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Disco_Destroyer
Trustworthy Freedom Fighter
Joined: 05 Sep 2006
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 Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 4:16 pm Post subject: Royal Mail posties attacked from inside by Corporate crims |
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Royal Mail privatisation means reduction in staff and reliance on under paid agency staff.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/royal-mail/8575070/20000-Royal- Mail-workers-face-the-axe.html
| Quote: | 20,000 Royal Mail workers face the axe
Tens of thousands of Royal Mail workers face the threat of losing their job after the company reported a £120 million loss in its letters and parcels business following a huge slump in the number of people sending post. |
Looks like crafty business is afoot 
http://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/community/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37115
| Quote: | Has anyone noticed that if you look for a job as a postie nowadays that Royal Mail directs you to a company called Angrad Staffing which is now seemingly providing all non-permanent positions in the company i.e. the bulk of jobs going. The rate of pay quoted by Angard is £5.95 per hour.
Now if Royal Mail were going to use an agency for recruiting casual staff you would have thought that they would use an established company but no, here we have a newly formed organisation that seems to be dedicated to providing staff to Royal Mail.
Listed as a director of the company is a John Duncan. Now this coudn't be the same John Duncan that was not long ago recruited to be Royal Mails Human Resources Director. It also has a director called Kathleen Anne Harmeston. Could this be the same Kathleen Anne Harmeston appointed as director of Royal Mail Innovations Ltd only last April.
If so either Royal Mail are bringing in casual staff on the cheap or someone is making a killing at the expense of Royal Mail.
It would be worth someone with some investigative experience to have a check and see what is going on here. |
| Quote: | Royal Mail Group Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales, number
4138203, registered office 100 Victoria Embankment, London, EC4Y 0HQ
ANGARD STAFFING SOLUTIONS LIMITED
100 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT
LONDON
EC4Y 0HQ |
| Quote: | | Corruption in Royal Mail...... surely not !! |
| Quote: | | yep, checked out companies house. Angard have one share allocated owned by Royal Mail. So its just a way to get labour on the cheap and outside usual terms and conditions. |
| Quote: | """"Royal mail has recently undertaken a comprehensive review of their approach to the use of temporary staff and other flexible resource. As a result of this exercise they have appointed Angard Staffing as their future provider of flexible recourse. Angard will attract and recruit employees, and subsequently manage a pool of employees to fulfil short-term assignments with Royal mail in future.""""
This is a direct quote sent out to all Reeds employees. All mistakes grammatical and otherwise belong to Reeds and Angard. All temporary staff will work for Angard as of the 16/09/11. Angard are not going to pay more than minimum wage nor offer conditions that will exceed their statuary obligations. It is a cost cutting exercise whereby the middle man, Reeds, in this case will be removed from the equation...however a large layer of bureaucracy will have to be added to Angard/Royal Mail and it remains to be seen if they can cope with the thousands of temps currently working throughout Royal Mail.
A very wide back door leading to the complete casualisation of Royal Mail staff has just been opened. |
| Quote: | It all becomes clear once once a little research is done. My mistake.
As of the 1st Oct the new Agency Worker Directive and Regulations 2010 will come into force. Google it if you want to read the whole thing but the main provision that effects the Royal Mail is the Equal Pay for Equal Work part. This means that they can no longer pay temp workers less than perm workers...However there is a little snag...you have to have been in the job for 12 weeks before benefiting from this clause.
The 12 weeks clause is the reason that new Temp staff are only being offered 12 week contracts by Angard. There is always a way to screw the working man/woman and there is always a boss willing to walk that way. |
| Quote: | Well now we have the answer as to why Royal Mail should revive a defunct company. To screw the Agency workers. There are many many Agency workers who are labouring under the belief that the New European Agency workers legistlation will apply to them and that once they complete their initial 12 week period after 01/10/11 they will be entitled to the same pay as Royal Mail workers ie. Equal work = Euqual pay....ha ha ha. The 12 weeks will never begin and what little protection they had under the Agency worker law has been removed. A trawl through the regulations governing in House recruitment law is in order.
