Postal strike

[Ralph]

For whomever it may concern just to say there's a postal strike by Royal Mail Friday through to Tuesday next week.

[Wayne]

Great. Not again!

[Pip Madeley]

Takes the mick, it really does. We only get our post every few days now...

[Si Hunt]

Why that company doesn't raise its prices and pay its workers more I don't know! It's far, far too cheap and what's the point? The money to keep it going (millions a week) comes from us taxpayers anyway. At least if it went on the costs it'd be being paid by the people that used the service!

And you know people still say it's an expensive service. What rot! These days, on a day out you can pay £2.50p for a milkshake, £9 for some cinema tickets and £5 for a magazine. Yet to have someone take a letter to another country for you in 24 hours still costs about 70p!!!! It's ludicrously, stupidly cheap but people have gotten used to it. Come on!! They need to be charging REALISTICALLY for the service they provide and then perhaps they wouldn't be losing four million quid a week which the government have to subsidise.

Si.

[Jason Thompson]

I couldn't agree more, Si. If I stick a 34p stamp on a letter and stick it in the post I can reasonably expect it to be anywhere in this country by the next morning. If someone gave me a letter and told me to take it to another town and offered me 34p for my trouble I'd tell them where they could shove that letter!

Here's some interesting trivia for you about postal charges:

In 1840 the Uniform Penny Post was introduced, where a one penny stamp would cover delivery anywhere in the UK. This was a significant drop on the cost of postage, which had been over 4d before. Financially, the Uniform Penny Post was a disaster for the postal service, with more than 30 years being required for revenues to increase to pre-1840 levels. According to an inflation calculator website, 1d in 1840 is about 34p in today's money. The postal service has kept pace with inflation, it seems, but based on a tariff that was a total disaster when it was first introduced!

[Larry]

For whomever it may concern just to say there's a postal strike by Royal Mail Friday through to Tuesday next week.

I thought it was only Thursday and Friday, any way I'm just glad i've got my KTT box set before the strike started.

[Captain Tancredi]

Why that company doesn't raise its prices and pay its workers more I don't know! It's far, far too cheap and what's the point? The money to keep it going (millions a week) comes from us taxpayers anyway. At least if it went on the costs it'd be being paid by the people that used the service!

Because they're in an impossible position. EU policy is for postal services to be deregulated, which means competition- which already exists for business mail, but the one thing keeping potential competitors out of the market for personal letters is the cost of maintaining a national delivery network. If Royal Mail priced its services on more or less the same scale as its competitors (which is unlikely given that RM's prices are very closely regulated), it would potentially face even more competition in an uncompetitive market, which could make it more difficult in the long run for anybody to provide a service to private individuals who just want to send the odd letter now and again. Raising postal prices above inflation also tends to lead to accusations of pricing the most vulnerable people away from the postal system- if you're unemployed and sending out lots of job applications on spec, it matters whether the price of a stamp is 34p or 50p.

Royal Mail is also one of the last organisations providing unskilled work on a nationwide basis- if you can read, you can sort letters and if you can walk, you can deliver them. Unskilled labour will always be paid the lowest possible wage.

Royal Mail's financial position would however be drastically improved if the Treasury stopped taking a fortune out of its coffers every year- since the beginning, governments have treated the postal system as a cash cow and milked it of a substantial part of its turnover.

[Ralph]

I couldn't agree more, Si. If I stick a 34p stamp on a letter and stick it in the post I can reasonably expect it to be anywhere in this country by the next morning. If someone gave me a letter and told me to take it to another town and offered me 34p for my trouble I'd tell them where they could shove that letter!

In fairness thats a crazy comparison - the letter is joined by thousands of others going in the same direction

[Stephen Morgan]

I wasn't really aware of this until the PO told me when I went to send a parcel off to Glasgow this afternoon. I was in time to catch the late collection, I hope the chap gets it before the strike starts.

[Ralph]

I've known about it since Monday - I really have to know these things sap as it buggers up my job.

[Jason Thompson]

In fairness thats a crazy comparison - the letter is joined by thousands of others going in the same direction

I really don't think it is a crazy comparison. At the beginning of the journey they've been collected from post boxes scattered around the town, and at the end of the journey they are delivered to addresses scattered throughout the town. Thousands of letters may head into Sittingbourne, for example, in one big van, but then they have to be sorted and given to a selection of blokes on bikes to be delivered potentially to every single house.

It still seems absurdly inexpensive, yet people will complain if the price goes up.

[Captain Tancredi]

On the other hand, Royal Mail tend to claim that they lose 8-10p on each item of stamped mail that gets posted, so presumably they could still charge 45p and break even. The vast number of items of mail are almost certainly delivered within and between major cities, which is where economies of scale really do kick in- I rather suspect that if the population of the Western Isles were charged postal rates which reflected the cost of providing the service, they'd be in for a shock.

