29/05/25 Mount Pleasant bulletin

[jimallen]

Hi, here's the Mount Pleasant bulletin of 29 May... Comments welcome, as usual.

A FAILED PILOT FROM DAY 1
The cut-down USO pilot started in W1 last week and
surprise, surprise, it's mayhem: DUMs are running
around like headless chickens, asking the 13 of us they
call "supernumeraries" to help out indoors and on
deliveries! And despite bringing in agency drivers,
many drives are failing... Particularly when we have 2-
3 days worth of accumulated 2nd class to "deliver"...

MAKING A GREAT BIG MESS AGAIN!
And while DUMs were tearing their hair out trying to
square the circle, top managers we'd never seen
before came to the shop-floor Monday last week, hung
up golden "USO"-shaped balloons and stuffed
themselves with pastries, chanting "U.S.O! U.S.O!"
between mouthfuls. Which of course, confirms two
things: first, that the bosses want to roll out their USO
plan regardless of the "results" of these "pilots". And
second, that the higher the level of management, the
lower the behaviour.

OUR BILLS CAN'T WAIT
We keep having to repeat: where is our pay increase??
We didn't need official figures to tell us that prices are
through the roof – we just need to pop down to Tesco.
So yes, inflation is now 4.5% (RPI) and our pay is long
overdue!

WHO'S IT GOOD FOR?
In the May update from the union branch (good if these
become monthly!) we read that "the decline in
workload of many of the other Mail Centres" means
that management will reduce hours there, "whilst we
gain a new workload" here... As if we hadn't been
through a cut in hours and all the "supernumerary"
nonsense ourselves already. This is management's old
trick, playing us off against each other, pretending that
what's bad for our workmates in other MCs is good for
us!

MORE UNPROCESSED ITEMS
So are we to understand then, that workmates in other
MCs are going to face the same crap we've been
through? And why wouldn't they refuse? And why
wouldn't we refuse to cover more work, when it's
taking their jobs? Nope, this is not on. We're against
job cuts and work intensification across the board
there, here, and everywhere!

STILL NOT CLEAR AT ALL...
The carry-over leave issue is still as clear as mud...
Managers "clarified" that it is the leave we've carried
over from previous years that we have to "use or lose"
by August... So can we still carry over unused leave
from this year? That said, why should we stand to lose
any of our unused leave?!

CLAMP OFF!
And what does it mean that the new bosses are
"clamping down" on annual leave? Surely when
management is planning to "clamp down" on anything,
we need to "release" the clamp?!

NOT ENOUGH FOR EVEN ONE YEAR
By the way, us cleaners at RM-PFS cannot carry over
any leave – all of it has to be used each year. In fact,
we'd really like to have leave to carry over, but we
don't have enough holidays for that even to be an
issue! Just 22 days! Come March, it's all gone,
especially if we have to take holiday time to look after
family and kids... We could do with "family-leave
days", in addition!

IN THE BIN WITH THIS!
The latest box-ticking exercise of management is to
give us those little "30 second risk assessment" slips,
which they ask us to fill in at the beginning of our
shift... We're supposed to check a list of things and
assess if there are "immediate risks within the work
area" ... And all this in 30 seconds? Yeah, right... do
they really think we'll fall for this attempt to pass the
safety buck on to us? Management can re-print these
as "1-hour risk assessment" slips and we still wouldn't
do it.

NOT THE ONLY PESTS AROUND...
Ah yes, now we're being threatened with all sorts of
consequences for leaving our lunch lying about... OTT
managers tell us not to leave food out for "foxes, squirrels,
mice, etc." or else, we may face "the possibility of
dismissal” ! How would they even know "whodunnit"?
Are they going to ask the foxes to fill in a little form to
say where they found the food?

MEANWHILE NEXT DOOR...
Talking about food and mess left lying about, just go
have a look in 185 offices. There's a couple of hundred
people all crammed in on each floor! So obviously, at
the end of the day, it's a total mess: dishwashers
overflowing, mugs left unwashed, etc., etc... And we
cleaners are certainly not going to over-exert ourselves
to deal with this!

BLOCK THAT NUMBER!
Managers expect cleaners to cover for duties when
workmates are on leave, on top of everything else
we've got to do. Worse, they contact us on our
personal phones(!) to tell us which work needs cover –
sometimes when we're not on shift, resting at home!
Fortunately, there is that "block this number" option...

"COVER UP" NEEDED
And by the way, there used to be a spare cleaner to
cover when one of us was on leave... what happened
to that duty?? In fact there should be several spare,
given the amount of work there is to do.

[tramssirhc]

Get Martin Walsh in here to repudiate these claims.

[toonshola]

Get Martin Walsh in here to repudiate these claims.

