i think they are rite in what they are doing just to get a bit more money . but in anothe way its realy annoying as they dont take into consideration peoples familys like mine who get paid their wages by cheque and relie on the royal mail to deliver it on time. and that has just messed things up at the moment. im sure there must be another way

leanne, sheffield, southyorkshire

Stop going on strike! -.-

you know this might sound selfish, but tbh the post has no right to strike i fight the service to be disgusting not the mangers but the postmen them selves!

i think you should at least be able to do your job and do it well before you consider your self unfairly treated!

whats more with working conditons and pay a thousand times all over the world be greatful for what uve got!

further more im sick of the huge delay on packages

Scott Kelly, Liverpool,

Oh goodie another strike i loose £60 and have twice the amount of mail to deliver the next day well done CWU that will show them all the postmen and women delivering five days mail in four days. Leighton and Crozier must be laughing all the way to the post office if they can find one.

Tim, Manchester,

Morale at the Royal Mail has never been so low. I'm speaking from experience as a postman / delivery driver in the Greater Manchester area (12 years service) and i've experienced harassment, both from staff and management.

Mail constantly arrives late from the mail centre in Manchester and when a postman / driver states that he does not wish to work overtime because of this, there is a constant thread of harassment from the local line manager, inviting you into his office and asking for reasons why you won't complete your duty.

The job stinks, and like a fish rotting from the head, the whole lot of us are affected. Contrary to the recruitment advertisements, Royal Mail most certainly isn't a great company to work for and i'd advise anyone considering a career in logistics to steer well clear of this sinking ship.

Dave, Salford,

Royal mail claim an urgent need to modernise well the government provided aloan of 1.2 billion over ayear ago and not apenny has been spent it would be nice to hear the media quiz leighton and crozier about this.As regards royal mails endemic culture of bullying and harassment i can vouch that this is condoned by leighton and crozier as my experiences of such abuses through my two decades service as a postman and subsequent efforts to seek redress were rebuffed at their offices by staff who stated they would not deal with postman directly,so much for the fallacy of leightons open door policy.

bobmcguigan, watford, england

People are continuing to make comments about their mail turning up late, let me put it in plain enlglish..Royal mail only make 1 delivery now instead of the 2 deliveries years ago. You can recieve your mail up to 2p.m. Blame RM for that, and in a few weeks time it will be even later because there changing our start times till later. RM dont wont us to leave the office till gone 9a.m. The strike is nothing to do with pay I'd be happy with 2.5% but its all the strings that are attatched like closing more post offices, job cuts, later deliveries etc. When are leighton and crozier gonna realise RM's greatest asset was delivering to every home EARLY before the competition can get there. Now some company will come along and we'll collect your mail and delivery it when you want it WITH YOU BREAKFAST. There will be a gap in the market for, no one wants to come home from work and have a bill that says 'please phone today without delay' but oh dear its to late!

Lee, surrey,

40000 job cuts ( may be)? 40000 less CWU members paying a weekly subscription of £4-00 per week ? That's over 8million per year loss in incomre for the CWU.
Who's pulling the strings here and who's having theirs pulled?

Postmen lose a days pay, the Royal Mail loses even more business!

The CWU are out to look after their own interests, or have I missed the point?

Dave thomas, southampton,

Royal Mail have no available funds for a proper pay rise, yet are able to pay Crozier & Leighton there massive bonuses.

Now we learn that all front line managers are getting between £1200 & £2000 bonus for what.

They also recently spent £18 million on tv screens for all offices. So where is all the money for this coming from and why are Royal Mail so reluctant to release the end of year report, are they trying to hide things from the public.

MDEC, Plymouth,

i currently work for royal mail as a postie in a small delievery office in kent. there are, as always too sides to this argument. each making some intersting points. however, have they considered the impact fridays strike will have on people such as myself. i am not a union member and therefore did not recieve a ballot for strike action. i am not a member for any other reason other than i choose not to be. however i consider it unfair that im going to lose about £60 of my wages next week as my delievery office is to be closed. i cannot work even thou i want to. i have a young family to support and this just isn't on. i am losing out even thou i have had no part in this industrial dispute. wake up royal mail, stop shafting the people who actually give a monkeys and work blooodly hard for you.

