latest Mount Pleasant Bulletin 20/5/14

[anna]

Hi there, here is (latest) 20/5/14 Mount Pleasant Bulletin. Update on the creche... (provided for 1,500 on site plus outsiders as a commercial op by private Kiddycare)

WE DO THE JOB, THEY GET THE FRUITS?
So, according to the news, we’re delivering “above and beyond targets” since privatisation... RM’s boasting about a +0.2% on first class deliveries and +0.4% on second class. What a very huge increase! But enough to please shareholders, apparently, and make managers salivate for their bonuses... As for us... well, according to CWU partner, Dave Ward, we should be “proud”, as our hard work and dedication (?) is paying off! For whom?

BABIES ARE BACK!
Nice to see the refurbished creche re-opening on site. Not so nice to see Moya Greede basking in the good publicity. Didn’t the RM Board want it shut down 3 years ago? But let’s be happy - and if, as the union says, the creche is still there thanks to its strength, then surely there’s good reason for us to use this muscle to get free childcare facilities, here and in the other workplaces which want and need it???

THE STATE SHOULD PAY IN FULL
Yes of course the biggest issue is cost - even subsided creche places are hard to pay for on our wages.
And the demand for the temporary creche down the road to stay open “for employees children” says everything about real need! But of course there are now all of a sudden lots more of us on site - from the merged mail centres/Rathbone Place and the office workers who came here to occupy the fancy 185 Farringdon Road... So, a bigger creche, next?
(And open to other workers delivering a public service, like from King’s Cross station?)

NOT ENOUGH WORKERS...
That meeting for Romec cleaners last week over the job review wasn’t satisfactory. We’re not cleaning operating theatres here. We told them the jobs were too heavy, but they say we’ve got to do them anyway. Well we can’t. More hands is our bottom line.

...AND NOT ENOUGH MACHINES, EITHER
And what’s the point of training us on the cleaning machines, when there just aren’t enough of them? But if we did get enough of them (+cordless vacuum cleaners), we’d need a dedicated super-speedy lift (preferably golden) to zoom them up and down the building!

THEY’RE GETTING READY TO MAKE CUTS
We’re touched by Romec’s care and concern over us since the POL contract was lost... But if they really cared, they’d give all Romec workers better working conditions. For instance what about revoking those ridiculous 2-weeks-only-holidays- with-notice-and subject-to-change, restrictions?

75% P-T TO 25% F-T?
We argue for part-timers to be made up to full-time when we’re short of hands. But many have been working for years on these too-short hours and wages, so quite frankly they should be made up without delay, no reason needed! And maybe the union should find out for us whether that 75:25 full-time:part-time ratio is anything near being “observed” by the bosses??

DOWN A PEG OR TWO
We’ve noticed that more managers are appearing on the floor - as ex-managers and in uniform... So the cuts are already done? We don’t hear what the CMA has been up to, but probably wheeling and dealing. We are looking forward to showing these new starts how to do the job they’ve been telling us how to do for so long...

KNOCK-OUT ROUND...
We’re a bit worried that RM dedicated an entire page in the May Courier to a postal worker who broke a new world record as the fastest marathon racer, while dressed in his uniform and carrying a bag full of mail. Congrats to him, of course, but we’d like to caution RM against expecting us to run record-breaking marathons while delivering, if that’s the idea! Or they’ll find out some of us are more into boxing!

SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE...
Let’s shed a tear for Moya - who’s being denied her 3% pay rise by Vince Cable (which all RM “workers” are entitled to, after all!!)... Her spokesperson complains that she hasn’t had a pay rise since 2010 (never mind her income of £1m/yr!) and “since that time frontline staff have had a pay award of 6.9%, plus £1,000 lump sum, and now the further 9.1% rise and [not to forget!] a £200 lump sum”. Of course we’re happy for her to get the same as us... exactly. She can put on a uniform and join the union...

DOUBLE STANDARDS
Quite a few of us were shocked by the trial of our ex-workmate who got 8 years in jail for stealing £2.3m worth of cheques - apparently mainly from City firms - over a period of 3 years.... The judge said this was “one of the largest scales of theft.. and certainly the most sophisticated...” We ask ourselves how this can happen, and then we think about all the job cuts and “reorganisations”...
On the “scale of things”, however, let’s remember that the sell-off of RM was highly sophisticated grand theft - on an unprecedented scale... and nobody’s gone to jail for it.
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The May WF newspaper is still on sale (30p) and the Spring issue of the Class Struggle journal is too.
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email: contact@w-fight.org

[ebbzie]

let’s remember that the sell-off of RM was highly sophisticated grand theft - on an unprecedented scale... and nobody’s gone to jail for it.


So so true