06/04/22 Mount Pleasant Bulletin

[jimallen]

Hi there! Find below the Mount Pleasant bulletin of 06 April. Comments are welcome, as usual!

10 MINUTES IS TOO LONG
We hope our workmate who collapsed on Thursday last
week on Lates in the bullring area is okay! It took a full
10 minutes for him to get help. We keep bringing this up:
when a medical emergency happens, the first few minutes
could be crucial. But time and again management has
proved incapable of responding.
PS: We noticed an ambulance parked outside HMP on
Monday night. So yet one more of us has had a medical
issue inside of a week. We should be having regular
health checks, and a qualified nurse on site. All the more
so because there's a permanent night shift here.

HEALTH SCREENING NEEDED
By the way, the average age of the workforce is above
50. So yes, some workers are bound to be suffering from
chronic health problems. At one point we were offered
chest x-rays. With the state of the NHS and the problem
of late diagnosis, shouldn't employers be taking some of
the responsibility for screening us for things like cancer
etc.? After all, they contribute to us getting ill in the first
place!

PART OF THE REASON...
Some of the managers in here (yes, like King Etcetera and
his Master) think they know better than our own
doctors... they send workmates to do parcel duties when
they're supposed to stay on light duties. Not knowing
their own limitations and boundaries is what makes these
managers a real hazard!

YOUNG BLOOD NEEDED!
When parcel volumes pick up, it becomes obvious that the
work is too heavy for us. We end up lifting, pushing,
pulling and carrying far too many heavy parcels. And on
Nights some of us have to deal with over 1,000 large
parcels in one single shift! We're not getting younger.
When was the last time we saw "cadets" - new
permanent trainee recruits - in this place? Because that's
what's needed.

DRAGGING THEIR FEET
Our pay deal was due on 1 April. On 31 March, union
DGS Terry Pullinger wrote to CEO Simon Thompson,
explaining that he had a "debt of honour" to us. And that
not ensuring that the board sorts out our pay offer is
"quite frankly hugely disrespectful to a workforce that
have surpassed themselves as key workers during the
pandemic, and have served with distinction." Wow.
Thompson's going to be shaking in his boots. Meanwhile
we can't pay our bills.

WAS THAT AN APRIL FOOLS?
Post Office workers have had a pay offer – of 2%! And
after a pay freeze last year! This is beyond a joke. If RM
dares offer us that, there won't even be time for a ballot,
we'll be out the door! In the meantime, we could
reinforce PO workmates in their furious refusal of this
insult.

PALAEOLITHIC VS NEOLITHIC... REVOLUTION
PSA managers have been saying for ages that our old,
heavy scanners are going to be replaced… but there's still
no sign of the new ones. In fact these scanners date
from the Old Stone Age. And since RM bosses keep
telling us they're on the cutting edge of technology, we're
wondering when the New Stone Age ones are coming?

LOOK OUT BELOW!
The new PSM is going in right above our heads in PSA.
They say they're strengthening the floor, but can we trust
them..?! One crack in the ceiling, and we're out of here!

OUT OF SIGHT, NOT OUT OF MIND!
We see the signing in sheets have finally disappeared from
MP. Apparently our clocking in and out is being
overseen... from Sheffield! Hmm, these guys in HR have
good eyesight! And so if there's a problem with our
attendance records etc., we assume RM will be paying
our East Midlands Railway fares, first class.

MORE PERMANENT JOBS!
Since when have casual jobs become a permanent feature
here? There are casuals in regularly over the weekend
now, but we know so many people who want decent,
proper jobs. RM would need to employ many new mates
if we got rid of overtime and casual work!

WHAT WE WANT IS A REAL PAY RISE!
What can we say about the Elephant's overtime
"generosity"? Yes, cleaning on weekends is mostly done
on overtime, which this infamous RM-PFS manager
distributes like an Elephant king from his "ivory" tower. If
our wages were half-decent, no one would need to bother
with overtime. And now, with RPI inflation already at
8.2% and rising, our wages need to follow!
PS: We hear the Living Wage Foundation rate of £11.05
(or £12.67/hr+ London weighting) and starter rate of
£9.90, should be paid by this April, but now there's the
cost of living crisis, so no, that rate is still too low!

THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE
Is the Elephant also playing CIA agent now? He's
"secretly" hired spies to check on our finishing times...
Not very efficient, when the secret plot is actually known
by everyone. But good try!

NO TO LONE WORKING!
Talking about incompetence, has any manager even
thought that employing just one lone canteen worker on
Nights is a H&S issue? There used to be a chef and a
helper (and even before that, they used to be two
helpers). And let's remind them that when she was on
holiday, there were two substitutes to replace her.

[Tman]

Where is all that tired old class war rhetoric cut-and-pasted from?

[Jack1960]

It's more depressing than a Manic Street Preachers lyric sheet

[SpacePhoenix]

Probably most MCs have just one person working in their canteen at night.

There's probably very few if any firms who have a qualified nurse on site at night or during any shift

[bustedflush]

Where is all that tired old class war rhetoric cut-and-pasted from?

Morning Star?

[Tman]

Very likely.

[baldrick]

There's probably very few if any firms who have a qualified nurse on site at night or during any shift

Not these days anyway. When I first worked for RM my mc had a nurse during day 8-5 iirc. She was pretty useless though, her main purpose seemed to be to send you back to floor asap.