Postal Strike - Do you have sympathy for the the posties?

[Dark Black]

A posties view:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n18/maya01_.html

That echo's pretty much the conversation we had with our postie the other day.

I suggest those here who voted No should read it.

We had a meeting a while back at which all the proposed changes to the business were laid out. Changes in our hours and working practices. Changes to our priorities. Changes that have led to the current chaos. We were told that the emphasis these days should be on the corporate customer. It was what the corporations wanted that mattered. We were effectively being told that quality of service to the average customer was less important than satisfying the requirements of the big businesses.

Someone piped up in the middle of it. ‘What about Granny Smith?’ he said. He’s an old-fashioned sort of postman, the kind who cares about these things.

‘Granny Smith is not important,’ was the reply. ‘Granny Smith doesn’t matter any more.’

There's more of course but I'm not paraphrasing it all - read it.

These days (and not just in the Royal Mail, everywhere) it's all about the faceless shareholding scum and upper management creaming the profits. The corporate machine is an anathema. Personally I'd love to see the destruction each and every multi-global corparation on the planet.

Private enterprise is a great thing in itself but when grow bigger than governments etc is does (and has) become a clear and present danger to the people of the world.

[darmstadt]

How are the Germans coping with immigration? Is it affecting low paid workers for example? And does everyone in German parks seem to be speaking Polish?

Well there is the German versions of the BNP here such as the NPD and the Republikaner and both seem to do better in places where there is loy unemployment such as the old East Germany. As to immigration and low paid workers, as far as I can see it hasn't really had any impact. Germany has no minimum wage but you'll still see a lot of Germans doing jobs which are performed by immigrants in the UK, i.e. shop assistants, cleaners, etc. Of course there are lots of Turkish and East Europeans doing these jobs as well but there are people who have, like many British immigrants, been born and bred here.

One area which is predominantly immigrant is the yearly asparagus harvest which is basically just Polish people. They come over at the start of the summer, work bollicking long and hard hours and then go home. There was an outcry a few years back and they tried to get Germans to do it, no chance. It was too hard and too low paid!

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[TimberWolf]

Well there is the German versions of the BNP here such as the NPD and the Republikaner and both seem to do better in places where there is loy unemployment such as the old East Germany. As to immigration and low paid workers, as far as I can see it hasn't really had any impact. Germany has no minimum wage but you'll still see a lot of Germans doing jobs which are performed by immigrants in the UK, i.e. shop assistants, cleaners, etc. Of course there are lots of Turkish and East Europeans doing these jobs as well but there are people who have, like many British immigrants, been born and bred here.

One area which is predominantly immigrant is the yearly asparagus harvest which is basically just Polish people. They come over at the start of the summer, work bollicking long and hard hours and then go home. There was an outcry a few years back and they tried to get Germans to do it, no chance. It was too hard and too low paid!

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Article 2

Hmm, interesting but quite detailed reading for a Saturday morning. It seems that while Germany has had quite a lot of immigration, it is controlled, with temporary work permits and with quotas (the latter set to end in 2011) and that they don't expect a huge influx after that. A bit like our policy should have been then. Can we be run by the Germans please (:Churchill spinning in his grave emoticon).

[EternalOptimist]

The Germans have a version of the BNP


Not again

[darmstadt]

The Germans have a version of the BNP


Not again

A few years ago the leader of, I think it was the NPD, used to live nearby but died of Aids contracted from his gay lover. Jörg Haider in Austria did it one better by getting pissed and lethally crashing his car

In the recent elections they didn't do to well although there was a significant swing to the left which is basically the old SED (East German communist party)

[TimberWolf]

A few years ago the leader of, I think it was the NPD, used to live nearby but died of Aids contracted from his gay lover. Jörg Haider in Austria did it one better by getting pissed and lethally crashing his car

In the recent elections they didn't do to well although there was a significant swing to the left which is basically the old SED (East German communist party)

I expect a similar tragic circumstances would befall any radical party leader who got within sniffing distance of being elected here too.

[Ruprect]

That echo's pretty much the conversation we had with our postie the other day.

I suggest those here who voted No should read it.



There's more of course but I'm not paraphrasing it all - read it.

These days (and not just in the Royal Mail, everywhere) it's all about the faceless shareholding scum and upper management creaming the profits. The corporate machine is an anathema. Personally I'd love to see the destruction each and every multi-global corparation on the planet.

Private enterprise is a great thing in itself but when grow bigger than governments etc is does (and has) become a clear and present danger to the people of the world.

cuckoo cuckoo !

[d000hg]

I loved the quote from a postie they played on the news quite a lot, I'll have to paraphrase as I forget the exact words: "it's got to the point management have one idea where to take the company and we have another". Why the hell do you think anyone should listen to you, that's what management's for you moron!

[Dark Black]

I loved the quote from a postie they played on the news quite a lot, I'll have to paraphrase as I forget the exact words: "it's got to the point management have one idea where to take the company and we have another". Why the hell do you think anyone should listen to you, that's what management's for you moron!

Unfortunately most management don't have a clue... generally they're the morons - that's why they're in management, no good at anything productive. HTH

[minestrone]

Unfortunately most management don't have a clue... generally they're the morons - that's why they're in management, no good at anything productive. HTH

Well it certainly is not management's fault my post keeps getting put in the neighbours door, it was not management's fault when all my neighbours kids birthday cards where found opened in a bin up the road. It was not a manager that got caught with 60,000 items of mail in his flat near me, it Was not a manager that knocked my 4 tickets to a cup final, it was not a manager that told me they were definetly stolen, it was not a manager that lost 2 registered delivery Brian Wilson tickets in his bag only for them to be put through the door 2 months later with "sorry for the lateness and damage" written on it. It was not a manager that refused to let me register a complaint for both those incidents (her manager did)

The staff are totally useless and deserve to lose their jobs.