What a shock worked for them in early 2000. Cannot be a easy time for current
workers knowing if they have a job after christmas thats if they even know about it.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30602326
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Terrible news for all working there. Let's hope someone snaps up the main part of the company (and employees) at a bargain price.
No doubt the Yodel business model (and quality of service vs price) has impacted these. Most deliveries around here (everywhere?) from Yodel are by people in their own cars with many deliveries to do per day.
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Ruddy heck, I get a medical supplies delivery once a month via them. Van driver was always most helpful and whether they had or not I could not say, but the source firm of my supplies claimed to have given the drivers a bit of training too.
We had a good system worked out, thankfully due to a recent hospital visit I still have more than a month's supply but there must be some recipients who need a delivery in early January. I'll have to ask my source company what their new delivery firm will be and if they need any new details. But I'll wait as I'm sure there will be a few folk in more dire straits than me.
If you think I've masked what I get, true, but just accept you'd not want to need the services and leave it at that.
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Been rumours for a while, and of course as soon as there are rumours suppliers start to withdraw, and that means the rumours become reality.
Pity it wasn't Yodel tho, useless buch of incompetent sheets. If anyone deserves to go under - they do.
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CityLink seems like an old-style large firm, not one of these cut-throat semi-freelance outfits that manage to do it a bit cheaper, and shrug off the complaints, like a South London minicab outfit. Impeccable expensive van, and that obsolescent thing in the modern world, a unionized workforce.
That pattern of adversarial industrial relations doesn't fit the corner-cutting lumpen capitalism that has replaced old, essentially pre WW2 and resting on its laurels in exhaustion for a couple of decades after the war, British industry. The Europeans who were shattered during the war were able to recover quickly, a clean slate. The British sometimes seem not to have recovered yet.
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IIRC City Link was a loss maker for many a year for Rentokil who off loaded them say 2/3 years ago.
So instead of turning them around the new ownwer must have suffered the same sort of losses that they could not sustain.
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Apparently new owner put £40m in to cover losses while they restructured, but its all gone and still loosing money.
Terrible for the employees to have this now, but my experience of the local depot was poor, and their name was often changed to include Sh at the front.
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It's nothing new in this business. I spent some years working for Nightfreight in the 1980's/1990's and virtually the only survivor from that era in anything like its present form is Parcelforce. Basically, when UPS became an established name in the UK they brought with them a far higher standard of performance and other carriers had to keep up or go under. CityLink have consistently failed on this score, and their collapse comes as no surprise to me.
Incidentally, anyone who thinks overnight parcel services are carp today should have been in the trade when I was. I worked for a small company in Nottingham back in the mid-80's who took on sub-contractor work for National Carriers when they got into a complete pickle before they re-branded as Lynx; UPS eventually bought them out. The hub in Birmingham was absolute chaos, I've seen more order and less damaged boxes at recycling centres.
Last edited by: Harleyman on Thu 25 Dec 14 at 23:07
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>>Terrible for the employees to have this now,
A very difficult decision once redundancy becomes inevitable;
Tell employees just before Christmas and they go home, and that have family support, but their Christmas is crap.
Tell employees just after Christmas and they had a good Christmas, but perhaps spent money unwisely and have no time at home with their family to absorb the idea.
Other than the fact that cowardly managers go for No 1 without thinking about it, it is a difficult decision to which I've never worked out the right approach.
>>Apparently new owner put £40m in to cover losses while they restructured
If so, and I am not familiar with the case, then there are some fools involved and the writing should have been pretty clear on the wall.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 25 Dec 14 at 23:25
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Yes FMR, one's heart almost bleeds for those poor tortured managers, facing difficult decisions. Cowards on Christmas day, victims on Boxing day, or is it the other way round?
Either way, it won't matter much to a manual worker laid off because there's surplus stock and it's inefficient to employ people when demand is slack, just to have workers who know what they're doing when the good times roll again. There's damn all to what they do after all (a mere exercise of simple mechanical skills, learned under pressure, plus a few calluses on the hands and a certain muscular strength), compared to the immense, burdensome, intellectually challenging, emotionally draining responsibilities of a sodding carphound of a manager.