You won’t hear or read Martin acknowledging there is anything majorly wrong with the new impending doom that is the reformed uso. There are countless reports from these trial offices of it being a mess but Martin and the union have their fingers in their ears and their heads up EP groups backside. Don’t worry though he will do a few comedy YouTube live sessions while we suffer under this new system starting from July onwards.

[yellowbelly]

Hi, here's the Mount Pleasant bulletin of 29 May... Comments welcome, as usual.

......


NOT ENOUGH FOR EVEN ONE YEAR
By the way, us cleaners at RM-PFS cannot carry over
any leave – all of it has to be used each year. In fact,
we'd really like to have leave to carry over, but we
don't have enough holidays for that even to be an
issue! Just 22 days! Come March, it's all gone,
especially if we have to take holiday time to look after
family and kids... We could do with "family-leave
days", in addition!

That's the basic entitlement for posties too (well 22.5 days).

Parental leave (unpaid): https://www.gov.uk/parental-leave

Parental leave is unpaid. You’re entitled to 18 weeks’ leave for each child and adopted child, up to their 18th birthday.

The limit on how much parental leave each parent can take in a year is 4 weeks for each child (unless the employer agrees otherwise).

You must take parental leave as whole weeks (for example 1 week or 2 weeks) rather than individual days, unless your employer agrees otherwise or if your child is disabled. You do not have to take all the leave at once.

A ‘week’ equals the length of time an employee normally works over 7 days.

Example

If an employee works 3 days a week, one ‘week’ of parental leave equals 3 days. If an employee works irregular weeks the number of days in a ‘week’ is the total number of days they work a year divided by 52.

[Moose67]

And Monday we start doing Parcel Force work you gotta love the planning branch at Royal Mail turn up clock on clock off f###k am the place has gone to the dogs

[Tman]

Some of the statements and sentiments expressed in the little Left Wing homily attached to the Mount Pleasant stuff show why the Left have lost all credibility with it's traditional voters and supporters.
No more than an echo chamber of unrealistic, unpopular and unworkable nonsense written only for the pleasure of those involved, and with no intent to inform or persuade that the cause is good and just.

[tramssirhc]

Some of the statements and sentiments expressed in the little Left Wing homily attached to the Mount Pleasant stuff show why the Left have lost all credibility with it's traditional voters and supporters.
No more than an echo chamber of unrealistic, unpopular and unworkable nonsense written only for the pleasure of those involved, and with no intent to inform or persuade that the cause is good and just.

So it's not true? Just all made up to make the CWU look bad?

[SkiSunday]

Some of the statements and sentiments expressed in the little Left Wing homily attached to the Mount Pleasant stuff show why the Left have lost all credibility with it's traditional voters and supporters.
No more than an echo chamber of unrealistic, unpopular and unworkable nonsense written only for the pleasure of those involved, and with no intent to inform or persuade that the cause is good and just.

So does that make you a right wing nutjob then?
It's not that black and white pal. Right/Left labels are rubbish, why can't people ask for a dignified and well managed workplace without being labeled as either fascists or communists?

[tramssirhc]

Some of the statements and sentiments expressed in the little Left Wing homily attached to the Mount Pleasant stuff show why the Left have lost all credibility with it's traditional voters and supporters.
No more than an echo chamber of unrealistic, unpopular and unworkable nonsense written only for the pleasure of those involved, and with no intent to inform or persuade that the cause is good and just.

So does that make you a right wing nutjob then?
It's not that black and white pal. Right/Left labels are rubbish, why can't people ask for a dignified and well managed workplace without being labeled as either fascists or communists?

The fascists would never ask for dignity and respect. The communists, anarchists, syndicalists, wobblies, Marxists, Trotskyists, levellers, diggers simply get attacked by the Stalinists in the CWU.

[SkiSunday]

Some of the statements and sentiments expressed in the little Left Wing homily attached to the Mount Pleasant stuff show why the Left have lost all credibility with it's traditional voters and supporters.
No more than an echo chamber of unrealistic, unpopular and unworkable nonsense written only for the pleasure of those involved, and with no intent to inform or persuade that the cause is good and just.

So does that make you a right wing nutjob then?
It's not that black and white pal. Right/Left labels are rubbish, why can't people ask for a dignified and well managed workplace without being labeled as either fascists or communists?

The fascists would never ask for dignity and respect. The communists, anarchists, syndicalists, wobblies, Marxists, Trotskyists, levellers, diggers simply get attacked by the Stalinists in the CWU.

In the real world it ain't that black and white though.

[Tman]

So it's not true? Just all made up to make the CWU look bad?

WTF's it got to do with the CWU?

[Sean06]

So it's not true? Just all made up to make the CWU look bad?

WTF's it got to do with the CWU?

Did you not know the cwu is at fault for everything that goes wrong in the world.

[Binsey]

These days I don’t personally blame any of the CWU Leadership for our current malaise.

They and us the members have been blown away by the Tragedy Of History.

One battle to far….