M. Harrod, herne bay,

Post staff go on strike - am I bothered --- NO.
Mail is a dying business - how many individuals rely on it ? and companies use the alternatives to Royal Mail. By strinking these people are only speeding up the day they are alll our of work !! Get real the days of public sector golden pensions and "treats" are over

Peer, Sudbury, Suffolk

why doesn't the media ask leighton and crozier about there 500,000 pound bonous they recieved and there 1 million pound a year wages. Its not all about the pay increase its about securing jobs for there futures and the way royal mail treat workers with utter contempt. They have one mission and thats to bring the work force to there knees and send the post office into privatisasion.

d. elliott, leicester, england

In a day and age where market forces, competiton and deregulation affect the postal industry, the "workers" would do well to remember that "prudence" might be appropriate if they want to preserve their jobs for the future. A few more percentage today, but how many job loses in the future? All the striking in the world wont help them to make their point, just drive more of their customers to other sources.

Godfrey the Giraffe , Birmingham , UK

Far from wanting to improve services Royal Mail seems determined to ruin it by killing the golden goose that is their own workforce. They have at their disposal an enormous amount of experience, local knowledge and goodwill but instead of rewarding long service and commitment they treat us with utter contempt with below inflation pay offers with so many strings attached.
Think again messrs.Crozier and Leighton.
Look after your workforce. They are the people who really make the difference.

P.Hewlett, Ware, Herts

Royal Mail decided to take a long payment holiday on the pension fund in the 90's. So why do they blame us now when it was there decision.

MDEC, Plymouth,

As a postwomen i feel that the customers are not getting the full picture of why we are striking...
We are not bothered about the 2.5% pay rise, we are not concerned about modernisation, we ARE concerned about the way we are being treated and the possible 40.000 job cuts within a couple of years.
Leighton, Crozier and co are promising all staff a bonus when we reach all our targets, (which will not happen).
We used to have a decent pension plan that has gone down the pan, due to lack of money, and to top it all off they are now wanting to spend money on electric bikes, mopeds and other expensive equipment to try making our deliveries quicker, which in the long term means we will be taking 2 deleveries out and not finishing until about tea time!!!
GONE ARE THE DAYS WHEN YOU READ YOUR MAIL WITH YOUR BREAKFAST!

Clare , Yorks,

The reaons why mail is delivered from anywhere beteween 0700 and 1645 is because
1.The line managers will not allow the postal workers out of the ofiice until
sometimes as late as 9am.,especially when the post is particularly heavy.
2.If somebody goes sick at short notice the delivery will be taken out by somebody who already has done one delivery that day.
3.The postal worker maybe on annual leave again the delivery will be taken out
by somebody who has already doneone delivery that day.
Conclusion -poor planning by the Delivery Manager not the postman.
The Delivery Manager dosen't care what time of day the delivery is made as long as it's delivered that day.

john, shrewsbury, uk

The real question is, "if the Royal Mail went on strike, would anyone really notice?" Mail delivery in my area is so hit or miss that I wouldn't know they were striking unless they posted the news to me... and maybe even not then.
MAG, London

MAG, London, UK

The simple fact is that RM needs to modernise, it has about 3 times more staff than many foreign counterparts, and far less efficient. Now that the market is open to competitors, they really need to deliver on service. They are not going to do that by going on strike strike. By going on strike, they are basically saying to their commercial customers (which subsidise everything else) theres is the door. Business customers will jump ship, before they know it, the workforce will simply be glad of a job, never mind a pay rise! The workers have to relise in the current climate, RM simpy cannot afford to pay the rates they are demanding. I would entirely agree with them if RM was raking in money. but they are not. They need to take a reality check.

Alan Cameron , Northampton , UK

royal mail is so old-fashioned. If you go into a post office, if you're a business you can't pay by cheque, by visa or even have an account or pay weeky/monthly. Stamps and services have to be paid with cash.

Royal mail has done away with the simple weight for postage calculations that anyone could understand, and replaced them with size/thickness/weight calculations so you need to take letters to a post office to calculate. But they've decided to close most of the post offices.

Royal mail is the last unreconstructed nationalised industry (along with the health service?), that governments have been too shy to tackle.

If any decent modern distribution/courier service is given half a chance to compete with Royal mail, I wouldn't fancy RM's chances. The writing has been on the wall long enough. If the staff, and everyone involved haven't troubled to spot it, then I think they've brought the problems on themselves.

Is it too late to set a dynamic, far-sighted agenda for RM?

nick, hereford,

When Gas/Electricity & telecoms markets were opened up to competition those companies were allowed to modernize beforehand. RM was not given that option. The end result is that the people in the front line suffer as management resorts to panic measures to make savings.It is not a cable or a pipe carrying out this work,it is overworked & under paid human beings

RM lost an £8 mill per annum contract with Amazon.com yesterday. The reality is that they will still have to deliver those items but for an awful lot less revenue. Were Amazon dissatisfied with RM's service,not at all but a competitor cherry picked their contract. .

