Mount Pleasant Workers Fight bulletin 1/6/16

[anna]

Here is latest bulletin.

RESOUNDING NO!
Last Friday we heard that RM will offer a 1.6% pay rise - 2 months late! But as yet (time of writing) there’s nothing official from the CWU. It should go without saying that 1.6% is a joke. It amounts to little more than £2.80/wk (depending on your own rate); after tax and (increased) NI. The cost of a Costa coffee!
By the way, RPI inflation (CPI, used by the bosses and union, is artificially low) is 2.61%. So this pay "rise" offers a pay CUT in real terms!

LET US FIGHT NOW!
Yet we're hearing that the CWU executive is going to recommend we accept this pay cut because it is a "no strings" deal!! The long and razor-wire strings are to be discussed later, in June. Only then will they (ha-ha) suggest we fight for their counter-proposal for a reduced working week, against RM's one wave, one plan - which simply means fewer of us doing more work for less. But this is a trap!!! And we should not fall for it. If we fight now, RM will know how dangerous it will be for them to try to tie us up with strings later - or anytime!

MANAGERS ARE ALWAYS "ON STRIKE" ANYWAY
Yes, even the CMA (managers' union) hasn't accepted the latest pay offer - which we hear is "up" from 1.3% to...1.6%! Coincidence?
Sure, they called off the strike this Tuesday citing "progress" - but then we never believed they'd go on strike anyway (and would we have even noticed?). One issue they got stuck on was that their pay increase wasn't across the board. So now apparently all managers will get the same. 1.6%?

YES, WE DO THE WORK!
And if the 1.6% alone wasn’t enough of an insult, just last week, RM announced a 5% rise in "adjusted operating profits" - and £608m annual profits! So they can complain all they like about "competition" and the fall in letters - but their own figures betray them. These figures prove that we're super-exploited, and the only way to stop this is by fighting them at every single opportunity! Like NOW!

TROUBLE MAKERS?
Of course we're going to have to ensure that the CWU leaders use the words we tell them to use - like "strike"! Even Unite/CMA used it, tho' it didn't materialise into action. And more's the pity - we'd have loved to see the Buzzy Bee on a picket line...

PS: we hear he's being loaned to Medway. So Medway's going to have a worse log-jam, thanks to his buzzing. Sorry guys, but it's not our fault!

WELL, IT WORKS WELL ON TV!
So we got RM’s letter last week, re the Parcel Sorting Machine going operational in Swindon. Now we’re meant to provide Swindon with an “automatable” parcels selection… The instructions - correct 2D barcode, no odd-shaped packets, etc., make us wonder if this strange beast is really going to "do the job"... We suspect manual sorting will have to do more than "help out"!

THE REJECTS AND MISSORTS ABOUND
Yeah - we all keep saying too, that for anything like this to work RM has to re-educate the public as to wrapping, post codes and addressing... We predict big jams: they've cut all the special jobs dedicated to correcting such problems.

... AND WHAT'S MORE, WATER IS WET
How can the Processing fit-up provide barely 20 full-time jobs and 6 or 7 part-time? Obviously it's totally unfit!! Along the same lines, the "headcount review" showed that more workers had left than were presently locked up here in HMP - talk about stating the obvious...

THE TWO WORLDS
On the other hand, Moya&Co., reassured shareholders that RM cut the headcount by 3,500 over the past year! Good news for shareholders, bad news for us - but we can decide to fight for more jobs, can't we?

ACTION ON OVERTIME?
On the subject of fights. While it's true that MP bosses should stick to their promises - including those on overtime - it does kind of say it all that it's over the issue of OT that we may be asked to have a strike here at HMP! It's the "Chinese micro-parcels" problem - and yes, management needs a lesson!
Yet it has to be said: to rely on overtime to get a "better" wage is out!! Obviously, we need good enough basic pay, more hands on deck and part-time made up to full-time, not more OT. And yes, we have to fight for that.

CATCH THE THIEVES
Romec/RM has dared to take £100 from us, just like that!  When we confronted management, they gave us the lame excuse that it was a miscalculation of bonuses and that they had overpaid us!  In the (long) past, Romec blamed RM for bonus mishaps, but now they are RM!  So no excuses, we want our money back!
 
NO TO 2nd TIER!
As for the cut in OT pay on weekends for the less senior Romec/RM workers, how can we accept managers getting away with introducing this difference of almost £3/hr in pay between us?  This cut should have never been introduced in the first place.  Same work, same pay, that’s our motto…  and moreover, decent pay!

STOP THE CLOSURES!
We keep reading about DO closures, this time in Lossiemouth (Scotland) and Tregaron in Wales… While RM talks about new “superhubs” for delivering, it's local workmates and local populations who pay the price for private profit! Deliveries are the backbone of a mail service - these closures have to be stopped!

[britwrit]

Sounds like one part of Royal Mail hasn't been talking to another.

So we got RM’s letter last week, re the Parcel Sorting Machine going operational in Swindon. Now we’re meant to provide Swindon with an “automatable” parcels selection… The instructions - correct 2D barcode, no odd-shaped packets, etc.

From the "Modernisation: Transforming how we sort your mail" page on the Royal Mail website:

Machines that can sort parcels

Due to their irregular shapes, parcels have traditionally been sorted by hand. We’re bringing in new parcel-sorting machines which can measure, weigh and scan parcels, whatever their shape.

http://www.royalmail.com/personal/help- ... t-the-mail

[TrueBlueTerrier]