18/11/2020 Mount Pleasant Bulletin

[jimallen]

Hi, find below the Mount Pleasant bulletin of 18 November, as well as the complete bulletin attached (with front page editorial).
Comments are always welcome!

FLATTERY FROM HIM? AN INSULT!
In Hancock's Covid briefing on Monday, he praised
Royal Mail, saying how grateful he was to “posties” for
“playing a part in helping to keep people safe”: by
collecting from post boxes 7 days a week (yes, on
Sundays!) he said we speed up home testing!
So this is all signed, sealed and... collected?
Without us having any say? We'd have said, thanks,
but no thanks! Not just because we already work too
many hours, or because of potentially virus-flecked
packets, but also because we'd rather not be
scapegoats for Test&Trace's horrendous delays.

AXE THE RM BOARD!
We see that the managers' union, Unite-CMA has let it
be known that bosses intend to remove “11 work area
manager roles at London Mount Pleasant” as part of
2,000 managerial job cuts. A long CMA letter ends
with the polite suggestion of a “consultation” over what
to do. When there's only one thing to do: ask for our
help to prepare a concerted fight back. Sure, we've no
love for managers, but we're for the preservation of
every job, even theirs. Unite is right: it's the RM Board
which should be axed.

DISCOUNTED WILFUL DELAY
What's this plan by RM to offer a cheap Economy
(Down Stream) Access service which would mean we
wouldn't deliver letters from banks and charities etc.,
until we had several for a particular address:
deliberate mail delay up to 4-5 days! - at a discount for
the customer! And of course the real “economy” will be
the cutting of delivery jobs! RM is waiting for Ofcom to
say ok. They needn't wait - we already say no.
PS: Yes, it's yet another Trojan horse they're using
against the USO: every address should have a
delivery 6 days/week whether it's 1 letter or many.
Problem is they refuse to employ enough of us to do it!

THEY DESERVE AN AWARD
So it took managers “just” 8 months to finally realise
that masks should be mandatory? We knew they were
slow... But of course, it was much cheaper and much
less hassle for them to ignore the science - and
health&safety.

IS THIS AN OUTBREAK?
We heard last week that there were 16 cases of covid-
19 in Greenford MC. Another 16 in Stratford DO, with
a “significant number self isolating”. But so far we
haven't been told by managers here how many of our
fellow MP workmates are sick or self-isolating? We
suspect it's kept quiet deliberately - since the grapevine
says its as many as 26!! And of course managers
don't want all potential contacts to go off and self
isolate - they might have to notify a major outbreak!

THAT'S THE ONLY WAY
So the walkouts in DOs where managers have been
dragging their feet over H&S continue. Last month
Derry workmates refused to restart work unless the
office was deep-cleaned. And the same happened in
offices in Strabane, Greenock (Inverclyde), Stoke-on-
Trent... and probably others that we've not yet heard
about. Yes, the only way to protect ourselves is to use
our feet!

BREATHER-TIME
Apparently it's been agreed that we need lots of relief
breaks to go out of the work area in order to take off
our masks for a breather. Nobody can work for hours
on end with a mask on. So why are managers not
sticking to this? When we've got to go, we've got to
go...

OUTSIDE, FAR FROM HERE
Same thing for cleaners... we still only get the prepandemic
breaks, when these days, we need extra
time off to cool down and breathe. And we also need
to get away from the Elephant, who has a fit as soon
as he sees us sitting down for 2 seconds! Can he
please go and breathe somewhere far away, rather
than down our necks?

WE NEED OUR REP!
By the way, why haven't cleaners got a union rep? It's
been far too long since our last rep left. We need to
sort this out.

WE'RE NOT THE ALMIGHTY
Oh dear, mayhem is already here... Packets aren't
cleared on nights, despite managers clucking all over
the place like headless chickens. But what did they
expect, after all the EVRs this year? That packets
would sort themselves??

MORE PAY IS NOT JUST FOR XMAS
So now we hear that us light duty part-timers won't be
made full-time this year? We wouldn't need to work
more hours (yes, despite being on light duties) if our
wages allowed us to make ends meet. But they don't!
So we need the extra-hours, full stop.

SCRAP CONFIDENTIALITY
So have the CWU leaders declared a Xmas truce with
the bosses, or what? We've heard nothing regarding
the negotiations over the ongoing dispute. And the pay
increase is 7 months overdue, and counting...

WHENEVER IS CONVENIENT?
Those of us who haven't thrown away the managers'
little Working Time Sleeping booklet, were wondering
when our next nap is happening? Because we were
promised a WTS at the beginning of November and
we've heard nothing, and we were SO looking forward
to it...