Casualistain of the work force just got a a lot closer and I wonder how this step by Angard/Royal Mail stacks up with Union protection of the work force from exploitation via casualisation? |
| Quote: | Emergency motion E4 : Agency workers
Congress notes with concern the report of 5 September 2011 that the government plans to reduce the rights that the Agency Worker Regulations introduced on 1 October this year. Congress, however, believes that the existing regulations already fall short of the legal and moral requirements that the Agency Workers Directive imposes on EU states.
The subsequently issued statements by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) on 6 and 10 September supported the review of so- called 'gold-plated' provisions. The REC has produced a specific briefing document on the 'Swedish Derogation' advising agencies how to use this to best advantage.
Congress notes with concern in recent weeks the increasing numbers of employers, including the major supermarkets' meat supply chain, seeking to avoid the application of equal rights for agency workers by applying 'the Swedish Derogation'. This will allow employers, in conjunction with agency businesses, to avoid equal pay by directly employing the agency workers on contracts that may offer as little as one hour's work per week.
Congress therefore instructs the General Council to explore grounds for a legal challenge against the UK government in respect of its failure to properly implement the spirit and the legal requirements of the Agency Workers Directive. |
see also
http://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/community/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=38425
_________________
'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
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fish5133
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Joined: 13 Sep 2006
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Location: One breath from Glory
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| Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 11:48 pm Post subject: |
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Think there are similar tactics being used by Newspaper delivery and other piece work. I deliver free papers and have had new terms and conditions issued to me that have a couple of slightly obsure terms in. Thus i have not signed them.
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"for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in high places " Eph.6 v 12 |
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Disco_Destroyer
Trustworthy Freedom Fighter
Joined: 05 Sep 2006
Posts: 6342
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| Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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Ofcom offers little hope to Royal Mail
Royal Mail has a new regulator, but its proposals fail to protect the service from privatisation and unfair competition
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/28/ofcom-royal-mail-r egulator
Roy Mayall
guardian.co.uk, Friday 28 October 2011 08.00 BST
Article history
| Quote: | Under Ofcom's proposals, 'Royal Mail has a monopoly of the work, while other companies get a share of the profits'. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images
The Royal Mail now has a new regulator, Ofcom, which took over the role from Postcomm on 1 October. Ofcom has already issued a report in which a number of changes are proposed. There is a public consultation under way, which closes on 5 January 2012.
The most contentious of the proposals is the one to lift the cap on what the Royal Mail can charge for its principal service. According to some reports this could mean the price of a first-class stamp going up to £1. Less well recognised, but equally important, is the proposal to lift the cap on the price of bulk mail and business mail, which could also have an impact on customers further down the line.
The move to Ofcom follows on from proposals made in the Hooper report, which has been the basis of policy for successive governments since it was first published in 2008. It was updated at the request of the current government in 2010.
Hooper makes a number of recommendations, of which the change of regulators is just one. Other recommendations include the introduction of private capital through a "strategic partnership with a company with corporate experience of modernisation" – privatisation – and the removal of the pension deficit to the public purse, thus lifting the burden from any future buyer. In March 2010 the deficit stood at £8bn. Hooper states that his proposals must be taken as a package, which implies that privatisation is not far off.
The stated aim of both the Hooper report and the Ofcom proposals is the protection of the Universal Service Obligation (USO) by which the Royal Mail is required to collect and deliver letters six days a week at an affordable and uniform price across the UK. None of the other mail companies has this obligation. It is interesting to note that these proposals come on the eve of privatisation. They allow any future buyer the freedom, not allowed to the Royal Mail for the past few years, to set a price in line with actual costs.
Meanwhile Ofcom also offers safeguards to protect vulnerable consumers from onerous price rises by placing a cap on the price of second-class stamps of between 45-55p. It also, very significantly, promises "to require Royal Mail to continue to provide competitors with access to its delivery network".
