27/01/21 Mount Pleasant Bulletin

[jimallen]

Find below the Mount Pleasant bulletin of 27 January. The complete bulletin with the front page editorial is attached. Comments are welcome, as usual.

WE VOTED NO, OF COURSE!
The union leaders recommend in big bold red
CAPITAL LETTERS that we vote yes for this
"Pathway to Change for the worse". We always
expected these flat-arsed (no that's not a typo!)
bureaucrats would - but this time they really went
for it. The worst aspect of this dirty deal is the job
cuts and cuts in letters-delivery - in favour of
packets - and 7-days-a-week-parcels, at that!

THEY WANT A KNIGHTHOOD?
When the union leaders tell us that "the agreement
has been negotiated during the most difficult and
challenging circumstances" and that we have to
remember that "businesses are closing, workers'
Ts&Cs being attacked, and rising numbers of
workers unemployed", we're supposed to be
impressed at their "great achievement"! Yeah,
while RM's making the most of the pandemic with
the online-ordering frenzy... and when this would
be just the time to strike a hard bargain - literally!
And BTW, they've conveniently forgotten that "our"
position is that RM should be renationalised!

MORE PERMANENT MATES...
Christmas is over, and now managers are asking
casuals to re-apply to Angard for more temp work...
Their crooked idea is probably to gradually replace
permanent workers with casuals - so we are going
to have to find a way to help these bosses think
straight. Everyone needs a permanent contract
and full pay!

...AND FULL TIME!
What's more all part-time staff must be made up to
full-time if that's what they want! At the moment,
some of us part-timers are almost full-time, working
35 hours, but only because of the exceptional
circumstances. No, we need the certainty of a fulltime
contract.

ALWAYS LAGGING BEHIND...
We're quite far into the 3rd lock-down and it's only
now that management sends a reminder that we're
"key workers" doing "essential work"? Sure, it's
hard to remember that we are, since we've been
doing so much non-essential work. In fact, it's as if
there wasn't a pandemic at all!
PS: The one positive thing is that we can renew
our congestion charge exemptions...

WHAT IT WOULD TAKE...
In fact, "key workers" or not, we know what it’d take
to make this place safer: we'd need to shorten our
week by at least half (without losing pay!), we'd
need more breaks to have a breather outside (can't
work with masks hours on end!) and we need to
process only essential packets/letters. Yes, having
managers in charge of Covid-security has got us in
a mess. We keep seeing workmates going off sick
– there are still 22 live Covid cases this week, and
37 self-isolating!

IN THE DARK
For us cleaners it’s no better. We're the ones
cleaning high-risk areas and yet no one bothers to
tell us how many PFS workmates have gone off
sick with Covid. This would be the only way for us
to judge the risk we're taking. And since we can't
count on anyone but ourselves, we'd better make
sure we know where each one of us is, share
phone numbers and check on each other regularly!

WE NEED TO KNOW
We're hearing of a lot of Covid cases… We all get
these messages from the union saying how bad
things are, but they still don’t tell us what we really
need to know, like where the cases are. We
shouldn’t have to rely on word-of-mouth to know
that PSA has lots of mates who tested positive.
What's most upsetting of all is that we are not even
sure about who may have passed away.

WE DON'T WANT OT
So okay, the van sharing is not happening any
more. But then we're expected to cover longer
shifts on overtime! And managers then have the
cheek to tell us how generous they are, since
overtime costs them money! There used to be
many more drivers - and that's what we want to
see again: more drivers to share the work!

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE!
We're glad to see new faces on the cleaning side.
But here's a word from the wise to the newbies:
don't take the Elephant too seriously, he just wants
to be liked...

TOO LITTLE TOO LATE...
Now we’re meant to be getting “reusable” masks,
with the RM logo - so we can do some free
advertising?! But the bosses are a little late -
because the latest scientific evidence is that cloth
masks are no good - and that FFP2/N95 masks,
should now be mandatory inside. Yup, just like
these bosses to do the wrong thing at the wrong
time!