23/02/22 Mount Pleasant Bulletin

[jimallen]

Hi, find below the Mount Pleasant bulletin of 23 February. We welcome your comments!

MORE WORK NEEDS MORE WORKERS
Management chose a perfect time to bring DSA work
from Romford didn't they? During half-term, when many
people take holidays to look after their (grand)kids! That
meant mates were moved on to DSA in the morning, but
then no one was brought in to cover them! If
management are going to bring work from Romford,
why not also the workers who did that work?

DOESN'T HE HAVE A MUTE BUTTON?
Us on primary letters don't appreciate being shunted
from one bad place, to another bad place! First we
were confined in a cramped corner. Now everyone is
stuck between two ILSMs! The noise is so bad we
might have to wear earplugs. Has anyone done a
decibel test to check we won't damage our hearing? On
the upside, we now can't hear King Etcetera..!

TURNING ON EACH OTHER
...and he sure does speak some rubbish, like last week
when he tried to make just 6 of us work much faster!
When we complained, he blamed the shift manager for
getting on his back, as an excuse for his ridiculous
behaviour. We thought they were good friends...

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT
We were not at all happy with the union's "local news"
leaflet which was circulated a couple of weeks ago.
First of all, we were told that we better be prepared for
weekend duties, since RM's competing "with couriers
for new work", including "delivering items over the
weekend"...
But why should we agree to work on our weekends
off? In fact some of us have already been put on
Saturdays thanks to a blackmail deal for a 35-hour
week! When we ALL need (at least!) two days-in-a-row
to rest!

AGAINST ALL BOSSES!
Some of us thought that this leaflet was written by
managers, and no wonder! We read things like "the
whole pipeline needs revamping to compete against
white van man"... "White van man"? That's shocking!
And this is meant to be coming from the union?
First of all it's derogatory against other delivery
drivers. And second, it's setting one set of workers
against another! Since when does the "union", whose
job it is to bring workers together to fight the common
enemy (be it bosses from DHL, RM, DPD, UPS etc...),
use this contemptuous kind of language?

WE'RE AGAINST OVERTIME
And we read, as a matter of fact and without any
questioning, that the work done on weekends is
"currently done by S/A and overtime"... Some of us still
remember the time when we fought against overtime -
simply because it's stealing a job of someone else and
we're against long hours of work!
Of course, many of us have no choice but do
overtime to make ends meet, but we wouldn't have to if
wages were decent! So what about discussing how
much RM's going to increase our wages by, at the end
of March instead?

SOLICITORS OR FIGHTERS?
No wonder the union officials need to run a "Growing
the union" campaign... The leaflet makes out that
members drop out because dues have lapsed, due to
"people being off work on long term sick"... You'd think
that would be easy to avoid! As for the other reason:
"due to a disciplinary suspension", that implies that the
union failed to defend its member...
The real problem is, however, that apparently being
a union member is seen as having "an added insurance
policy"... Well, not in our book! Being part of the union
is being part of a fraternal and effective fighting body - to
defend ourselves collectively against all attacks!

EXHAUSTING
Talking about overtime, some managers think it's funny
to tell us that overtime is not too bad, since they're doing
it themselves? Easy to say when the job is to sit on
your hands or breathe down someone else's neck!

CORRECTION
Despite the rumours circulating (as was written in the
previous bulletin), it seems unlikely that managers will
cut jobs on distribution. In fact, if anything, we're short
of hands on all shifts - and not just because of
workmates being on sick leave! So we want to see new
jobs added to that future re-sign - whenever it happens!

POSTPONE IT AS LONG AS POSSIBLE
So another re-sign that we thought would happen soon,
but never did, is the one among us on Deliveries. Are
managers waiting to see how the end of Covid
restrictions pans out? No problem, we're not in a hurry
for a re-sign, given managers' record on the matter.

IT'S NOT DUE TO COVID
There's a lot of stories in the media about the cause of
RM's postal delays. And most of them (unless they
come from RM itself) agree that "Covid's not to blame".
And we all know that's the truth. However the
whistleblower, reported on BBC news, is right to say it's
due to lack of sickness cover... but of course there'd be
cover if RM hadn't cut so many jobs...

INHUMAN CALCULATIONS
What's more, the BBC adds that "there were longer term
issues too, with postal rounds becoming
unmanageably big. They said this was due to computer
algorithms being used to calculate routes without any
human input on the impact of delays such as roadworks
or building work". Yeah, it's the old story - the computer
which doesn't run from house to house chucking letters
and packets through doors...

[SpacePhoenix]

DOESN'T HE HAVE A MUTE BUTTON?
Us on primary letters don't appreciate being shunted
from one bad place, to another bad place! First we
were confined in a cramped corner. Now everyone is
stuck between two ILSMs! The noise is so bad we
might have to wear earplugs. Has anyone done a
decibel test to check we won't damage our hearing? On
the upside, we now can't hear King Etcetera..!

Sorry, but I've got to call bulls**t on that, the noise of iLSMs isn't excessive

[Tman]

"Has anyone done a decibel test" Yes, many times, and the iLSMs are perfectly safe.
Still, this sort of BS is par for the MP bulletin.

[chickenwittle]

I stopped reading it along time ago , it’s a dreadful read , I know I’ll get stick for saying that but hey ho.