It's at this point that we enter the bizarre world of "downstream access". Hooper explains the term in his report, in a footnote on page 12:
"Royal Mail delivers 99% of all letters downstream. Royal Mail is required by the regulator … under the terms of its licence to deliver letters for competitors who collect and sort upstream in competition with Royal Mail. This is called the access regime or downstream access regime. Competition in physical mail happens upstream whereas downstream delivery of physical mail has the characteristics of a monopoly."
Do you get that folks? "Competition in physical mail" – that is competition for profits – "happens upstream", while "downstream delivery of physical mail" – that is, the actual work – "has the characteristics of a monopoly". Royal Mail has a monopoly of the work, while the other companies get a share of the profits. And you wonder why the USO is under threat?
The Ofcom proposals continue: "Royal Mail would have the freedom to set the 'wholesale price' for access to its network but would be subject to rules regarding the allowed margin between the wholesale and retail prices. This would help ensure that efficient competitors can compete effectively with Royal Mail." This is known in the business as "headroom". It is the difference between what the Royal Mail is allowed to charge, and what the "competitors" – who don't, in any recognisable sense of the word, actually compete – require in order to continue to generate profits for themselves.
Ofcom makes a sort of nod of recognition to the absurdity of the situation when it promises, in the next sentence, "to assess on a case-by-case basis any interest in providing so-called 'end-to-end competition' in the UK, where a postal operator receives the letter and delivers to an address without using Royal Mail's network." It is interesting to speculate what this might mean. Are we going to see rival pillar boxes on our street corners, and rival posties with different coloured uniforms vying with each other to get to the letter box first? Will there be a kind of postal workers' turf-war going on, in which I meet my rival at the gate and have to fight him off for access to your letter box?
Of course not. The rival companies will only consider an end-to-end service if there is profit to be made, which means they won't be in the slightest bit interested in the USO. If such a thing happens at all it will be delivery within one city, or between cities, no more. Rural and remote areas of Britain will never be graced by any but the Royal Mail's characteristic uniform. Whatever else happens, the Universal Service Obligation will remain the obligation of one company alone. Which is the reason why the Royal Mail will always remain a special case. |
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'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
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Disco_Destroyer
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 10:48 am Post subject: |
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I've had 1 8hr shift in nearly 5 weeks lol
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2011/10/31/roy-mayall/the-future-of-work/
| Quote: | The Future of Work
Roy Mayall 31 October 2011
Tags: employment | royal mail
With Christmas approaching, the Royal Mail is taking on 18,000 temporary staff to help cover the extra work. This happens every year. This year, though, all job enquires are being directed to a company called Angard Staffing Solutions Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Royal Mail. It doesn’t just handle temporary staff over Christmas. There appears to be no way to get a job as a postal worker these days except by going through Angard.
The normal contract is for 38 weeks (less for the temporary Christmas workers). Staff are employed by Angard but seconded to the Royal Mail. They are required to do any work that their Royal Mail manager requests, though they are officially supervised by an Angard manager. They are not guaranteed any regular hours, and have no fixed place of work (though they will not be required to work outside the UK). They will not be paid for hours they do not work. For this they will be paid the minimum wage: £6.08 an hour (£4.98 if you’re under 21).
In other words, they will do exactly the same job as a Royal Mail employee, but for £2.78 an hour less. They could be sitting around waiting for a telephone call for days on end, to get only a few hours work a week. They can be moved from site to site and job to job at will. If they turn a job down, for any reason, they can be dismissed. Night workers are paid 50p extra an hour.
On 1 October the EU Agency Workers Regulations came into force in the UK. These give agency workers the same rights as permanent employees after 12 weeks. However, by employing the agency workers directly through a subsidiary, the Royal Mail appears to be able to side-step the regulations. The guidance for employers from the government says:
Those who are likely to be outside the scope of the regulations include… individuals working for in-house temporary staffing banks where a company employs its temporary workers directly (and they only work for that same business or service).
