15/11/17 Mount Pleasant Bulletin from Anna and Jim

[jimallen]

Hi there, here's the Mount Pleasant bulletin of the 15th of November.

WHAT NEXT?
Now is the really crucial time for us in the fight against RM’s
unprecedented attacks against us. We just cannot afford to
lose this one.
So yes, it’s good to have meetings - if they are meetings
to organise a fightback - at the gate or anywhere! But if these
meetings are just so that the CWU leadership can appear to
be accountable when it really doesn’t know how to be - then
we need to seize the moment ourselves and start preparing
our troops for battle.

LET OUR FEET TALK!
Yes, the union leaflet (circulated on the 8th) said that RM
bosses, the union officials and the mediator have met just
twice in nearly 4 weeks… Of course, we never expected
anything from the mediation process, nor did we expect
anything from their 18 months of talks! But now RM don't
even pretend they're talking… So when are we going to let
our feet talk, which is the only way RM have ever listened in
the past?

NO MORE WAITING!
We don't want to wait any longer to fight RM! We said that at
the 2 meetings... The fight must start asap, unofficial or
official - we don’t mind! Telling us that talks are going
nowhere and that Terry and Dave want us to be "proud" of
the 89% strike vote is patronising and useless. The only
thing that will make us “proud” is winning the fight!

NO GATE MEETING FOR US?
And where was the gate meeting for part-timers who start at
5.30pm? Funny, this time (at least) in the pay deal, the CWU
pretends to be demanding better conditions and contracts for
part-timers. And at MP there’s a huge contingent of us! But
we were totally forgotten when it came to the gate meeting!
Were the London Division officials afraid of what we might
say?

THE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING REPS
In addition, we on late shift would like to see a union rep
occasionally. They’re never around 2-8pm and if one gets
elected from our shift, the next thing we know, he/she is
suddenly on earlies...

LACKING DISCRETION
Give upstart managers a little power and they can't wait to
abuse it! So a new manager (acting up previously) has
already started getting our backs up. And interfered with
custom and practice this Tuesday when some workmates
were leaving after finishing their work. They were called back
and made to “wait” until this manager let them go. Childish
and overzealous.

YES INDEED, ABYSMAL PENSIONS
It’s true that the pensions issue is a vital one and all of us
being in the same final salary scheme has to be our goal.
How can it be tolerated that some of us will be losing up to
50% of our pensions? And we cannot allow mates on lousy
DC schemes, to retire into poverty as RM “offers”...

ODD SLOGAN
The new slogan of the CWU HQ is "No court, no judge and
no employer will change this - I support my union." It’s
always been odd that the CWU leadership felt it had to
convince us - union members - to support “the union”. We
are the union. But what they really mean is sit back and let
Daddy Dave take care of it: “support your union leaders” -
and blindly. We won’t do that. Our eyes will stay wide open.

IMPLEMENTING WHAT'S ALREADY THERE
Strange, but we are being told that RM will want us in the
future to cover jobs when our mates go on sick leave or
holidays… but this is already what we're asked to do! Any
odd job left uncovered, be it because of illness, holidays or…
EVRs, is supposed to be done by those who have survived
the serial job cuts here!

THAT'S THE STUFF!
We read on Royal Mail Chat (why should we have to find out
this way, shouldn’t there be official notices from the union?)
that 230 Wigan DO mates walked out after a manager
disciplined one of them for refusing to do overtime! Good!
Yes, we’d all do well to resist the drive to pile up further work
on our backs! They also showed where RM could shove their
no-strike deal!

WALLING US IN
Our ears are ringing from the construction noise - the rest
rooms down in the basement are hardly restful these days!
And because of all this building of walls, cleaners in particular
have to walk further (and get the storeroom unlocked) to
collect our chemicals and equipment... So there’s even less
time to clean...

SHALL WE JOIN THEM?
Where is the extra mail coming from? We’re told there are
diversions from North London. Apparently there’s no rest for
the wicked in HMP, but no-one’s telling us why... Are our
workmates on strike?

ANYBODY STILL OUT THERE?
We hear the Deliveries re-sign is in trouble - so many are sick
(no wonder!). And numbers are so critically down that a resign
doesn’t even make any sense. They need a re-cruit!

WE NEED NEW SEVEN AND HALF TONNERS
Talking of trouble, the trucks that Distribution drivers are
meant to drive are unroadworthy, ageing, rattletraps and a
safety risk. But does RM give a damn? Not at all. They
refuse to invest in a viable option - a fleet of new vehicles -
and expect us to “toy” with an unviable electric van...

IT DOESN'T ADD UP
We weren't surprised to hear that RM failed its target on 1st
Class mail and barely made it for 2nd Class deliveries.
Actually it’s far worse than their massaged figures show.
Obviously if our head-count goes down, deliveries go down
as well… but funnily enough, prices of 1st and 2nd Class
stamps go up - the beauty of capitalism!

[redneck]

re-sign's (or re-picks) have to happen eventually though to allow employees to have a 'base' duty that they cannot be moved from without agreement. If there is no structure to the work place management can just move some people around at will, interfering with their lives with constantly changing start/finish times and even days of work. Management generally don't like a re-pick for that reason, they have less control, and rightly so, better than them having too much.