I'm a postie working for Royal Mail in UK and I got a small rant to make.
Met Office issued red extreme heat warning on Monday and Sunday.
Our work guidelines clearly states: “Suspend deliveries and/or collections with immediate effect and maintain the suspension until the Met Office weather warning reduces to Amber or below.”
Are they going to suspend it? Not a chance. Instead they went with “JuSt StArt TwO hOuRs EaRLiEr.” So we'll be at the office 5am instead of 6:45am and keep the mail and parcels flowing until 11am.
They claim that customers are still expecting mail and parcels but we know they don't really want to give us time off.
Doesn't matter we worked hard during the pandemic and lockdowns. We were constantly in building with other posties and we were hoping our mask will work so we don't bring back COVID to our families on daily basis.
During the pandemic we decided to introduce a big change that'll make our job easier. RM looked at the plans and went “nah, this will cost us 6-700 millions a year.” But we went ahead and did it anyway. Ended up making £1bn profits.
Corporate went great job and gave themselves large bonuses. Rewarded the shareholders £400 millions. “What about us?” We asked. “Can we get a pay raise? The cost of living is going up.” They went “Sure, we got your back. We'll give you big 2% pay raise!”
£9 extra a week. That's all we worth to them. A large tub of Lurpak. 2 lunch deal at the shops. So we told them “That's not much, we need more. What about those record profits we made for you?” “Urgh fine, we'll give you 5.5% but with strings attached. We barely have any money left.”
The strings? Mandatory Sunday duties. Getting rid of illness retirement. Flexible hours like starting later during summer and later during winter.
Not good enough. No wonder why we're inching to strike soon. Thank you for reading my rant.