Just received the postoffice workers magazine "The Courier" shocked to read on page 9 that they now want to raise the age of retirement to 65 not for new starts but to all workers If you want to retire at 60 we will have to pay extra another pay cut not highlighted by Allan.

kirsty , glasgow, scotland

its not the pay it is all about the lies and cheating and broken promises over the years.the conditons under which we work plus those that are about to be forced upon us,we have no trust or belief in anything we are told anymore,we the workers are been badly mis presented in the press time to get the facts people not just re write what comes out of rm

steve, yorkshire,

Looks like the Unions once again have the MPs in their pockets - as a Change Management consultant I can see the vision the RM Board & A.L. have - The Pmn & Unions are frightened they are going to have start working for a living an organisation can shed 40k employees with minimal notice it shows how easy the jobs were - I am sure the same amount could go and if the pmn pulled their finger out and thought of the customer as they go on about then they would get their well deserved pay rise - If you hear the banter and school ground behavior in sorting offices you would understand why some pmn don't get respect

Paul, LONDON,

I think it's about time someone educated the blinkered world of the journalist on why postal workers have voted for strikes. Royal Mail sat down a while ago and devised a business plan. They presented it to the CWU stating it would be their full and final offer. i.e non negotiable. This was based around a 2.5% pay increase or £400, only achievable by adhering to the 22 strings attatched to the offer. In the shaping the future agreement of 2006 Royal Mail and the CWU agreed to move the business forward together. Royal Mail are trying to bully people into accepting their 'offer' instead of coming to a negotiated agreement, which the union wants

ian cruise, birmingham, uk

Please , Please , Please , it's not just about getting a fair pay rise, there's a lot more to the forthcoming strike than just that. It's about getting Leighton & Crozier to dump their completely disastrous business plan which is no good for postalworkers, and is most certainly no good for customers , and I mean the customers so often ignored , you and me , not the customers that Royal Mail only seem to care about, big business.

PETER HOWARD, London,

Like most folk I was out when royal mail tried to deliver my package. Never mind on the card they left I saw that I could book a redelivery date on line. As this seemed a good idea that is what I did. Unfortunately having waited all day for the promised redelivery I still had to make a trip to the sorting office where parking is now prohibited. My parcel was there waiting for me and upon asking why it was not redelivered as promised (I produced the cofirmation email) I was told they new nothing about such things. No wonder they are going down the pan.

alan frankcom, solihull, England

In any other business where those in charge "failed to show sufficient imagination or entrepreneurial flair ", they would have been replaced long before now.

Yet Leighton and Crozier have been allowed to shirk away from their responsibility of growing the business, instead they spend their time trying to push the business in a downwards spiral.

The current pay dispute is more about the strings attatched and it's about time senior management were called to account.

robmacca, Coventry, England

Well said John. The press are peddling this as a money only issue. Only 22 million profit, but they forget to mention the 730 million they put towards the pension fund, equals 752 million profit. Scare tactics as usual by big al and his fleet street darlings. Royal Mail has always said that it will listen to its people: The people have spoke, so listen, get back to the table and negotiate.

Trog, manchester,

I am a postman and I would settle for 0% - if along with it we
had a management team that treated me with even the
slightest respect as a worker and who could be relied upon
to keep their promises.That deal is never going to happen,
neither is the one RM is proposing.
The person who wrote this article should have actually looked
at what Royal Mail have proposed or at least asked the Union
- "is there a way to avoid strike without paying more than
2.5%. She would have been surprised at what she heard -
THIS DISPUTE IS NOT ABOUT PAY.

If you want to know what this dispute is all about visit:
www.royalmailchat.co.uk

John, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire

Leighton says that we are shortsighted as he needs money for modernisation. So why did he waste millions on plasma screens and even more millions keeping them on 24 hours. Not to mention what it does to environment (not very green).
EU have realised the danger to our customers having unfair competition.........Who's shortsighted?

S.D, south east, England

sorry but not so long ago bib al and ac were shouting about how great it was that R/M got 13p per item and all they had to do was the last bit, now it seems to be a problem, if they are such good bosses why do they not no what is good and what is not. It seems to change on a whim unlike their wages and bonuses, I am worried that they want to fight the union rather than save our postal system.

gary vipond, bridport, uk

it is not about the pay it's the conditions attached to the pay deal. if yo look at it close up the conditions attached make it a pay cut.

Chris K, Boiurnemouth, Dorset

Has anybody ever heard of any nationalised industry "displaying sufficient entrepreneurial flair"?

OJ, London,

I get £324 per week before stoppages. Hardly the £21,000 Royal Mail have been telling the media I get. We're told we could earn more if we hit targets. Noone from Royal Mail knows what the targets are. In the past, we have had bonus schemes withdrawn the year after we have hit the set targets. We can't trust Leighton (remember Leeds Utd?) and we can't trust Crozier (the Wembley Stadium debacle was enough). Asset stripping footpads on the lookout for a knighthood are not what we need and are not what the public needs. Leighton says we have lost 40% of mail to the competition. We haven't. Royal Mail still delivers all mail posted by TNT, Businesspost and Deutche Post. If either of them had ever got their underworked backsided around a delivery office, they would have known this.

Wesley Everest, Runcorn, U.K.

MPs have the nerve to say the Post Office isn't delivering? It fulfills its responsibilities better than Parliament ever does. What flair for government do they ever show, for all the wages they earn?

Allan, West Midlands, England

thank you john at last someone reminding the public that it's not about an under inflation pay rise but all the other baggage ,coming only a couple of years after changing how we work ,making record profits and recieving bonuses!something dosen't add up !
especially as the post office has just reached their targets for mail standards .

robert harvison, northampton, england

Could you get your information correct please,it's not about the 2.5
being not enough its the 20 odd conditions attached to this deal that
postal workers object to resulting in an actual wage cut.

john, shrewsbury, uk