Latest Mount Pleasant Bulletin 6th May 2015

[anna]

Hi there here is the latest bulletin. Questions about the bonus and salary sacrifice. Any answers?

BANK HOLIDAY BUMMER
Oh dear, the shortage of hands is bound to be felt even more Tues-Fri this week. There’s never anyone to cover for normal time off, let alone those who’re usually off Mon and who’ll now be off Tues as well. Thanks to managers’ inability to think ahead, we’re looking forward to a crazy week!

ANOTHER RM SCAM
If our wages were good enough, the fact we’ve had no bonus wouldn’t matter so much! Already 6 years ago, RM cut the £1,000/yr to £400 twice a year. But the last time we got this was 2½ years ago (and delayed!). When the anti-privatisation strike got called off, 18 months ago, union officers said they were working on a new bonus scheme. Not a dicky bird so far. Are the shares meant to make up for the lack of a bonus? Except we can't cash them in until 3-5 years. So RM gets to keep all our bonuses and the interest..?

NO EXCUSES!
In fact we read in the new Voice that HR staff just got a 4th £250 bonus (total £1,000) for “performance”. So we know RM’s still paying bonuses. (BTW, why’s the CWU promoting HR “good performance” bonuses?). Will MP bosses turn round now and tell us we aren’t hitting targets? When in fact this is their fault because of the way they’ve cut everything to the bone?

IT’S A ZERO SUM TRICK
We’ve been wondering about this “PSE” - Pension Salary Exchange, formerly known as Salary Sacrifice, because you volunteer to take a wage cut (your contract is changed), so the employer uses the difference to pay into the pension fund, and you both no longer pay pension contributions. (The pension becomes non-contributory). And then, because tax and NICs are less, you may get a slightly higher wage. It’s a (legal) tax avoidance trick which can be used to plug a pension deficit and cut employers’ NI payments. Some bosses have even used it to substitute for increasing workers’ pay!

THE GOVERNMENT AVOIDING TAX?
But who’s the loser? Has to be someone! In fact in the short term it’s the tax-man - and since it was the government which took over the pension fund deficit, it’s ensuring it loses tax and NI! And wasn’t this tax avoidance loophole meant to be closed?

WHERE’S THE CATCH?
Oh and one small point to add: the CWU said it’s ensured that wage-linked benefits wouldn’t be affected by “PSE”... Nevertheless, they say it won’t suit some of us. So we’re waiting to hear (they promised to tell us) what the catches are? Because if we don’t opt out, we’ll be signed up for it automatically.

NO-VIEW
So what’s the big deal over this “Clear View” for processing? When Moya visited HMP she said “what a good thing!” - but it’s just writing wishful thoughts on a white board - when and how much mail’s coming, how many must be there to process it and when it’ll be finished! While managers’ll have to learn to count, we still see no need for it. We don’t need a screen or white board to tell us we’ve a huge pile of letters in front of us and that we won’t clear on time.

SORTING GHOSTS
We seem to be queueing up to go! There are some of us (40 or so?) to go in October and others in December. We've certainly done our bit and quite frankly, some of us are fed up of working for the fat share-holding cats in the City - which is what RM has become! As for the corridors of HMP, soon there’ll be no one walking them, unless we make sure all leavers are replaced.

ASKING US TO EXIT
And along the same lines, while RM’s cut so much and reduced collections to just one in the evening, managers dare to tell us to rush. Well, far be it from us to refuse. We need only ask which door we should rush out of.

LOOK MOM, NO HANDS
In fact, it's been so busy that we've even seen managers "working" in the bullring, having a little taste of what we've been doing for years… Always enjoyable to see their mixture of clumsiness and great seriousness when they try to show us how it's done!

CALM DOWN, LITTLE BEE
When we're done in packets, sometimes 10mins before the end of shift, we’ve an annoying little Bee buzzing in our ears, telling us to go to sort on flats… so much so, that we have to show that quite annoying buzzy Bee, that walking to flats takes exactly the time till shift end!

BLOWING A FUSE!
Is he for real? Since when does B the B (or any other manager) feel so free to mess with our rest nights!? We don't give a damn if "he" is short of hands on Mondays - or any other night for that matter - that's RM's problem, so hands off our rest nights!

STILL WAITING
Are we going to have to wait 2018 and the end of the actual agreement to finally move from nights to day-shift? Surely union reps can help us out?

ROMEC IN-HOUSE!
Tho’ there’s meant to be an answer re the sell-off or in-housing of Romec, at the end of May, we’ve been told here that the “deal” with RM runs another 6 years... so our Ts&Cs can’t be changed? We don’t trust the company. We think the best solution is strike!

[postslippete]

Were they not thinking about closing the Mount Pleasant DO to build new luxury flats??

[anna]

BTW the place is a major sorting office and a DO for EC and W1, but the flats (yes they are building them) for the time being will be located where the present car park is and in the front of the huge MP building , where at present the RM lorries and vans are parked. As far as we know this plan was OK'ed by Boris Johnson last year and construction should be starting soon although there is local opposition to the architect's design... (!). This development with shops and a park should not affect the RM part of the site. Which has just had £11m refurbishment. And where there is a postal museum which is soon to have "rides" for the public on the old underground postal railway...