10/12/25 Mount Pleasant Bulletin

[jimallen]

Hi, find below the Mount Pleasant bulletin of 10 December, comments welcomed! The bulletin takes a little break and will be back in January - we wish everyone a merry festive season and a happy New Year!

DON'T NEED A CRYSTAL BALL...
This Xmas "unforeseen" overtime system has to go:
we need to apply for extra hours each and every week,
only to hear on Friday which shifts we've been
allocated for the following week. It means we can't
organise our lives, when we need it the most during
this festive period! And as if there was such a thing as
"unforeseen" OT at Xmas!

A WORKER ISN'T JUST FOR XMAS...
We welcome again the Xmas temps to the mad Mount
un-Pleasant! And yes, the un-pleasant processing
management were mean enough to offer temps very
short contracts - just to 21 December! When they
know it's going to be mayhem all the way to
January… and February, March, April, May, June...

HOW HIGH THE MOUNT CAN GET?
And then, a few of our workmates retired from this
madhouse just last week! So while we wish them all
the best, we're really going to miss them, because we
know managers won't replace them. They know as
well as we do that Processing can't do without them!
We'll see how high a pile of unprocessed packets can
get!?

WEEKENDS ARE FOR FRIENDS AND FAM
Processing managers told us during their "huddles" on
weekends that more of us will be "pushed" from
weekdays to weekend working. They've tried it
already with "supernumeraries", telling them the only
duties available were weekends. Many refused to be
moved. In fact we will all keep refusing!

DUMs' DUMDUM
No wonder the PDAs' navigation system is so dumb -
management's choice is to use TomTom. It's so
useless, the Spanish call it "Tonto" ("idiot")...
Apparently it costs a 10th of the price of better
software, which figures; only the cheapest will do for
RM! But of course for new starters, it causes us 10x
the hassle, and then we're asked to make up for
bosses' penny-pinching by working 10x longer, and
faster? No way!

WE WANT THE INTEREST AS WELL!
Cleaners finally got our backdated pay - which after
tax means £400 to £500 in our pockets... And while we
welcome this cash during a period of extra-expenses,
we would like to know how much interest went into
the bosses' pockets, for holding onto this money for 7-
8 months! That's our money!

IN IT TO WIN… WHAT?
The RM Xmas raffle is back again… but we aren't
holding our breaths over it: last year, first prize was a
small amount of cash, and third prize was a bottle of
water with a sticker saying "This is Royal Mail"! Who
would swallow that?

LESS "XMAS SPIRIT", MORE "GHOST OF XMAS PAST"
A bright spark upstairs decided to spend money on
producing some Xmas hoodies/jumpers for some
office workers. We wonder who came up with the
lovely "Xmas message" printed on them: "Keep the
mail moving, keep the yorks moving". We're not
familiar with that particular Christmas carol and us
office workers don't tend to push yorks. Perhaps we
can wear the jumpers inside out...

YOUR MAIL'S GOT STUCK... SOMEWHERE
Every year it's the same story, many of us don't get
our Xmas stamps on time... In fact, since
management posts them to us, why should we be
surprised? We all know the state of the postal service!
We wonder if we'll get them in time to use for Xmas
2026?

SCROOGE'S HABITS
And talking about meanness, since Excess Profit group
decided to send us 2nd Class stamps instead of 1st
Class this year, what's going to happen with our Xmas
bonus? If we're not mistaken, it's £200 pro-rata
payment we're expecting - which is already pathetic!

MEETING NEEDED!
Out of the grey/blue sky, some of us received a ballot
by mail to vote for the Deputy Assistant Area Rep -
asking us to return it by 19 Dec. Many of us haven't
received it yet, again, no surprise there, when we see
the pile of (USO!) undelivered letters. But the Mount
candidates could still organise a meeting to tell us
where they stand on the issues facing us, can't they?
Shouldn't they?

WE NEED TO REPRESENT OURSELVES
On the other hand, what's stopping us from having
our own meeting(s) to discuss our problems? Then
we can decide collectively what needs to be done
about them - and invite the reps to help us to
implement our demands...