I also run a small web based business and the postal strike is seriously damaging my business, I cannot get the stock I need or get parcels to my customers so they have stopped buying! We are also waiting on paper work for housing benefits and as a result my arrears are souring, my partners wage check hasn't come through as his office has mucked up his bank payments, without the wage slips we can't get our small amount of JSA (he only works part time).
This is seriously damaging our family life in many ways.
I can understand the gripes the workers have but why do you have to strike for such long periods of time? A day a week we can handle but I have just read that you are striking all of next week which is really going to cripple everything in our home.
We used to have a great service and yes workers do work very unsociable hours and do a great job, so please please can You all get back to it!

Kristina, kent, UK

in response to this comment

I am running a small web based business and this postal strike is crippling me. ..... Please end this now or I and many with me won't have livelihood anymore.

Mimi, Dorset, England

Mimi, your business costs royal mail, private letters costs royal mail.........you are bottom of the pile, bulk posting are where the money is, but this is a public service, a service that should be commited to giving the same service to everyone, not just the big customers, i deliver to 120 farms and takes 4 hours...DHL, TNT etc do not want this business but people rely on it, i understand that, your postman will understand that, royal mail doesnt care, profit before universal service is the motto, we want to serve the public, if we lose we wont and no one will, check the top right hand of your letters over a week, DHL, TNT etc stamped, they take profit we deliever at a lose

some things shouldnt make a profit just deliever a public service, support us

kudos, derby, england

1. The pension deal has not been sent for consultation yet. Much propoganda. Does the CWU run a final pension scheme for their emplyees? I agree what has already been paid must be protected. Different provisons/choices could have been made at start
2. Staff will keep their allowances for the later start times. Most staff don't want an early start. Their biggest problem is working late on Saturday (come on postcom do we really need Saturday delivery?)
3. I really think that most CWU member don't know why they are striking.
4. Postmen regularly finish 2 hours early while there is still work to be done. This cannot go on. I am not saying that they don't work hard but 2 hours a day is not because they have got a move on and finished early.
5. Staff use their own cars to benefit themselves. If they hadn't started using them in the first place then replenishment issues would have to be addressed. Meal breaks are left to the end of the duty to suit the staff as already stated!

Rich, North, Wales

This has nothing to do with pay. I think most postmen would accept a 0% pay rise fixed for a couple of years to help out the company, it's the changes that are the problem. The changes would amount to us doing roughly 40% extra work for 2.5% extra pay and not being able to plan a life due to changing working times. The changes will also lose the company too many customers - afternoon deliveries, unlimited junk leaflets, all part-time, low pay, low moral staff - meaning many mistakes. Our competitors offer morning deliveries and professional staff, so going down this route will doom RoyalMail.

Drew Gray, Deeside, UK

Just a few points i would like to make,if this deal goes through ,what it could mean,take a large cut off pension lump sum,also that you will be losing a considerable amount off weekly pension,after 40 years loyal service.Not forgetting having to work an extra 5 years before you can get this. When final salary pension was cut a couple of years ago there was a big outcry,why not now. Royal mail should not have taken holiday from paying into pension fund. Royal mail used job & finish as a carrot to help previous pay deal through.Competition, it seems not many people know,royal mail actually delivers competitions mail at a discount. Is adam crozier losing out,pension or salary.Dont Think So.Are the royal mail managent trying to run royal mail for the public service it is or run it down ready for privatisation.It seems so.Offer 2.5% no strings, it would probably be accepted.Ask your own postman/woman what they think.then make your mind up.

steve, newcastle, u.k.

This has become sickening to the public of this country that the postal workers unions can cripple us all over demands for more pay while not being flexible enough to agree to the abolishment of the said 'Spanish Practices'

We wait for mail and this day and age it is a given right to receive this service - are the union not thinking about the rest of the country?

Vincent M, Bournemouth, Dorset

The reason for putting an hour on delivery staffs start time, is that RM staff are payed a small (about 10 pounds) payment for starting before 6 o clock (no public transport etc at that time ) if staff are moved to 6 o'clock they lose 10 pounds early start allowance and gain 9 pounds from the 2.5 percent pay rise ..........And hey presto a pay cut ......The reduction in transport time is minimal (4mph cut) and averages minutes not an hour.

