13/05/26 Mount Pleasant Bulletin

[jimallen]

Hi, here's the Mount Pleasant bulletin of 13 May. We welcome your comments!

ALL IN IT TOGETHER
Union leaders say that the CWU/RM agreement
mainly affects Delivery workers. Obviously delivery
mates are dead against this deal; many of us in the
"pilot" know first hand what RM's USO cuts mean.
As for "equalisation", this deal does not bring new
starters onto the same pay or Ts&Cs! But whether
in Processing or any other part of RM's ops, we are
welded together, not just "technically", but as part
of one workforce. We'll all vote "NO" - together!

IT'S UP TO US!
In fact managers know it: on Processing they're
using the USO "changes" to impose ridiculous duty
patterns, claiming we're "surplus to requirements"
("supernumeraries", but can they pronounce it?!)!
So they're depleting our ranks through VR or forced
medical retirement without replacement. And this
has to be stopped - by our collective action, initiated
here, on the ground...

WE NEED TO SHAKE THEM ALL UP!
Union officials "explain" to us in their letter to
branches and on Facebook that the company is only
likely to just break even so we can't demand a
higher pay rise or anything else! Since when do the
public accounts of any private company reflect
reality? Do they think we don't know about
Kretinsky's billions?

ONLY ONE WAY TO REVERSE THIS ROT: STRIKE!
Yes these full-time bureaucrats in CWU top office
say delays in introducing USO cuts(!), mean RM is
making losses! They even threaten us themselves,
with the prospect of more casualisation and cuts if
we don't sign up to... more casualisation and cuts!
When the only sure way to protect our futures is to
tip the balance of forces in our favour with an all out,
indefinite strike! Tough, maybe, but true.

TALK ABOUT ROLLING OVER...
Our pay "rise" (due in April) will now be paid only
on 5th June. CWU officials sent us a WhatsApp
poster trumpeting the 3% pay "rise" - a CUT in real
pay! (March RPI was already 4.1%!) Food and
petrol costs are ever-climbing, while our pay is
ever-shrinking! And theirs?

ARE THEY REALLY SO NAIVE?
The CWU letter to branches says the union leaders
didn't even try to negotiate a higher pay rise
because they "decided that it was unlikely… that
RM would agree to anything above 3%"… We
regret to inform them that it's always "unlikely" that
bosses will pay up, unless we - the workforce use
our "force", and make them.

TRULY DUM-DUM
Delivery workers, particularly new starters, are
being moved to different duties nearly every day,
meaning we don't get to learn routes. So then we
have to rely on the useless PDA navigation system
Dum-Dum, which is still sending us down dead ends,
the wrong way up one-way streets, or asking
us to perform illegal u-turns...

THEIR CHAOTIC SYSTEM
Here we are, more than two months since RM-PFS
messed up cleaners' pay on Nights, and some of us
still haven't got our money back! And yes,
management admitted it was a mistake (although
they blame HR, not themselves...), but why hasn't
this been sorted by now - and for ALL of us?!

WE CAN ONLY GUESS...
These new S/A "slots" on Processing are apparently
also a new "kind" of S/A! Weren't we always paid
our S/A hours when on leave before? Apparently
now it won't be the case any more! So who agreed
to this wage cut and when?!

NOT THAT ELECTIONS WOULD CHANGE A THING!
It seems that management didn't realise there were
local elections last week. On Letters we were
processing all the election material with a skeleton
crew... We were so few, that everything had to be
set aside for postal ballots to be sent! We wouldn't
be surprised if many people didn't even get theirs...

SHUSH, BAD DOG!
We imagine wanna-be-King Etcetera must have
been very stressed over getting all the election
material sorted on time... His bark went up several
decibels. Does anyone have a spare sound dampening
dog-muzzle they could bring in?

WITLESS (AND HEADLESS) CHICKENS
Mr Witless is out of his wits, trying to blame us for
mis-sorts! And yes, sure, there are mis-sorts, but
guess why? Because managers went along with the
job cuts in PSA - and in every other area. So as the
number of mis-sorts increase and unsorted mail
piles-up, so more and more managers' heads go
missing too..!