No harm, no foul 
Do we have any… what *is[\i] the PC term here… postpeople? who can state what the contractual position is here?
FWIW, the CWU site is schtum on the matter.
Oh, and according to the Jobcentre website, it’s “Post Person”
Well, yeah, but the pertinent question is why there’s a clause of such a type in their contracts in the first place. The mail is inefficient enough without further delays caused by having to find postmen who will agree to deliver leaflets.
Jehova’s Witnesses won’t deliver information on blood transfusions.
Atheists won’t deliver leaflets from churches.
Liverpool supporters won’t deliver leaflets from Manchester United.
Etc. etc.
That isn’t the point and you know it. They simply think the British postal workers shouldn’t nursemaid the British population when it comes to what people get in their mail.
People should be able to say, and hear, whatever they please. That includes reprehensible ideas, moronic ideas, and completely vapid non-ideas, simply because the alternative (someone taking it upon himself to censor your information input) is simply unthinkable to freedom-loving people.
Over in the US, we have a group called the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). If you’re a common resident of GD or follow American politics at all, you already know where I’m going with this. The ACLU defends American Nazis when they want to march through Jewish neighborhoods and it defends blacks who were targeted by racists. It defends people who want to use Bible quotes as their personal message in public school yearbooks and it defends people who want to remove prayer from public schools. What’s the thread? They defend individual rights, as outlined in the American Bill of Rights. (Except, for political reasons, the Second Amendment.) They don’t need to hold their nose when they defend Nazis, because they aren’t defending Nazis. They are defending the First Amendment (free speech and free assembly), and they are defending the basic ideals of our shared democratic heritage. The ideas of liberty apply regardless of the ideas that take advantage of them.
I understand the vast legal differences between the US and the UK. I don’t, however, think there are vast philosophical differences. I think most Brits are freedom-loving, and I think most of them would be angry at this. I have always held the UK in general in high regard, and I think these hijinks are beneath them both culturally and historically, if not legally. I hope the country comes to its senses.
It doesn’t appear to be that the opt-out clause is for postal workers to force their opinions on the public - it’s so that they’re not forced to carry out activities which they themselves find offensive. Surely that’s a defence of their individual rights?
What’s stopping a postman from saying that he finds delivering post in itself offensive?
The clause is a ridiculous idea.
I think you’ve missed the point here. Earlier in the thread it was stated that the postal service does not decline to deliver any mail, it just excuses individuals who find the material offensive - i.e. a postman of Indian descent asked to deliver a leaflet calling for the deportation of ethnic minorities.
Of course, that allows for the possibility of all post people refusing to deliver something, and there you have the dilemma.
Let me see if I understand…
Say I’m a postman in the UK. In my pouch I find a bunch of leaflets announcing a political rally for immigrants from WestVirginiastan. Since I think that the UK would be better off if those damn WestViginiastanis would go back where they came from, I can refuse to deliver the pamphlets.
Correct?
No, that’s a ridiculous comment.
As already stated, we can’t decide whether the clause makes sense without seeing the clause. But from the information we have, it applies to open leaflets delivered in bulk, not actual mail.
Something like that - although we can’t be sure without seeing the employment contract.
And my guess for the scenario that all the workers refuse to deliver the leaflets is that the managers will have to get in cars and do the job, because you can bet they’ve not negotiated an opt-out, and it’s their responsibility to see that the leaflets get delivered eventually.
It seems so Balle_M, but we’re still awaiting the precise wording of the clause in question so that we can be sure.
You haven’t made a case for the content being personally offensive, so, no, that is not correct.
The case in Wales doesn’t suggest that it’s only immigrant postal workers using the opt-out - it seems to be that they are arguing that it is offensive, not personally offensive.
In this case non-immigrant workers could still claim it was personally offensive for them to deliver pamphlets calling for the deportation of colleagues, presumably.
Meanwhile, elsewhere: Post workers in Somerset are also refusing to deliver the leaflets: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/3746073.stm
And in Scotland, BNP leaflets are being investigated under race-crime legislation: http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=604552004
I got my BNP leaflet the other day.
It was the biggest load of offensive, weaselly worded BS you’re likely to see on two sides of an A5 sheet. It was also obviously written from the point of view of English concerns. Although attempts had been made to address it to Scotland I think these amounted to little other than a ‘find & replace’.
While I feel for the postmen (I’d certainly hate delivering piles of this crud) I have to say that as long as it’s legal and not a health & safety hazard it’s the Royal Mail’s obligation to deliver it and the content is none of their business.
My copy is already in the back of the dustbin lorry and on its way to the dump. I couldn’t even face putting it in the recycle pile.
:smack: That was my 2000th post and I wasted it on the BNP. 
I’ve just been looking at their website, and as if we needed more evidence that they live in an alternate universe, I found this beauty:
Now why didn’t anyone ever think of that before?!?! :rolleyes:
Based on the quotes from them in the original link, the management are being respectful of what they see as a reasonable invoking of the clause (of course, I’d also like to see the actual wording). However, postmasters are no strangers to the type of silly “sorting room lawyering” you’re indulging in here and any attempt to abuse a rule in this manner is likely to lose their sympathy very quickly.
The Royal Mail’s legal obligation isn’t at issue at all. The question appears to be whether they can force individual postmen to deliver particular material or whether they should seek alternative means if a postman objects. Alternative means which will usually be as trivial as handing it to the guy on the next shift or two routes being swapped.
Again, what seems to have been overlooked in the original story is that the very people who are being inconvenienced - the managers - still expect to be able to deliver the leaflets.
This seems a dangerous precident to allow. What if an area has posties who happen to be BNF members, and refuse to deliver non BNF electoral leaflets. Even BNF (British Nazi Fuckwits) should get a say when they stand for election.