All other agency workers have had their contracts cancelled and replaced by Angard contracts. In many cases workers have had to wait weeks to be paid. One Angard worker told me it took over a month for him to get his first pay cheque. He said that the management are virtually impossible to get hold of and that if you ask them a question they fob you off. On several occasions he was given shifts which were cancelled when he turned up for work. The excuse? They were double-booked.
The Royal Mail denies it’s trying to get round the regulations. ‘The company is fully compliant with UK employment law,’ it says, ‘and any suggestion that Angard Staffing Solutions has been set up to, in some way, get round the new Agency Workers Regulations is nonsense.’
Still, Angard staff are not covered by agreements made with the union, and although they have the right to statutory holiday and sick pay, their conditions of employment are, by definition, less secure than their permanent colleagues’. It seems certain that only compliant employees will be kept on for more than 38 weeks. With unemployment on the rise, and jobs ever more scarce, is this the future of work in the UK? |
_________________
'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
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Disco_Destroyer
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| Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2011 9:38 pm Post subject: |
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unknown employee
| Quote: | | We have put up notices in our RDC encouraging Angard staff to either join the union and/or take out a grievance in the issue of non payment of wages and also to start Tribunal proceedings for Unlawful deductions from Pay section 13 Employment rights Act....a days pay for a day work..always |
re no payment of RM staff
_________________
'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
www.myspace.com/disco_destroyer |
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Disco_Destroyer
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 3:22 pm Post subject: |
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many Royal mail temps have been missing pay for weeks now, some made homeless due to this!
Interview on this program:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0196qrw
| Quote: | Just had a phone call from Minimum wages dept following submission of complaint via payandworkrights.direct.gov.uk
they say they have been phoning people this morning who have registered complaints with them, some have been receiving money from Angard. However statement to them from Angard "All outstanding pay will be finalised by 20th January 2012".
I told them that this is another fob off from Angard as this date is not as yet in public domain, so be prepared peeps.
It would be worth all who are members of this facebook page (190 so far) to go onto the website www.payandworkrights.direct.gov.uk/complaints it only takes 5 mins to complete. |
_________________
'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
www.myspace.com/disco_destroyer |
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Disco_Destroyer
Trustworthy Freedom Fighter
Joined: 05 Sep 2006
Posts: 6342
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| Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 10:50 am Post subject: |
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Message sent to you follows:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please do not reply to this email,please use the Guardian email address
below.
graham.snowdon@guardian.co.uk
The Guardian are looking for updates,don't forget to mention the debt
letters some of you have had from them.
-----------------------------------------
From Graham:
I've heard from a few Royal Mail xmas temps who say they have still not
been paid for work they did before xmas, or have been paid bizarre amounts
of money (ranging from 0.01p to £100).
I want to reinvestigate the situation,i would like those who worked for
Angard to contact me by email if they have have experienced the above
scenario, and particularly if resulting cashflow problems have caused them
problems meeting rent/mortgage payments etc. It would help me enormously if
those getting in touch would potentially be willing to be named in a news
story about it.
I would really need to hear back from anyone affected by Wednesday if
possible.
_________________
'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
www.myspace.com/disco_destroyer |
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Disco_Destroyer
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TonyGosling
Editor
Joined: 25 Jul 2005
Posts: 18335
Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
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Disco_Destroyer
Trustworthy Freedom Fighter
Joined: 05 Sep 2006
Posts: 6342
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| Posted: Thu May 10, 2012 2:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | someone who i cant name works for a social care company in their administration dept. anyway they received a phone call from offcom asking them if they would answer a questionnaire regarding Royal mails' quality of service. They asked how the residents would feel about the suspension of the six day delivery and also was the time of delivery important to them. The questionnaire was only available by entering a code into a google search URL which was given over the phone......sinister or what?
Like · · Follow post · 19 hours ago
The upside down crucifix used by RM as a logo is sinister! |
_________________
'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
www.myspace.com/disco_destroyer |
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