18/09/24 Mount Pleasant bulletin

[jimallen]

Hi, here's the Mount Pleasant bulletin of 18 September. Comments are welcome, as usual!

WHAT UTTER FOOLISHNESS
Many of us got an (unsolicited!!) video forwarded to
our phones, cursing migrants and claiming that
they're taking the winter fuel allowance out of the
pockets of pensioners! As if! Worst about it, given
its idiotic, but seriously nasty content, is that it comes
from "one of us". It's an exact repeat of conspiracy-type
lies, distortions and half-truths put out on social
media by the far-right when orchestrating the riots -
with added swear-words. Message deleted!

WE WANT NO PART OF VICTIM CULTURE
Only very sad individuals, unable/unwilling to use
their brains and eyes can be taken in by a view which
sees white workers as "oppressed" victims and
blames the easy target - refugees/migrants - rather
than the real perpetrators, the bosses and their state
under whichever government, for the inevitable
consequences of living under this decaying class
system based on exploitation of all of us for profit!

PS: yes, CWU leaders let us down, but that only
means we need our leaders from our own (diverse!)
ranks to organise our fightback. Not that we throw
the union baby out with the bathwater! Do we have
the will or the courage for that? Blaming others for
our own failures is just cowardice.

PPS: actually the mainstream opposition/media
blame public sector workers for the fuel allowance
cut: train driver and doctors. But all their pay award
shows is that if the government chooses to find
money, it can. And of course, pensioners can't go on
strike... but we can.

MANAGERS ARE SUPERNUMERARY!
What will it take for managers to stop messing
around with reserves and those of us they still dare to
call "supernumerary"? Last week they were at it
again, organising a meeting to tell us that we need to
"consider" applying for those Saturday/Sunday parttime
duties. We said no - so what exactly is it that
they don't understand?

WHICH SIDE ARE CWU OFFICIALS ON?
In that meeting, union officials were there, telling
reserves that we should apply for these duties
because they are longer than the current 25-hour
duties. Yeah, some of them are 27.5 hours, but
they're mostly at weekends! Of course we need
longer hours, because we need more pay. We would
do the extra hours, but on normal week days.

THEY ARE SHORT OF HANDS!
On the PSM, the manager decided to start the next
stream while the previous one hadn't yet cleared. He
was afraid that the work wouldn't be finished. What's
surprising is that he didn't even realise what a mess
this was going to create; the machine had to be
stopped and it was all hands on deck to try and sort
it! And we should add that the hands on the deck
were pretty damn short...

DO WE CALL HER NELLY?
We're really so, so, sorry (!) to see the RMPFS
manager aka "the Elephant" retire! But only in the
sense that he had a good nickname. It might be quite
difficult for his replacement to be quite as annoying
as he was, but we expect she's going to try…

FIDDLE FOUND, PREDICTABLY SO
But since the Elephant retired, we hear the books
were opened and management discovered a can of
worms. Payments had been going out without any
justification... The new manageress seemed
surprised, but we weren't.

WHAT'S GOING ON WITH PAYROLL?
Why are some of our payslips missing unsocial hours
payments? When our start/finish times were
changed, this affected our pay, but management
promised the unsocial hours payments would
continue for the next 3 years. So whoever's made
this cock-up, better rectify it now!

DIDN'T THEY WANT TO CUT FOSSIL FUEL?
Apparently RM's ditching rail freight? The contract
with DB Cargo, which runs between Shieldmuir
terminal (North Lanarkshire), "superhubs" in
Daventry and Warrington and centres in London, will
end by October. RM bosses claim they'll still use
trains, but road haulage is the future... They say it's
cheaper. The environmental cost isn't their problem,
apparently.

DUH!
Anyway, the Daventry Superhub was built in such a
stupid way, that the Daventry International Railfreight
Terminal linked up on the wrong side of the building,
so that items arriving on trains had to be transferred
on trucks to the correct side... RM management at its
best!

WILL THIS WALK EVER FINISH?
How come DOs around the country are systematically
using temporary Angard workers on deliveries. They
may be (formally) allocated six-hour shifts, 9am to
3pm, but many carry on until 5pm or later. The
bosses know that the temps don't feel confident to
finish "on time". Permanent workers need to step in
and "advise"?

[SpacePhoenix]

MANAGERS ARE SUPERNUMERARY!
What will it take for managers to stop messing
around with reserves and those of us they still dare to
call "supernumerary"? Last week they were at it
again, organising a meeting to tell us that we need to
"consider" applying for those Saturday/Sunday parttime
duties. We said no - so what exactly is it that
they don't understand?

Any that don't apply for them risk being moved over to deliveries.

DUH!
Anyway, the Daventry Superhub was built in such a
stupid way, that the Daventry International Railfreight
Terminal linked up on the wrong side of the building,
so that items arriving on trains had to be transferred
on trucks to the correct side... RM management at its
best!

Just needs a subway built connecting the sites, might take time to do but is doable