25/04/2018 Mount Pleasant Bulletin

[jimallen]

Hi there, here's the bulletin of the 25th of April. You'll find attached the entire bulletin. Comments welcome!

SHE HAS A LOT TO THANK THEM FOR
So Moya Greede confirmed she’s retiring after only 8
years. She said it had been a "great privilege to serve as
CEO of this cherished UK institution". A great privilege to
turn it from a public service into an “uncherishable” private
business, and a shadow of its former self. Good riddance
to her. But we guess the CWU’s TP and DW might miss
her. Has she maybe been invited down to their
Bournemouth Conference this week, to kiss them
goodbye?

MONEY MAKES HER WORLD GO AROUND
Apparently Moya’s level of destruction is hard to beat! It’s
worth £547,800 base salary plus £367,000 in lieu of bonus.
A cool million, plus her pension... of another cool million.
Along with her other directorships (Easyjet, Rio Tinto)
she’s likely to have a few quid to spare. Anyone need a
sub?

JUST AS EASY TO SCHMOOZE?
So this guy Rico Backwards is taking over from Greede
and for some reason he’s getting £790,000 in pay and
benefits and £1.3m bonus (more because... why?). A
seamless transition, which will see the union leaders
carrying on presenting themselves on bended knee, we’re
told! But we hear RB’s going to be commuting from
Switzerland - where RM’s stash will be kept safe and
sound in his account?

NEW CDC PENSION STILL NOT CERTAIN!
Looking at the proceedings of the Select Committee of the
House of Commons on the viability of the CDC pensions, it
seems that the extra legislation needed for the new
pension to come into being is not at all a foregone
conclusion! MPs ask: Why should they make new
regulations just for one company? Maybe they will do it,
maybe they won’t. But we're losing out either way.

DARE WE STAY INSIDE?
Why are/were some fire exits actually locked during night
shifts? It means no access out of the building, for instance
from evacuation points B and D! This would surely be a
lethal situation, if this place went up in flames! Like any
mail centre, it’s a tinderbox - even without the added risk of
construction going on and sparks flying!

A COMBUSTIBLE SITUATION
Well at least some checks were being done this week on
fire equipment! But that made us think: when did we last
have a proper fire drill? And what about this new
evacuation plan supposedly signed off by one of the fire
brigades? We haven’t even had a chance to test it. What
would it take to wake this negligent, hazardous
management up to the fact that they’re putting us all at
risk?

BRING BACK OUR REGULAR NAPS
We finally had Work Time Sleeping last Wednesday, after
several weeks’ gap… We thought RM had (sensibly)
decided to give up on trying to brainwash us. But maybe it
was just that managers didn’t want to distract us from the
(too huge) piles of work coming in.

DUH
Predictably, there was nothing new being served up on the
WTS menu... The same old "letters have gone down and
packets up" lecture. Thanks genius, we couldn't figure that
one out ourselves!

BLOOD TRANSFUSION NEEDED
It's always sad to see our mates going and those on the
EVR waiting list are now leaving slowly, one after the
other. But we do share their joy of liberation from HMP!
So it isn't about stopping them going, it is all about getting
new (permanent) blood in this place!

SHARE THE WORK!
Yup, we find it crazy that our youngest mates in HMP are
in their 30s (or have we forgotten anyone younger?), while
some of us old timers started when we were teenagers…
What's even more crazy is that the unemployment for the
under-25s is at 12.3% - three times the average! And it is
not for lack of work, that RM don’t recruit - there is plenty of
it to share in here!

NOTORIOUS S.M.A.L.L.
That's why we could only shake our heads when we heard
that management is preparing for a "biiiiig re-sign" in
September… Such a re-sign would have to come with
biiiiig-time recruitment to mean anything. We know that’s
not their aim. So maybe they should start talking about a
miniscule-fit-up.

WHEN IS THE RIOT?
By the way, no wonder nobody wants to come down to
PSA after mini fit-ups or re-signs… It does look very like a
prison. But with the chronic shortage of hands, it feels
more like the gallows!

TOO MUCH HOT AIR
We had fresh air to breathe only when the platform gates
opened during the hot spell last week. But you could say
that our “primary” problem was having B the B breathing
down our necks! A mask over his mouth might help - or
better still, a gag?

DUNNO?
When cleaners had our weekly meeting with the
management, we asked them when we’d get our payrise?
They told us they didn’t know. So, what’s the point of
meeting us if they can’t answer our questions? Or do they
not know?

HIS TIME’S UP!
The Elephant keeps tapping his watch, as if to say that
time is running out, whenever he sees us cleaners. When
you do that in front of kids it’s one thing, but to try to tell
adults off with this kind of gesture? It’s a no-no. Shouldn’t
he know that?

[crimson king]

The stuff about Windrush in the attachment was really good, with some interesting historical notes. I'd almost forgotten just how panicked the Tories were by the rise of UKIP a few years back.