12/06/24 Mount Pleasant Bulletin

[jimallen]

Hi, here's the Mount Pleasant bulletin of 12 June. Comments are always welcome!

NO WAY, JOSE
Even though managers have again tried to pressure us
into agreeing to buy-down our hours, most of us parttimers
have refused. They tried this cheap trick last
time, threatening to move us away from the Mount and
into deliveries if we didn't comply. It was blackmail
then and it's blackmail now. So there is no way any of
us can agree to this!

THIS ISN'T A "JOB"!
Hardly anyone signed for the sub-20-hour duties, why
would we? Not even students looking for a summer
job would take these! If we can hardly make ends
meet on 25 hours per week, how can we manage on
20, 18 or 15! We're sick of this penny-pinching over
our jobs while RM shareholders play with billions of
pounds!

NOT THE END OF THE STORY
And yes, one other thing that needs addressing: those
of us who are on 20 hours per week weren't allowed to
sign for longer shifts. And now, they say we are
"reserve", meaning we don't even have a dedicated
duty. They're trying to push us into taking VR, but we
have other plans: we stay and fight for hours and
wages we can live on!

MOUNT PL-EVEREST
And no sooner have we got our new duties, than we
already hear that workmates are taking VR in July... So
who's going to replace them? Managers, who we've
seen, more and more, covering for the lack of hands?
Or are they just trying to break the record of the
highest mountain of un-processed items in MP's
history?

SUPPLY HIM WITH A BRAIN, PLEASE
Funny how that "production supply manager" has been
complaining about mis-sorts in PSA... How difficult is
it for him to understand that if jobs are cut, the work
can't be done properly, if done at all - no matter how
much pressure they put on us to cover? He wants
fewer mis-sorts? Then try doubling the number of fulltime
jobs, instead of cutting them... Simple, really.

COMPLETE SHAMBLES
Friday a couple of weeks ago, the People Pleaser shift
manager on Nights went around with a piece of paper,
telling some of us that we had to sign for a different
duty because we hadn't got any of our preferences...
when we'd made sure we'd written down enough
choices on their form! It seems managers didn't even
bother to read them and decided to offer us their own
"preferences"...

FASTER THAN BOLT
When we found out what duty we'd been allocated,
People Pleaser was nowhere to be seen. We've
noticed he often does a runner whenever there's
trouble afoot, letting others take the heat for him. If he
doesn't agree with what's coming down from the top,
let him say it, rather than pretending to please
everyone...

WHAT WE WANT!
What's this us cleaners hear through the grapevine?
That RM-PFS bosses claim the only way they can
afford to increase our wages is by cutting our weekly
work hours? True, a 40-hours week is too long. So we
could do with a shorter working week, without loss of
pay, of course. In fact we need a generous increase in
our wages to catch up with inflation.

A LOUSY DOWNGRADE
We see more and more of these white plastic sleeves,
which when they break have sharp edges which can
cut us. They might be suitable to use for the PSM, but
not for the rest of processing! So where are the bright
sparks in management who decided these were a good
replacement for the regular red sleeves? We'd like to
offer them a word or two about their sleeve
"upgrade"...

SHARKS HAVE NO NATIONALITY
We read in the media that Daniel Kretinsky's £3.6bn bid
for IDS (parent company of RM) still needs to be signed
off by the government under the National Security and
Investment Act... and they make a big deal over the
fact that he's not British and the shame that this
"British jewel" will be sold to a foreigner. However as
far as we're concerned a boss is a boss. British or
foreign won't change a thing. As for retaining the
USO, if they really wanted to, they wouldn't have put
the business up for sale.

DAVE'S AMNESIA
Cue Dave Ward to give his personal spiel about how
RM should remain "British". Never mind that current
shareholders are investment companies from all over
the world. Ward is asking the government to block the
sale to Kretinsky, and instead sign up to his "plan" for
"a new ownership and governance model". But what
that plan may be, he doesn't say... Does he mean
"renationalisation", perhaps? Or has he forgotten all
about that?

WE WON'T BE FOOLED AGAIN
In Kretinsky's interview with Bloomberg TV (on
YouTube) he said that one of the reasons he wants to
buy RM is because the "governance struggle" between
management and the CWU is now "overcome". Yes,
this aspiring future boss thinks he has nothing to worry
about after the defeat of the 2022-3 strike. He
shouldn't be too sure... he has 110,000 of us to reckon
with, and we now know better than to leave our fate in
the hands of the CWU leadership...