10/07/24 Mount Pleasant Bulletin

[jimallen]

Hi, here's the Mount Pleasant bulletin of 10 July. Comments are always welcome!

WHAT A COCK-UP!
Apparently, the Mount's (juvenile!) top manager
thought that his early morning appearances at
5.30am would suddenly turn his "re-alignment" into a
success. In fact, this place has never been in such a
mess, precisely thanks to his ridiculous new realignment!
But we don't expect him or any of his
fellow bosses to admit their utter failure.

DIS-ARM HIM
Yes, PSA failed big time on Monday last week on
Lates... so he popped up, and waved his arms about.
But unfortunately, he didn't make pigs fly... Work will
never get cleared without a proper workforce. We
know it, and he knows it.

MAKING MATTERS WORSE...
So what are these managers doing other than
throwing their hands up? In fact, they're offering
more of their lousy 9-month-VRs! We've already said
goodbye to workmates this month, and we expect
more farewells in August and maybe September?
That is, more workmates going without replacement.

"FIRE AND REHIRE" BY ANOTHER NAME
It's shocking in fact: last week, despite managers
claiming a "redundancy" situation, they brought in
more agency workers. This shouldn't even be
possible according to employment law. What's
more, it's proof, if it was needed, that managers'
realignment is totally unworkable.

HALF A YORKIE IS BETTER THAN NONE??
It was impossible to unload all the yorks from the
lorries last week, so management had to cut the
number that were brought-in to one of the platforms,
in half. Yep, reality eventually caught up with them.
P.S. If re-aligning needs doing, it will only work if it's
designed and controlled by us. But we're not
offering...

NO TO THEIR FLEXIBILITY
So now on Processing, managers would like those of
us they call "reserves" to start our duties at any odd
time? Last week some of us who normally start at
10.36pm were asked to start at 11.45pm (or maybe
11.46, who knows?)! And we're meant to fit in with
these start times according to managers' whims?

KING-DUMB?
Who does King Etcetera think he's fooling, when he
pretends he doesn't understand why there are so
many letter mis-sorts and why it is taking so long to
deal with them... He agreed to his bosses' realignment,
which cut full-time duties, made the missort
duty a "light-duty", etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...
Surely even he can figure out why.

GAME'S ON!
It's funny to watch managers fighting over us: no
sooner has manager X sent us to his area, than
manager Y comes along and argues that we should
actually go to his, instead. It's an admission that
there aren't enough of us. And while they try to sort
their mess out, we'll bring popcorn, sit back and
watch the comedy!

COULD IT BE MORE RIDICULOUS?
Distribution can also tell a story: we're now arriving
at 6.30am for the morning shift, and sitting around
for 30 minutes to an hour until there's a van we can
use! Yep, the night shift are often delayed, and the
vans that are available, are often the wrong sort!
Example: they're too big to drive into or out of some
DOs. The situation couldn't be more disjointed and
illogical!

MAKING DIRT SMELL GOOD
The Elephant has been holding H&S meetings for
cleaners. And despite being half-awake, we couldn't
help noticing that nothing was said about cleaning
products. Is it because he's bought the very cheap
ones, which smell good, clean nothing, and are so
weak, that they don't even pose a health risk?

WE'RE NOT THEIR STAKEHOLDERS
Those of us who haven't sold our shares got a letter
from the bosses, telling us about EP Group's move to
take over RM and advising us to sell. But union
leaders say we shouldn't sell them and are calling for
"whoever owns Royal Mail to now give postal
workers a very significant ownership stake in the
business" instead... So this is it? Whatever
happened to their pledge to "fight" for
renationalisation?

DELUDED DAVE
And in case big shareholders don't listen to Dave
Ward's pleas, he's selling the idea that a Labour
government will ensure that EP Group will bring
"positive change"... As if "positive change" has ever
been achieved without us fighting for it!