people have finished messing about with it.

Thank you
No-one can rewrite political history 6:02pm on 14 Sep 2009 what's all this tory/labour rubbish? From where I stand tories have been in power solidly since 1979
The black hole deepens 7:10pm on 20 Aug 2009 #41 Ello-Ello

I don't believe this country has been debt free since Pitt the Younger
Why bankers aren't worth it 7:04pm on 03 Jul 2009 after reading your article all i could think of was those old photos of bodies dangling from lampposts with the sign round their necks Looters
Mandelson and markets 5:42pm on 02 Jul 2009 #67 I see that the postal workers are threatening to strike because of moves to modernise the Post Office - no change there then.

dont believe RM management propaganda on this. The main issue is not modernisation but a unilateral cut in London waiting allowance.

Any statement about the CWU fighting modernisation is management BS. What has actually happened is that the last negociated agreement called Pay and major change called for joint working groups to be established to discuss and make findings for presentation to both managment and union about modernising the industry.

What actually happened is that management just pushed their own panic stricken and ill thought out ideas onto the workforce with no consultation or indeed contact with reality.

We (postalworkers) understand that change is neccessary. Jobs will inevitably go. Workloads will increase. However, this must be done in a logical and consistent manner. In the last three or four years we have been told "you will get new uniforms" all we got was new style boots which fell to pieces in weeks. "We will take the weight off your shoulders with new trollies,bikes etc." We have now been told a new delivery system will be implemented which will depend on working from delivery pouches(on shoulder carrying devices)from the back of a van.

As i said in a previous post even the sorting machines they want to bring in don't work as well as first thought.

I will say it again IT'S NOT THE WORKERS WHO ARE THE PROBLEM
Mandelson and markets 7:14pm on 01 Jul 2009 This obsession with privatisation is nuts.

RM does work and has been "modernising" for several years. We now do less collections, only one delivery and have stretched the time from posting until delivery to up to 36 hours. This is because management pretending to be a business put profit over service and are still in denial about their atrocious decision making abilities i.e. "bring it on" to early liberalisation of the market without making any actual preparation for it, not even making proper costings before setting a price for down stream access of competitors mail, cutting staff in expectation of increased mechanisation of the sorting process at least a year before the machinery is bought and finding out after committing to the deal that the machines only save about 20 minutes of preparation time for each delivery per day.

Privatisation may have solved some of the above shortcomings in management but it would not have solved the problem of business over service which has all but destroyed RM.( remember when it was a service and you got collections throughout the day and even some on Sunday. Two deliveries a day and early ones too. Average time from collection to delivery was about 14 hours)

The pension deficit is something of a red herring. It is a notional deficit as it depends upon which accounting method is used to quantify it. Anyway that particular fund is now closed to new entrants and frozen for existing contributors. (All those who lump it in with public sector pensions please note CONTRIBUTORS.)

Is it any wonder that postmen are. seen as militant. They have seen their workload increase out of all recognition, their pension taken from them and their sense of worth and pride in the job destroyed. Senior management have no connection with the actual job and have a very patronising attitude to those that do.
Mandelson and markets 5:20pm on 01 Jul 2009 Good. At least now my pension(such as it is) will not now be degraded by the next government as it will not become part of the public sector pension nightmare.

Now we can have a serious debate on realistic regulation and effective modernisation. Sorry got a bit carried away there. Of course management will now redouble their incompetent,patronising and bullying scare tactics in the hope and belief that this is what real business men do when they don't have a clue what to do.

Nevermind the madness will continue when the tories come to power and privatise RM completely.

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