[Ralph]

On the other hand, Royal Mail tend to claim that they lose 8-10p on each item of stamped mail that gets posted, so presumably they could still charge 45p and break even. The vast number of items of mail are almost certainly delivered within and between major cities, which is where economies of scale really do kick in- I rather suspect that if the population of the Western Isles were charged postal rates which reflected the cost of providing the service, they'd be in for a shock.

Good point let those in the sticks pay up! I'm tired of subsidising them!

[Milky Tears]

£2.50p for a milkshake!!

[Si Hunt]

£2.50p for a milkshake!!

Absolutely true. Paid that in London the other week, and also in a cafe in Peterbrough the week after. It's not an absurd price to pay for a drink in a large city centre nowdays I'm afraid!

also tends to lead to accusations of pricing the most vulnerable people away from the postal system- if you're unemployed and sending out lots of job applications on spec, it matters whether the price of a stamp is 34p or 50p.

I can see where you're coming from, but again this smacks of kow-towing to people simply spoiled by the really low prices. It's about time they learned that it's unreasonable to expect a letter hand-delivered hundreds of miles for less than the price of a digestive biscuit.

Si.

[Ralph]

To get some perspective on the pricing and some comparisons...

I can invest £5000 in a pension and have it administrated and managed in major UK shareholdings from companies built over decades for £50 a year...

I can fly through the air at 30,000 feet over 400 miles all for £20...

I can watch a movie that took multimillions of dollars to produce and have a copy for my lifetime for £5...

And yes I can have a bit of paper picked up in Glasgow and delivered to London next day for 30p....

The joys of economies of scale!

[Si Hunt]

That's a bit misleading though Ralph. We're talking about a service, a product bought as new. New DVD's arn't £5, they are more like £20 and most flights to Europe are hundreds of pounds, not £20.

Si.

[Ralph]

OK a movie for £20 then! How cheap is that still for us to have our very own copy of a product costing multimillion pounds to produce.

And ok £200 then to fly through the air 400 miles in 1 hour - still fabulous value!

I'm reacting to the notion that 30p is too cheap to send a bit of paper across the country With the structures in place why is this not sufficient to operate a business efficiently?

I send letters for 0p every day!

[Si Hunt]

With the structures in place why is this not sufficient to operate a business efficiently?

I can believe it's not. Easily. Say you had 30 letters for a town in one morning. A postman has got to be paid to trudge or drive to 30 houses to deliver them. The revenue generated? £9! That surely wouldn't pay for even a fraction of his time, never mind the cost of running the van etc.

My theory is supported by that pesky four million quid they lose each week!

Si.

[Pip Madeley]

The strike is losing me money too - I won't have any new rental discs for a week now because of their strike.

[Wayne]

I have to say i fall on the side of those who would be happy to pay more for my postal services if it meant a more efficient service, & an end to these bloody strikes!
I was in the Post Office today posting stuff, & was told the strike is tomorrow & Monday, but they will be delivering on Saturday, & back to normal on Tuesday.

[Si Hunt]

I was hoping to post off copies of the "Magical History Tour" CD tomorrow to contributors who I won't see at the weekend, but I guess that'll have to wait til Tuesday now

Si.

[Captain Tancredi]

And ok £200 then to fly through the air 400 miles in 1 hour - still fabulous value!

Or, indeed, the 400 mile round trip by train I paid for last night and which cost me under £30.

The problem is that if you increase the cost of postage to the point where every item breaks even, people will find alternatives to using the postal system where possible- paying bills online or in the bank, say- and it's pretty much a given that email has replaced an awful lot of social mail. Apart from things I've sold and then need to send on to my buyers, the majority of my usage of the post is to pay bills- I pay my credit card by cheque because I'm sick of them trying to sell me loans when I pay in the bank, and certain things I could pay online but post a cheque because I want it to come out of my current account than sit on my credit card forever.

One little-known consequence cropped up in work today- anybody who banks through the Post Office is going to have a problem paying in, because apparently the credits are sent to the processing centres by Royal Mail staff. So you could pay money in today and it not even start to clear until next week.

[Pip Madeley]

Or, indeed, the 400 mile round trip by train I paid for last night and which cost me under £30.

That's impressive for an adult ticket. I have a Young Persons Railcard until I'm 25, and it's saved me so much over the years, must be in the thousands.

[Alex]

The strike is losing me money too - I won't have any new rental discs for a week now because of their strike.

Yep, me too, and about four of my dvds have gone missing in the post lately, which has meant I've lost out on money there too. I'm also having to deal with far too many whiney people who paid for ebay items late and are confused as to why they might not receive them till next week now.

I've got to say that in some areas there are definitely too many post offices, there's two near me within a five minute walk of each other, and there's no reason for one of them to exist at all.

Edit: I don't know if this is just the Beeb being sensationalist, but they claimed that the strike could delay some letters from arriving by up to two weeks as well, which if that's the case would really pee me off.