Quote from: bytejunkiefind me another company a disguntled postman can move to and use the skills he has gained with royal mail? and dont say courier cos its a world apart.

erm I will say courier tbh..

& if they dont pay any more then clearly they are already getting market rate so cant complain

Quote from: red_banso wouldnt you be forked off if your next payrise didnt cover the cost of inflation? so technically your getting a paycut.

My next pay rise will be a lot more than inflation & if it isnt then Ill just move to a different firm - obviously if no other firm will have me then clearly Im being arrogant and am already getting what Im worth to the job market.

If Id not improved myself or done more courses then I prob could only justify an inflation linked rise - fact is I have so Ill be demanding a rise to reflect not only inflation but my increased value.

Clearly if there were a sudden rush of people going into my field and all had the same skills at me then I could probably expect a pay cut/freeze and would have to get different skills that were more in demand if I wanted to demand a better rate of pay.

Quote from: Eddyea actually dave that is a pretty basic outlook on a subject which you know very little about

you dont have to know how the mail gets delivered or why people chose to become postment in order to comment on the job market in general.

Royal mail is a private company - if they dont want to work there for the rates they are currently getting then they can move to any number of courier firms and see if they can get more there - if they cant then they are probably already getting paid what they are worth.

If someone is in a career that doesnt pay well then changing careers is the best option - striking in order to artificially inflate the value of a particular vocation is only ever going to work short term - the market will correct itself so long as there is a constant supply of people wanting to be postmen and the job doesnt get too technical.

Im not suggesting that a load of middle aged postmen go to night school and get jobs in IT - but it isnt too hard for van drivers to get a career development loan and train for HGV - or HGV class 2 drivers to get themselves their class 1 licens etc...

I did a temping job for a recruitment/training firm in between my last job and current one - there were shed loads of coach drivers, royal mail van drivers, multidrop courier drivers etc.. booking on HGV courses in order to improve their pay.

ok at my work weve got 3 people with HGV licenses and another 3 with PCV license, fact is having a C+E license doesnt pay much better and youll be away from home a lot, unacceptable for people with families

Personally im not that arsed about the pay, but the working conditions are sh*t and thats why most people are out, they do not like working for RM at the moment because they f**ked up by not having a contingency plan for competition, now theyre trying to scrimp and save on anything