PTUI! I've been both and they're both crap, but management is better paid as a rule. So I'm more on the proles' side. Workers can be right villains too, but they aren't as downright greedy and slimy as managers, and they don't have the huge head start and class protection managers have either.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Fri 26 Dec 14 at 01:11
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My last post, a heartfelt one, was based on my own experience. It may have given the impression that I think FMR is a heartless effete soft-handed carphound of a pretentious manager.
To set the record straight, I really really don't think anything like that about FMR. I understand of course his points about difficult decisions. And I'm sure he agonizes a bit over them, the way a decent person does, the way I did myself when in that role.
But I've been a worker too under the old capitalism and the new. Despite the danger of sliding into sentimentality, I identify leftishly with manual wage-workers really. I was just passing through as a worker, but for many it's a hard lifetime, feeding nippers and paying the rent.
Blind luck really, a bit of culture and a couple of bourgeois connections. No one deserves them really. Manna from heaven as it were.
All of this in the context of a fat top world economy with money and oil pouring out of its ears, despite its wails of despair. Of course FMR lives in a more normal country with radical class and wealth differences. Must say I quite fancy a drive down or up it in a suitable vehicle before I'm past it. But it seems unjustifiably extravagant, although theoretically possible. Got a good Chilean buddy who'd be up for it probably.
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>>Yes FMR, one's heart almost bleeds for those poor tortured managers, facing difficult decisions
Actually, I rather meant its difficult to know what's best for the employees rather than any sympathy for the decision maker.
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>> And I'm sure he agonizes a bit over them
The decisions are horrible, upsetting and disturbing. It really is a terrible thing to do if you're a decent person trying to do it right.
Nonetheless, for most people being made redundant is a darn sight worse and lasts a darn sight longer. I understand both and sympathise with the second.
I despise managers and directors who take the easy way out. They were happy to take the glory in the good times, they should take responsibility in the bad.
One cannot blame the workers. If they were under-performing, then that should have been dealt with. It is always the responsibility of the management. But the "Management" is a group, and within that will be some decent people trying to do a decent job. And some not, of course.
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>> >> And I'm sure he agonizes a bit over them
>>
>> The decisions are horrible, upsetting and disturbing. It really is a terrible thing to do
>> if you're a decent person trying to do it right.
Just before I retired, I had to tell 6 staff they were being made redundant... and to make things worse I had to do it by phone*.
Not at all nice.
Every single one of them made my job most easy.. and in a way that made it harder. Two of them were married (to each other), so that was their total household income out the window.
* (shift workers, so their timings all over the place; London house prices mean they all live a fair way outside of London and the information was bound to come out quickly as it was happening all across London and I didn't want the rumour mill to get in first).
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>>Every single one of them made my job most easy.. and in a way that made it harder
I know what you mean, but I had a good and decent family man cry and beg once. It was a lot worse.
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Did the employees get their redundancy notices in person, or was it just a 'sorry we missed you' card that they had to take up to HR?
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I'm guessing;
But I suspect that nobody has actually been made redundant at this point. The company has gone into administration which means that any suppliers, customers, contractors etc. who deal with it from now on have no legal protection or assurance that they will be paid.
Any money or service owing up until now will be dealt with by the administrators and will be distributed according to priority, resource availability and the law.
Unless the company is bought or financed, then all of the employees will ultimately lose their jobs, although some will be retained for transition.
I suspect that the employees do not know who will be what or the timings. The safe assumption is that its finished and that they must rely on statutory benefits.
A publicly traded company is restricted on what it can tell anybody without open, formal, public and official notifications. If one informed one's employees BEFORE announcing administration, then you, as individuals and as a company, would be liable for all sorts of charges and costs and guilty of various criminal acts unless you could show that announcement increased the value of the company, which of course it does not.
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More than 2,000 staff from the collapsed UK parcel delivery service City Link are to be made redundant on New Year's Eve, the RMT union has said.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30614090
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Some employees will get redundancy payments, even if it is the minimum amount.
I pity those employees that became subcontractors as they will just be unsecured creditors.
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Is the RMT saying that it has not, until now, been paying any attention to the state of affairs at City Link?
Are they truly saying that this has all come as a surprise to them?
Because if so, then I suggest the current RMT members ditch it and get themselves a proper union.
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>> Because if so, then I suggest the current RMT members ditch it and get themselves
>> a proper union.
