13/12/17 Mount Pleasant Bulletin from Anna and Jim

[jimallen]

Happy new year! I forgot to post the previous Mount Pleasant bulletin of 13th of Dec, so here it is. Next bulletin in a couple of days. Comments welcomed as usual!

THIS IS A SELL-OUT IN THE MAKING
We’re told that RM/CWU is close to reaching an agreement?
And that a strike will be averted? So says Terry Pullinger,
general secretary of the CWU - telling us that those of us
who’re “obsessed” with taking industrial action should get
real and take his word that the world has changed! He says
the mediator’s report outlines “new” ground for a deal. But
as far as we can see, she’s recommending almost exactly
the same offer that we all overwhelmingly refused in October
- and were ready to strike over!

THE ONLY WAY FORWARD IS STRIKE
Indeed, there’s hardly a dot or comma different! So what we
say now to the CWU negotiators, Pullinger and the rest - is
“no sell out”!! The only way forward is to strike - otherwise
we’re going to lose! And no, it’s not because we’re
“obsessed”! It’s because we’re realistic - and because we’ve
learnt from the past disasters, the worst being when we had
almost 100% for a strike against the flotation/privatisation
and the union leaders bottled it! The question is now,
whether we’ll even be given a say over this?

RM ISN’T ACTUALLY BUDGING
In fact RM already claimed before our strike ballot that its
pension offer was a “wage in retirement scheme” (a
misnomer) - so to now say that the ground has radically
shifted because they’re offering this, is either plain
dishonesty or amnesia on Pullinger’s part. And how can
there be “one pension scheme for all” on offer if DC pensions
are continuing - with some “improvements”?! On wages,
need we mention that inflation is near 4%? As for one hour
off the working day, a “pathway to 35 hours” (how many
thousands of miles long?) and last letter at 4.30pm instead of
5pm ... please, spin us another one!

ALL HE EVER WANTED...
Actually this was all predictable. But we can do without
Pullinger’s patronising message, which amounts to this: “Oh,
thanks to your fantastic 89% vote, now I can at last fall back
into bed with Moya, where I always wanted to be...!”

PENSIONS CUT... IN THE OLD WAY!
What we see is that RM proposes that our present DB
scheme is to close in April 2018 and be replaced by a
tweaked version of the same scheme they proposed before.
And those who’ve been in the lousy DC scheme for 5 years
or more would be able to opt for a cash balance scheme. At
the end of the day, RM would be cutting its own contributions
to 10%, as it’s been trying to do since the beginning… yes,
this would be a complete sell-out.

THEY CAN’T SORT THIS!
This is too much - after many of our mates have gone on
early retirement, we're often covering 4 jobs each in here! If
we didn’t believe in job reservation, we’d insist that
managers did some work, instead of shuffling us around.
But of course if they did, we’d end up in an even worse mess
since most of them haven’t a clue about the job...

KEEP CALM AND… KEEP CALM
Oh dear, the week after Black Friday was one that broke
records… of chaos! We were drowned under a tsunami of
packets - we even heard EC mates got 7,000 packets to
sequence in one day?! But unlike tsunamis, this was perfectly predictable!

SMELLS FISHY IN HERE!
Yes, we've seen the volume of letters fall, but the number of
packets is going through the roof! The new invention of
managers is the "octopus", to sort big packets according to
connective postcodes. But they can put out as many
tentacles as they want, without more hands, the packets
won't get sorted. As for us, with the octopus here, the
lobster there, fishy managers looming around and RM
shareholder-sharks… we feel a severe seafood allergy
coming on!

WHERE ARE THEY?
We're surprised to see so few casuals this year, less than
half compared to last year. But what hasn't changed is their
working conditions: 10hr shift and just one hour break…
which is unpaid! Unpaid breaks, unpaid sick days, unpaid
holidays… and what next? Unpaid labour and back to
slavery?

HEAVY PROCESSING? JUST USE YOUR FEET
The worst of it is that casuals are moved from pillar to post
(hmmm) as much as we are, with the difference being that
they haven't had any proper training… So we end up
helping them. And while we are at it, we can also show them
the way out, in case it all gets too heavy inside…

BB KING… OF BLUNDER
We've heard Bobzilla was close to burning his own fingers
with all the hot air he blows, this time by proposing to cut the
casuals' break to only 30mins - in 10 hours! He was told
where to jump this time… but if he keeps playing with fire,
he may burn more than just his fingers!

DEAR SANTA: SEND RM 3 EXTRA EVs
Hilarious! We've noticed the 4 electric van charging points in
the parking lot… for the only and lonely show-case electric
van. Or is Santa perhaps meant to deliver 3 more of these
EVs?

RECRUITING ISN’T A CASUAL MATTER!
For us cleaners, enough is enough - and not enough of us is
not enough! It’s ridiculous - they’ve only taken on a couple
of casuals to help and with so many off sick or on leave on
top of the hands-shortage, we are ending up with utter
chaos!

WORKERS’ SELF-MANAGEMENT
The managers tell us cleaners that we can talk about our
problems at their 2-weekly meetings - but we do, and they
change nothing! We’ve therefore decided: we’ll keep the
meetings, but managers needn’t bother to come. We’ll take
charge of implementing the changes we need, ourselves!

LOST IN THE POST
The Xmas present of Xmas stamps was delayed and some
of us haven’t even got them yet. Cheers to RM First Class
Mail?

[Jack1960]

Ever thought of getting another job.

[Creditshampoo]

Ever thought of getting another job.

Great post laughed my face off

[DiamondSmiles]

Who are these people!

[jab0510]

Ha ha would of been quicker to write a knock knock joke!

[anna]

who are you?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Ever thought of getting another job.

Yours as a predictionist isn't going that well:

Before the strike ballot, you said about the London consultative ballot. Which got 95%

And you honestly think Royal Mail would take that seriously?

On pensions in July 2017, you said

No surprise that Unite, who represent managers, seem to be more positive about the proposal. Mind you they didn't have the dopey 4 pillars of security behind them.The CWU have been totally outmanoeuvred on this one.

And on your own office which may have kicked the nationwide trend, you predicted

Talking to most people in our office, which has 60 plus staff, hardly anyone will vote for strike action if it comes to it.

and as a critic of comedians, your own material is .....

Daddy bought me the socialist workers party for christmas

[fishtank]

Who are these people!

Who are these people who posted something called Mount Pleasant Bulletin from Anna and Jim?
Do you want to buy a Nigerian lottery ticket?

[clashcityrocker]

Why aren't tsunamis predictable?

[fishtank]

Why aren't tsunamis predictable?

Because earthquakes aren't predictable.
I suppose it depends on whether you define a tsunami at its point of creation or its point of destruction.

[britwrit]

I get a lot of information from Royal Mail Chat. The Mount Pleasant Bulletin is always the most interesting and most reliable. It would be a real loss for everyone if it wasn't around.

[daveyeff]

where did it ever say last letter 4.30 instead of 5?

[daveyeff]

and don't they mean 1 hour off the working WEEK

[anna]

It's been going since 2002 started by Reds, and yes some of us are Reds. Called Workers' Fight aims to be voice of shopfloor...
If mistakes are made at times appreciate being told, corrected and/or told off. Sorry...