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Thursday, October 08, 2009

It Looks To Be All Over For Royal Mail

It looks like Royal Mail has lost one of their biggest contracts as Amazon are pulling out of using them due to the threat of strikes.

According to the Guardian, Amazon pulled an £8m second class delivery contract two years ago during industrial disputes and will now pull their larger £25m contract.

The loss of such a major contract can only hurt Royal Mail, and with tensions high it looks like the first national strike for 2 years is going to be called soon.

I personally posted an A4 envelope last Tuesday (29th September) for work and received an email yesterday questioning whether I had posted it.  The week or more delay is going to cost the company I work for money.  Royal Mail staff are on to a lose if they think strike action will win the sympathies of the nation, it will not.  A Royal Mail strike will have knock on effects that will hurt everyday people, costing us money and jobs.  There is no appetite for public sector pay rises, especially as lower end private sector workers [like me] have been on freezes or have endured cuts in the last couple years. 

Small businesses be warned, get your invoices and crucial post out via a different carrier [that does not rely on Royal Mail] otherwise your cash collections approaching end of year and Christmas will be affected.

It is probably overdue that a radical shake up of the postal delivery service takes place, there are a number of decent competitors for business mail already... Like many others, I think the Royal Mail has had its day.

3 comments:

banned said...

Quite right too, the threat of a Postal strike is of little concern to me except that I have not placed an order with Amazon since it started looming.
An alternative parcel delivery company would in any case be preferable since there is nowhere to park at the Royal Mail office where you have to go to collect undelivered items.

Anonymous said...

If you (like me) have suffered at the hands of Royal Mail - come join us on http://www.rubbishroyalmail.co.uk

My business has been all but ruined by the Royal Mail strikes - I deal heavily in low value items that can't easily (or cheaply!) be couriered.

It's a new forum, so posting is encouraged - there are no ads also.

Anonymous said...

I'm not entirely sure what they are striking about so I'll keep an open mind about the rights and wrongs of it.

Certainly the management of Royal Mail is pathetic and has been for years.

But more or less regardless of the provocation, when the rest of us in the real world are undergoing hard times, it's difficult to be understanding of public sector workers going on strike.

The payback will be these massive contracts going elsewhere. Mrs Mcginty's 10 Christmas cards are small beer and there's not much she can do about the situation, but don't mess with Amazon or they will take steps to ensure that you don't wreck their business ever again.

And where will you be then......?