The RMT is saying that City Link can be saved by government funds and made into a profitable going concern. I suggest then that the RMT executive should have invested their pension funds and the strike pay fund when City Link was looking for a buyer.
NO chance of a union putting their money where their mouth is.
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>> The RMT is saying that City Link can be saved by government funds and made
>> into a profitable going concern. I suggest then that the RMT executive should have invested
>> their pension funds and the strike pay fund when City Link was looking for a
>> buyer.
The sort of clever 'whatboutery' response I'd expect from you. How big is the RMT strike pay fund (or for that matter its staff pension fund)?
It's simply not the role of a TU to get involved in that sort of an exercise. Might be different if we had examples of the sort of business partnership exemplified in Germany. Not though when co-investors are likely to be outfits with a diametrically opposed philosophy; one of getting shareholder value in a way which history says is unlikely to benefit the workforce.
City Link staff are also only a tiny proportion of RMT's membership. Why would it risk its obligations to its staff and wider membership in what would necessarily be role of a minor investor.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sun 28 Dec 14 at 10:23
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>> The sort of clever 'whatboutery' response I'd expect from you. How big is the RMT
>> strike pay fund (or for that matter its staff pension fund)?
if its a sure thing they could borrow the money. They say its a good business - Put up or shut up Show us how it could be done rather than show us how to criticise those who try.
>> City Link staff are also only a tiny proportion of RMT's membership. Why would it
>> risk its obligations to its staff and wider membership in what would necessarily be role
>> of a minor investor.
So why should my tax payer pounds be risked in the same way, as the union had demanded? Anyway according to the RMT its not a risk. You telling me they don't know what they are talking about?
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>> if its a sure thing they could borrow the money. They say its a good
>> business - Put up or shut up Show us how it could be done rather
>> than show us how to criticise those who try.
So now it's not their Members money they're using. They reach further by borrowing.
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The RMT union ought to be careful it doesn't embarrass itself here, given that it was blatantly against City Link when it first took over the contract of BR's Red Star parcel service.
City Link never really got over the complete Horlicks it made of acquiring Target Express seven years ago.
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>> The RMT union ought to be careful it doesn't embarrass itself here, given that it
>> was blatantly against City Link when it first took over the contract of BR's Red
>> Star parcel service.
>>
>> City Link never really got over the complete Horlicks it made of acquiring Target Express
>> seven years ago.
Its a desperate business sector. Its rumoured that DHL has not made a cent on parcel delivery in the UK all the years its been operating* Thats why they all want to be in the lucrative urban mail service and consolidate operations.
*That could however be because they employ the starbucks taxation business model.
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>
>> Its a desperate business sector. Its rumoured that DHL has not made a cent on
>> parcel delivery in the UK all the years its been operating* Thats why they all
>> want to be in the lucrative urban mail service and consolidate operations.
One which is compounded by public expectations, and the parcel companies pandering to that in an effort to attract more business.
When I started in that sector of transport, there were still a large number of regional carriers who did daily runs to specific areas, often with drivers who'd been doing that area since God was in short pants and consequently knew it inside out. In those days you'd still have a driver's mate on the busier city runs and you could shift a remarkably large number of consignments in a very short time; a hundred drops (that's separate calls not parcels) around somewhere like Derby or Lincoln was by no means unusual at peak periods but you could shift twenty or thirty of those along the High Street inside half an hour, and because of the way the system worked you'd probably got half the carriers that there are today. The driver would work his way along the street, leaving piles of parcels on the kerb for the mate to run into the shop with his sack trolley, and the only paperwork was a sheet of paper on a clipboard which the recipient would put his scrawl across, unlike the timewasting third degree interrogation of "Signature, printed name, date and time" which used to irk so many storemen. In many ways the job was far more efficient then than it is now, because there was far less trans-shipping of consignments.
After that came the fad for nationwide overnight delivery and that is what scuppered the industry. Carriers had to go with it or go under, very few of the old names consequently survive today. I've had to drive from Southwell, Notts. to New Mills in Derbyshire with one parcel before now, because it was a guaranteed before 9.30am delivery and if we failed not only did we not get paid but we were fined as well. You inevitably discovered when you got there that the customer couldn't have cared less if it had arrived next month.
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>> Are they truly saying that this has all come as a surprise to them?
>>
>> Because if so, then I suggest the current RMT members ditch it and get themselves
>> a proper union.
