22/01/25 Mount Pleasant bulletin

[jimallen]

Hi, here's the Mount Pleasant bulletin of 22 January. Comments welcome!

OUT ON A HIGH?
This week we said goodbye to 18 workmates who took
"V" R. We're very sad to see them go. But we would
have liked to give them a proper send off... We
certainly don't need an excuse to liven things up in
here! So, no more leaving without informing the "party
committee"!

RESTORE THE TERMS!
The rumour circulating at the moment is that the bosses
might decide to "increase" VR terms to 1 year's pay,
instead of 9 months... and this, only because they want
more of us to go. But of course, this is still very far from
the 2-year VR package we were getting until they cut it
in 2022! If the bosses want to see us go, they had
better dig a lot deeper in RM's overflowing coffer!

A CUT BY ANY OTHER NAME STILL SMELLS...
RM doesn't call Voluntary Redundancies "job cuts" - but
we do! Because no one is hired in place of those
leaving. And we don't regard them as "redundancies"
either, because not one workmate is actually
redundant: every one of us is needed - and a lot more,
besides!

SITDOWN UNTIL WE CAN SIT?
There is one thing that needs to come back to the shopfloor
this year and that is stools to sit on - so we can
rest our weary legs. In most areas we spend hours
standing, particularly in the bullrings, sometimes up to 4
hours straight! And this, when the average age in MP
keeps going up! Why the stools were abolished from
the shop-floor, we don't know, but we can guess. They
need to be brought back, for all areas and for
everybody!

FEET AND LEGS NEED A REST
And by the way, there's nowhere to sit by the PSM,
either. Since the job rotates, when it's our turn to pull
and push yorks for hours on end, we absolutely have to
sit down afterwards. We know that the bigger version
of the PSM in other Mail Centres has chairs attached...
Managers come up with this nonsense that since the
PSM here is smaller, there's no need for chairs. Big or
small machine, it's the same work - just fewer of us
doing it! So shall we buy some chairs ourselves - and
send the bill to Mr Kretinsky..?

BLOOD MONEY?
Management has still not dropped the "supernumerary"
nonsense. There are 31 workmates who are still
regarded as "surplus to requirements", which is a
complete joke! Managers are trying to pressure them
into cutting their hours, or into leaving - and just won't
let up! They're totally fixated on this. One wonders
what's in it for them? Do they get a bonus for every job
they cut?

PERMANENT JOBS, PERMANENTLY!
The proof that managers need more of us permanent
workers is that they bring in casuals to cover duties all
the time now. No doubt they want to use and abuse
casuals in here all year round - to which we say, "no
way"!

WE'RE NOT "DANIEL'S LITTLE HELPERS"!
And by the way, there are quite a few of us off sick at
the moment and no wonder. This Xmas really tired us
out! RM might be boasting in the media that it delivered
"99%" of items on time, but what that required was us
(plus casuals) making deliveries until 9pm. During
Christmases past, before the job cuts, ~99% of
deliveries were done without us spending half the night
ringing doorbells!

THEY'RE FINE WITH A FINE
By the way, bosses pat themselves on the back, but
just last month they got a £10.5m fine for not meeting
targets. And they're going to be fined again, unless
they recruit enough workers to get the job done! A
cynic would say however, that they prefer to pay a fine,
than to pay for more workers!

HELPING OURSELVES
RM has been congratulating itself on a profitable Xmas.
Parcels up by 19%, delivery targets met, a rise in profits
made this year, even money made from letters is up
(and they told us letters were dead!)... Yet the union
leaders keep repeating that we need to help "the
business" out of a financial hole..?

OLDER THAN DIRT
The state of the toilets isn't getting better and cleaners
on "toilet focus" duties have to deal with some serious
mess. And it isn't only the fact that some people aren't
thinking about who's going to clean up their c**p,
literally. It's also that the soil pipes at the Mount are as
old as the hills - they get easily clogged, even with
normal "effluent"!

THE REASONS FOR ACCIDENTS
The manager who was accused of causing that
accident on the Platform, which left one of our
workmates badly hurt, was cleared of wrong-doing. If it
had been one of us regular OPGs causing the accident,
we doubt we'd have been cleared of blame. But the
real issue here is that the cause of the accident, that is,
too much work and too much rush, has not been
addressed!

po250122-ds.pdf

[ted_e_bear]

I thought mount pleasant was one of the uso trial offices, no mention of that ? Or is it totally separate to the mail centre operation.