Mount Pleasant Workers' Fight bulletin 14 Jan 2015

[anna]

Hello and (a little late) happy new year to all! Here is the latest Mount Pleasant Bulletin - first of 2015.

WE'RE WITH YOU!
Up the bus drivers!! This Tuesday around 20,000 across 70 London Depots took part in a 24-hour strike for equal pay for equal work! There's no collective pay deal and 80 different pay rates for drivers doing exactly the same job. (And no, Boris you clown, it's not a different job in different streets – only the scenery changes!). It makes no sense at all.
And they need a pay rise too. Don't we all!? The answer’s obvious to us, but not, apparently, to union leaders, ie., co-ordinate real strike action across all sections of workers for decent pay and for the same rate for the same job!!

WE'LL MISS THEM
We'll miss the many part-timers who took VR and retirement on the 19th of last month and wish them the best. But now we want to know who's replacing them? And are part-timers finally going to get the F-T contract we've been asking for, for years? We all know we can do with more hands in here, but we also suspect that RM bosses don't actually want more full-timers, despite their “reassurances”. And that's not acceptable to us. Nor is it acceptable for them to ask us to work F-T without a F-T contract...

MISERABLE MONDAY
Maybe that was why it was so hectic this first Monday back after the holiday – too few of us to cope. We now hear the words “critical Monday”, being spoken – and whispers of overtime. But of course, Mount bosses wouldn't give overtime on the Sunday – it costs too much! Anyway, would we do it?

...AND SOMEONE WE'D NEVER MISS
Oh, and by the way, the loss of all these workmates could well also be the reason for B the B's abnormally nasty panic in the lead-up to Xmas. Not because he'd miss anyone, of course, but because he'd have fewer people to pee off...

WHITE'S DARK SIDE
Are these managers for real? Before Xmas, in PSA we were asked to stay 10 minutes more, after working all night, to sort out the mess... without OT pay or compensation the next day! We know that PSA looks like a prison, but we have to remind them that we can always decide to walk out, whenever WE want!

DUMBO LEAGUE
The Romec elephant fight has gone another round... and we're still chuckling. Now the two of them, who can't agree on the most basic of things, have decided to manage two separate teams. So when's the play-off planned for?

ROMEC IS ENTIRELY UNREASONABLE
So all of us Romec cleaners had meetings at the end of last week... with both Dumbos present. We were told that we'd not be granted more than 3 weeks holiday in a row, and even then, it's not going to be given when we need to take it – like when our kids are on holiday... And “special leave” or additional unpaid leave, for emergencies, depends on them agreeing with us what constitutes an “emergency”... As if getting out of here for a break was not always a question of emergency!

DOUBLE STANDARDS
Of course whether it's RM or any other bosses, this idea of not taking workers' far-away homeland ties (requiring long leave) or even the occasional possibility of a nice long vacation for any of us, into account, is needlessly nasty and discriminatory. And of course, they wouldn't dream of applying such rules to themselves! At least RM still grants “sabbaticals”, though...

WE KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR US
Given the limit of five weeks hols, we also got this hypocritical nonsense about it being against our “health and safety” to take all our leave in one go... As if they give a damn about that!! What about the “investigations” and disciplinaries every time we're sick or need hospital appointments? Or the refusal to allow us to change our shifts? Anyway, if they're that concerned, they can always give us extra leave. We can do with it. And take themselves off on leave indefinitely, which would improve our health no end...

WORKING FOR WHOM?
As for Quadrant bosses, we've heard they just cut some workers' hours, leaving them without enough pay to live on – so they're obliged to find 2nd or 3rd jobs... Shouldn't the hours they contract you for, be binding on the bosses? How come they're able to chop and change at will like this, to our severe detriment?

NEEDED TO BE BETTER
Apparently a “good deal” has been made (but don't they always say that?) between the Post Office Supply Chain bosses and the CWU after our workmates struck before Xmas. They say there'll be no compulsory redundancies. But there will be job cuts – on a voluntary basis – and a pay rise which certainly won't catch up with costs. Real pay has gone down 8% and they accepted 2.1%, 1.9% and 1.9% over 3 years...

THEIR VULTURES AND OURS
Very bad news however, for City Link mates – told on Xmas day that the company was sunk. When RM was approached to take on some, or all of them, it said it was only interested in “consumer contracts”. What? Worst off were so-called “service delivery partners” - which just means self-employed drivers - who'll get no redundancy pay (for the others, the tab's picked up by the government, btw): a sample (fairy tale) “profit and loss sheet” assumed drivers worked every week of the year and made 103 deliveries per day at a rate of £1.65 per drop. But City Link had no obligation to provide a minimum amount of work, or any work at all...

CHEERS FOR THAT
So, Billy Hayes blames Ofcom for letting the free market have its head (?) and allowing “bad guys” like City Link into the market … to undercut Royal Mail. So RM is a “good guy”!?

FRESHLY BAKED...? OR UNCOOKED?
We see that RM is recruiting managers. In the ad for the job they boast that: “we offer managerial responsibility from day one”. No wonder everything's in such a mess... and no wonder managers grow such big and ignorant heads.