They knew it was a loss making business and that it was owned by private equity investors who bought it for a £1 from Rentokil. The big name amongst the owners is John Moulton's 'Better Capital' outfit.
For reasons you explain with commendable clarity above the process of 'going into administration' is necessarily done while keeping stakeholders in the dark. I doubt though it came as a complete shock, whatever the public pronouncements now.
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Almost certainly, the RMT staff pension fund is protected in a way the Daily Mirror staff pension plan was not protected from the devious deeds of Robert Maxwell.
So only decisions that benefit the pensioners and contributing members are allowed. These days, most pension schemes have laid down percentages in different types of fund in order to strike a balance between the risks and the rewards of different types of investments. So a sudden large investment by a pension fund is nigh on unknown these days.
I really hope the driver who delivered to me is an employee, and not a contractor with his own van that had to be liveried up in City Link colours.
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The RMT and the owners of the firm were both out of step with the new lumpen capitalism, simply too sclerotic and old-fashioned to cope with the new scuffling devil-take-the-hindmost industrial ethos.
We've gone American, a backward stride into real Victorian values, and some people just don't believe it and are dragging their feet hoping it isn't really happening. Poor sods, in the dustbin of History...
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Company's come, company's go. Tough if your living depends on it, but it's the way of the world.
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According to comments on the BBC website, a lot of their drivers were self employed with their own livered vans. These drivers won't get redundancy money at all. However I am sure a lot of the front line driving staff will easily find new work but I am guessing the work is very seasonal and at the moment not many firms will be taking on new driving staff :(.
The office and admin staff will probably find it harder to get work though.
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It's a bit cheeky asking customers to travel - many miles in some cases, I guess - to collect their parcels.
If it were I, I think I'd just demand the supplier delivers the goods which I had ordered - it IS down to them, after all.
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>> It's a bit cheeky asking customers to travel - many miles in some cases, I
>> guess - to collect their parcels.
>>
If you know which of the depots has your parcel ?
If not how do you find out ?
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>> If you know which of the depots has your parcel ?
>> If not how do you find out ?
Order tracking should give a clue. OTOH with Royal Mail stuff is shown as 'out for delivery' when in practice it's in Crow Lane sorting office sorted and bagged but not actually here until following day.
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>> It's a bit cheeky asking customers to travel - many miles in some cases, I
>> guess - to collect their parcels.
>> If it were I, I think I'd just demand the supplier delivers the goods which
>> I had ordered - it IS down to them, after all.
Amazon are pretty good about sending a second item out, certainly for low value goods.
Trouble here just before Xmas where they used Royal Mail First Class for 'next day' delivery. Now as we all know RM struggle to get 90% of first class mail delivered next day even without Xmas. Our semi rural location is a further complication and MOST first class mail takes two days.
As I pay quite a lot for 'Prime' I expect Amazon to meet their 'next day' promise and I've complained on at least four previous occasions about such items being late. They've always promised a second item but previously I've declined and acepted a month's extension to 'Prime'. I have though now got two of the pedometers expected to be aprt of Mrs B's Xmas present.
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I was involved in a similar failure in 2007 with a now defunct national courier.
The number of parcels that went missing was astonishing.
The receivers used the value of customers goods to illicit payment from customers (your electronic goods in the warehouse cost £1m you owe us £500k, pay up or else).
Disgruntled drivers parked the vans in awkward locations off site so they had to be collected at extra cost. Many on double yellows so they were towed etc.
I can understand why this lot chose to wind up on Xmas day when most of the vehicles were at depots.
Still b***** unfair though!
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An employee's account:
www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/01/redundant-city-link-worker
>>
He behaved in a very honourable fashion. It's a pity we don't see more of the same in the higher echelons of public life.
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It is very refreshing to hear what happened from a real person and not a PR company.
Real people like us are affected by redundancies. I feel for Mick and his family and the thousands of others in the same situation.
The "fat cats" seem to always come out on top!
Daily Mail Link: tinyurl.com/qfxt88g
This boss left 150 unpaid staff and jetted off to Mexico for Christmas.
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BBC2 now - Modern Times - 24 hour Parcel People - the storry of how city link tried to survive
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Good programme....know the lady from Crug Farm...she has a big F** off haulage depot next door that took over City Links local operation..
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City link in administration - rtj70
