‘My subversive testament to the dedication of postal workers’
Post worker Roy Mayall wrote the popular book Dear Granny Smith – which became an overnight hit. He explains how it all came about.
Read the article here.
Downstream Access
Downstream Access (DSA) is the means by which private mail companies can gain access to the Royal Mail network, using Royal Mail staff to deliver their mail for them. It is the result of a series of EU directives whose ostensible purpose was to liberalise and harmonise postal services across Europe. What the process has actually achieved is the casualisation of postal worker’s jobs and diminishing standards for the ordinary consumer….
Read more here.
British postal union seeks to deliver management’s agenda
By Tony Robson
3 February 2010
Since calling off the national strike last November, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has been locked in secret talks with Royal Mail (RM) over the fate of the jobs and conditions of the union’s 120,000 members. Deputy General Secretary Dave Ward claimed to have secured a climb-down by management. Instead, the CWU is continuing to act as a junior partner of management in carrying out the business objectives of RM.
Read more.
Number 10 petition
We believe it would be far better to let Royal Mail once again have a monopoly and let it get on with what it’s been doing for 350 years.
Dear Majesty – A song based on Dear Granny Smith
I wrote this song after listening to the serialisation of Roy Mayall’s book ‘Dear Granny Smith’ on BBC Radio 4 . Also last year I took part in a Market Research day for the Royal Mail and came away dismayed.
So I wrote this song. The lyrics speak for themselves. The song is dedicated to Roy Mayall and all the other Posties who try and do their jobs in very difficult circumstances. The Shadow Kabinet say SAVE THE ROYAL MAIL! Who said the protest song is dead?
Steve Somerset.
Royal Mail in the Free Market Casino
It’s not a free market, it’s a rigged market, says Roy Mayall
All of this talk of “the market” makes you wonder.
What market?
Because when you take a close look at it, the market doesn’t exist. There is no market. It turns out to be little more than a propaganda tool used by the privatisation lobby to beat the Royal Mail over the head with.
Read more.
“Charmingly subversive”
This is my favourite review of Dear Granny Smith so far, from the review website Me and My Big Mouth. Read it here.
At last, someone who understands what I’m saying.
Loopholes
I was talking to my union rep about the attendance procedure, the process by which posties are threatened with dismissal for being ill. ‘The union must have negotiated this,’ I said. ‘If the union hadn’t negotiated it, it wouldn’t exist.’
‘But if the union hadn’t negotiated it,’ my union rep said, ‘it would be worse. Anyway, it’s not the procedure that’s wrong, it’s bad management and the way they use it.’
But as I pointed out to him, if the management can misuse the procedure to the detriment of postal workers, that means there are loopholes in it, which means it’s a bad agreement.
Read more here.
