08/09/21 Mount Pleasant Bulletin

[jimallen]

Hi, find below the Mount Pleasant bulletin of 8 September, comments welcome!

UNPLEASANT A-MOUNT
As usual after the Bank Holiday last week, there was
a huge build up of packets! But this year it has
seemed worse than usual... It was impossible to
clear for three days running, and on top of it there
were york-fulls of test kits. And these can only
increase...

COVID STILL A RISK
And since Britain has the highest number of Covid
cases in the world and deaths are increasing, surely
precautions here at work need to be redoubled? On
paper, RM says it hasn't lifted its Covid precautions -
but it never took them seriously enough; eg., masks
were only "strongly recommended". Whereas masks
and distancing are the best way to protect ourselves
and fellow workers right now, given "vaccine escape"
by variants.

THAT'S THE WAY TO DO IT
We were glad to see a petition circulating on nights
last month, against management's stupid "realignment".
They probably got the message early on,
when they realised that 3 different starting times per
week meant we simply wouldn't turn up on time. As
for their "re-alignment" mark 2, they also had to bin it
after so many of us signed the petition!

SAME DIFFERENCE
So yes, starting every night shift at the same time
was what we wanted and we got it. But frankly, other
than Tuesday, when we start 30 minutes... erm,
sorry, 36 minutes later, the 6 minutes they've cut off
the working day all the other days means we get no
benefit whatsoever. So this is still stupid, as far as
we're concerned.

PS: On Lates, on the other hand, most of us now
start half an hour later on Mondays and Fridays,
which does make a difference. So when's the even
shorter, 35-hour week that we've been asking for
coming?

LIMIT THE WORKING DAY!
Yes, we could also do with a shorter working week on
deliveries - even now when the City hasn't come back
fully, we're already busy... In fact, managers are
asking us to do overtime. So what's going to happen
when it gets even busier?

NOT A CLUE!
What an unpleasant surprise to receive a letter from
CEO Simon Thompson in the post at the beginning of
this month, with the heading "Clear your office, not
just your frame"! He says that we now have a "better balanced
workload" (in what world?!) so we should be
able to clear "every day". This from a former
managing director of NHS test and trace! Says it all.

NOT A CHANCE
Of course, most offices are facing the same problems
– too few staff, part-timers who want full-time but
aren't given it, etc. So if Thompson is anticipating a
super-profitable Xmas as he has said, he will have to
cut himself into thousands of pieces and come and
do some sorting and delivering himself. He might
discover what an unbalanced "business" he presides
so ignorantly over.

PS: It's September, and casuals are already here on
the night shift; which proves not only how short of
hands we are, but that there's no excuse not to offer
them permanent contracts.

FORWARD TO THE PAST
So this is it, on 13 September we are back to the "bygone
days" of a clock-in/clock-out system... sorry,
scan-in/scan-out! Managers keep telling us that this
won’t be used against us, as if we were born
yesterday. And what about the union officials who
agreed to this up in HQ? Should we pay them a visit
to tell them what we think about it?

WE KNOW THE "RIGHT" ANSWER
Yes, the scanning system is depicted in kiddies’
cartoons just in case we don’t get it!! We particularly
liked the character asking "will you deduct my pay
based on these scans?" Sure...

SUPER-VISION NEEDED
Can managers provide a magnifying glass with the
signing-in sheets please? They had the great idea to
re-design these with tiny, microscopic letters that no
one can read... And can anyone guess what goes on
in managers' heads which caused them to change
these sheets now, when the scan-in and out is
coming? Sometimes we wonder...

RM’S LOW-TECH
Who was the genius that designed the scanning
booths? We have to press an option on the screen
so that it can understand if we’re going in or out, then
scan our pass and then wait for the screen to tell us
that we’re good to go! If we’re late, due to queues at
the booths as a result, will the scanning be thrown in
the recycling bin?

ANOTHER PETITION?
How can a single canteen worker be left to cater for a
whole night shift? It means we can't get a proper
"lunch" and certainly not a freshly cooked one. We've
been asking for more staff in the canteen for years.
We can do a sit-in protest for the whole night if they
want?

[SpacePhoenix]

THAT'S THE WAY TO DO IT
We were glad to see a petition circulating on nights
last month, against management's stupid "realignment".
They probably got the message early on,
when they realised that 3 different starting times per
week meant we simply wouldn't turn up on time. As
for their "re-alignment" mark 2, they also had to bin it
after so many of us signed the petition!

We have 3 different start times per week and we're capable of turning up on time, why is it different for MP?

PS: It's September, and casuals are already here on
the night shift; which proves not only how short of
hands we are, but that there's no excuse not to offer
them permanent contracts.

We've had a minimum of half a dozen casuals every night since Covid kicked off. Sometimes we're outnumbered by the casuals by at least 2:1

ANOTHER PETITION?
How can a single canteen worker be left to cater for a
whole night shift? It means we can't get a proper
"lunch" and certainly not a freshly cooked one. We've
been asking for more staff in the canteen for years.
We can do a sit-in protest for the whole night if they
want?

It's been like that here for many years. I don't think many on nights bother with full cooked meals from the canteen, I believe most go for stuff like burgers