Graham, Suffolk, England

yes we do rush around to finish,but you and businesses get your mail earlier to deal with.now you will get it in the afternoon. i do businesses on my round and they do not like it late!

david, neverland,

I have 4 kids to meet from school at 3 oclock so i like many other postman like to start before my start time of 6am because there is always some work i can start on in preparation of my walk. I also work my 40 minute break which is my choice and which i get back at the end of my walk. Managers up and down the country know that this goes on but turn a blind eye to it because the job gets done and customers get their mail early. No manager has ever told me to take my break even through i should by law. I have created my own early finish by doing these two things. This benefits me because it gies me a coupleof ours spare to do things like shopping and paying bills. Check how many postman use their cars to take out their mail becaue there are not enough freestanding boxes to have their mail dropped off by drivers. We have about 20 which have been sitting in our yard for about two years but no funds to have them installed. Most postmen that finish early have made that time themselves.

pat, london, england

Royal Mail's broke and has been for some time; the lifeline has been the Government funding of a modernisation program submitted by Royal Mail which will enable them (agreed by the CWU) to compete in the market place. This funding is for new state of the art machinery etc and NOTHING else - funding doesn't cover 'working practices', pay, pensions or any other issues now in dispute although new 'best practice' procedures will have been put forward by Royal Mail to secure the necessary funding. The Union and workforce want the Government to pay - it can't because of conflict of interest with other Public Sector organisations and (because it's tax payers money) the Private Sector. But if forced to it may look to privatise RM if it is politcally expedient to do so and that may just gain all party support. Accept the fact that 'best practice' is employed in every other work place, that it is no longer sustainable for pensions to be based on final years salary and GET ON WITH IT

Richard, Reading, Berks

It is becoming incresingly clear that this man Adam "Archie Andrews" Crozier is not up to the job. Now even the chairman of his company is having to correct his wilder assertions. Just how long are we, the taxpayers of this country, expected to pay the salary of this failure?

Bill, Hutton,

So Royal Mail will have to slow it's lorries down because the law changes. It will therefore not need workers to start at 5 but 6. Sensibly they start to prepare for this change. What do workers do? Go on unofficial and illegal strike action. DO they suggest that Royal Mail break the law? Sometimes businesses have to change and that means employees jobs to. The unions also say they were promised 5 years ago that their members could go home early if they finished their particular job. Well times change and now it can not be afforded. Most of us have to do other things if we finish our job not just go home.

We can not afford to have our postal system on strike like this and I think that in the end the employees will be partially responsible for them losing their own jobs.

john, warwick,

Why are the media generally ignoring the link of the imposed changes to the delivery service with the closure of rural and urban post office counters. They both aim at the same goal privatisation and franchising. Post Office Ltd. have led the way and look how closure as devastated the service to the communities involved. The same result is assured on delivery is the neoliberal marketeers get their way.

Jim Cole, falmouth, Cornwall

I will not be voting for gordon brown due to his disgusting behaviour in relation to the postal strike. He has no idea what he is talking about (as usual) and could resolve the problem if he bothered talking to the union. He has not held an election after letting the media speculate. He is a bad idea as a pm. He is on the side of the tax payer? That says it all. A man in a position of power ,relating not to the workers that supply us with essentials but with the managers.

Sally, chesire, uk

I am running a small web based business and this postal strike is crippling me. Payment is not reaching me, customer is going to the highstreet instead because the delivery times are too long etc. I have two young children to support and have worked hard for my business and if the strikes continues it will all fall apart. The postal strike does not just affect letter and junkmail - the effects are far more serious than that and it is us little people who will take the brunt of it. Please end this now or I and many with me won't have livelihood anymore.

Mimi, Dorset, England

"Gordon Brown and Mr Hutton called for the Communication Workers Union (CWU) to accept an offer on pay and pensions and to sort out differences over working arrangements with Royal Mail."

Thanks Gordon, I bet your pay & pension is all sorted for the rest of your working life!
Allan Leighton bought in 'job & finish' as a sweetener when he decided to get rid of 2nd delivery and bring in Single Day Delivery, not sure if he ever got round to telling Adam Crozier that, as Mr Crozier seems to think we are all idle, lazy, so called workers, even though the majority work their meal breaks and start their shift up to an hour early. As of this week Royal Mail have implemented Executive Action, posties hours have been changed with no thought to family commitments when they finish work, unlike Leighton & Crozier we work full-time for our £323 gross wage (Adam Crozier seems to think we get paid £440, i am owed a lot of back pay then!) Good of Mr Crozier to award himself a £370k bonus, we got 92p.

k66yla, south east, england