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Unions teach their members to feel entitled to everything they have, so when someone wants to make a change they scream murder as if their very essence is under attack

Post Office Strikes continue over closures



British postal workers continued with a series of one day strikes to protest the closure of main Post Office branches which the government has planned to transfer to more efficient units based within retail shops.
It’s hard to fathom the logic of the actions. Postal workers led by their archaic Communication Workers Union (CWU) fail to see that the world has moved from letters to email and now beyond and that its services are becoming increasingly redundant. The British Post Office loses £37 million a year or about £100,000 per full service branch and the government is taking the very reasonable position that it wants the department to financially break even. Existing legislation allows the government to franchise 90% of retail operations to private industry but when it comes to unions and changing things – privatizing the jobs that they are just so entitled to – well the fur stands up on their back and you get a reaction. Debbie Spiteri, who works at the Dagenham, Essex branch; has worked for the Post Office for the past 32 years thought she had a job for life, "I thought I would be here until I retired in my 60s, but now it looks like I may be made redundant, looking for another job and at my age I didn't want to be doing that, I feel sorry for the local people. A lot are elderly and if they have to go somewhere else, they won't. They won't go into a shop to do their business because to them they want the personal touch."

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Well the reality is that while elderly people may be put out with the change they will go where they have to because they need the service. Ms. Spiteri’s thinking is classic socialist elitism. It says that we just can’t change something because the people are incapable of adapting and they’ll be lost without Big Brother, I mean the Post Office, guiding them. Debbie Spiteri is also quite put out it seems that the job that she was entitled to as long as she wanted it may now be disappearing. Unions teach their members to feel entitled to everything they have, so when someone wants to make a change they scream murder as if their very essence is under attack. In contrast to the union member position; Roger Gale, general manager of the Post Office's Crown and WH Smith network, said "It's absolutely not a programme of closing post offices, we want to retain post office services on the high street but we have to do it in a way that doesn't lose tax-payers' money. What we're trying to do is get the Crown Network to a point where it breaks even. It currently loses £37m a year of tax-payers' money and what we're trying to do is to remove that loss." But Clive Tickner the Dagenham union rep., countered "Ironically, if they close down Crown offices there will be less outlets to transact the current account so I'm very, very concerned that they are eroding away at the Post Office so that there will be nothing left in a few years' time." Well that’s right Clive in most cases the retail units probably work better so I expect that the traditional Post Office retail building will disappear, its time has come and gone. But not in the world of unions where once a job is created, eliminating it is like asking the church to remove references of Jesus from the Bible. (Which I think the left has tried) Deborah Satchell works at Heathway Dry Cleaners in Dagenham. "It will affect the local shops because people will go elsewhere to do what they have got to do and it will take the business away from the local community." This is a remarkably short-sighted viewpoint. Yes people will no longer go to the building where the Post Office was located they’ll instead go to the new Post Office, located inside a big shop like WH Smith. The business will stay in the community. Some of this granted is just a natural resistance to change, but change is generally progress except when it is government getting bigger. The British are typically antipathetic toward change which is good for tradition but bad for getting rid of things whose time has come. The postal workers are also upset that they have not received a pay raise since 2011 and are pushing for a blanket 3.5% increase. The government position is a single payment of £1,400 per employee with further payments based on performance targets. The union (CWU) is angry that compensation packages have remained static although the words anger and union are generally joined at the hip. Dave Ward, CWU deputy general secretary: "This dispute can't be resolved while the CEO Paula Vennells remains aloof and absent from talks. We've had informal talks this week which allowed a good exchange of views and discussion on various options, but there's no change, no new offers and no movement from the Post Office. It's time that Paula Vennells got her hands dirty and engaged with this dispute which affects the post office network's biggest branches. It's no good hiding in the shadows and hoping we'll go away." You have to love this classic, working class rhetoric from the unions as if they are down there in the muck desperately fighting for a solution while Paula Vennells is portrayed at having gone fashion shopping with Theresa May. Kevin Gilliland, Post Office network and sales director: "We are disappointed at the CWU's decision to call further strike action. This can only cause disruption to customers and cost our people money. We must continue with our plans to turn around the Crown network to ensure we keep these branches on high streets and in city centres across the UK. We remain open to discussions with the CWU on pay options which do not add to the current loss of public money." Gilliland’s position is quite reasonable, that we have only so much money to work with and we’re open to suggestions on how to spend it. But the bottom line is that the government is in charge and the changes are going to be done there way. And thankfully the government does run the Post Office and not the unions. Generally I’m not thankful that the government runs anything but the militant minded CWU would certainly make a much bigger mess of it.


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David C. Jennings -- Bio and Archives

David Jennings is an ex-pat Brit. living in California.

A Christian Minister he advocates for Traditional & Conservative causes.

David is also an avid fan of Liverpool Football Club and writes for the supporters club in America

David Jennings can be found on Twitter
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