Very soon we will no longer have a sustainable universal service as unfair competition continues decimate RM as a business.

Support your postman/women. They are being asked to deliver more mail than ever over longer hours for less pay. The proposed 2.5% pay offer has conditions attached to it which actually means a cut in pay of between £15-£30 pounds per week.

steve, Manchester, UK

the deliveryof amil is not the pstmans fault if they were left to work how they have worked for years mail would still be there b4 most people had breakfast if the population was to sit down and see what postman have to deal with at the moment they might understand

andy, leicester, leicestershire

Pay me Mr Crozier's £1,000,000 bonus and I would retire from Royal Mail and live on the interest.These guys do not live in the same world as us Posties and any balloon who says their work force is 20% over paid and 40% under worked should not be surprised that they all vote to strike when our basic pay is £324 a week before TAX.

Try living on that Mr Crozier after Mr Brown takes his cut and you find not a lot left for flashy cars and champagne.

Post crices, Newtownards,

From the Postman's Side
I'm a postman based in REDCAR, the way I see it, the government have got to decide, is the postal service 'a service to the public', or is purely about making money?
You won't find the competitors taking a postcard to a granny living in Castleton, they are simply skimming the business side.
The other point people don't realise, is that although yes we are loosing business to the competition, Royal Mail still does the last mile, by delivering our competitors mail, and I reckon we'll still be doing it in 10yrs time. Apart from anything else the postman's sack is getting heavier.
So yes I'm quite prepared to strike for a decent living wage.
And no I'm not underworked & overpaid, it's a semiskilled job, I'm entrusted to look after in some cases mail valued at £1000, you see a man walking down the street pushing letters into a letterbox and say I could do that job, you don't see the 500 letter frame I've got to sort everymorning come rain hail or shine.

Len Wilson, REDCAR,

if royal mail ave no money to pay the actual workers why pay crozier £350,000 bonus????

peter john capp, ruislip, u.k

hmm starnge that mr crozier didnt say they walked out on negotiations and isnt it a pity we cant make savings from his wages 15 grand a week for telling us postmen and women we are getting paid more then average people for what we do
take a look in the mirror adam

andy, leicester, leicestershire

As an ex-Royal Mail employee, I cannot for the life of me understand why the union chose to have a one day strike on a Friday, it will mean that all the post people will get hammered on Saturday by playing catch up with the mail. Surley it would have made more sense to strike on Saturday, thereby allowing all staff a bonus weekend, and catch up could have been done gradually during the following week.

Dave Donoghue, Lydney, UK

When Gas/Electricity & telecoms markets were opened up to competition those companies were allowed to modernize beforehand. RM was not given that option. The end result is that the people in the front line suffer as management resorts to panic measures to make savings.It is not a cable or a pipe carrying out this work,it is overworked & under paid human beings

RM lost an £8 mill per annum contract with Amazon.com yesterday. The reality is that they will still have to deliver those items but for an awful lot less revenue. Were Amazon dissatisfied with RM's service,not at all but a competitor cherry picked their contract. .

Very soon we will no longer have a sustainable universal service as unfair competition continues decimate RM as a business.

Support your postman/women. They are being asked to deliver more mail than ever over longer hours for less pay. The proposed 2.5% pay offer has conditions attached to it which actually means a cut in pay of between £15-£30 pounds per week.

Steve, Manchester, UK

The postal service is in such a shabby state anyway with late mail on regular occasions, will we even notice if they strike for a day?

Andrew, Oxford,

Royal Mail are attempting to fool the public- they have continued to destroy the once brilliant service they provided. Postmen not allowed to leave the office until 9am , a year ago postmen left the office at 6.45 am. All they are doing is handing the business to their competitors on a plate. Mind you Postcomm have done their bit to help destroy not improve the service. I feel sorry for the public and the postmen, not the fat cat bosses.

D.J.WILLIAMS, SOUTHAMPTON, Hampshire

Dear Sir,
I am a postman in London and I feel that the proposed strike should not just be seen in terms of pay. There is a strong feeling amongst postal workers that the current management's intentions are to 'Wal-Mart' us into a workforce with no rights, no benefits and no say in the running of the business. The only power we have is to withdraw our labour. No doubt the present directors of Royal Mail will move on shortly to other companies or positions in the Labour Party - we will still be here, working unsociable hours, to support our families and throwing more money into the pension black hole.
Thanks,
Peter Higgin-Jones

Peter Higgin-Jones, Isleworth, Middlesex

The service is poor,deliveries range from 0700 to 1645 so its a guess when they come
So will anyone notice any difference?

Stuart MILLIGAN, Southport, UK