18/05/22 Mount Pleasant Bulletin

[jimallen]

Hi, find below the Mount Pleasant bulletin of 18 May. Comments are welcome, as usual!

HEADS IN THE CLOUDS
According to a letter we've seen from the London
Divisional Committee of the CWU, RM is offering "a
zero percent pay rise" unless we agree to a "wish list"
of demands in return. And if we do agree to a whole
puppet-show worth of strings? 2%. Completely
outrageous. Do they think we can take this seriously?
As if 2% (a real cut!) was an "offer"! They are living on
a completely different planet.

AMAZON TERMS? NO THANKS!
The so-called "Pathway to change" agreement (which
covered the period until 2021) was more like a way to
go backwards (sound familiar?)... Union officials say it
themselves in their leaflet: management (not "we",
surely!) "introduced the biggest number of revisions in
decades" - meaning the biggest number of job cuts and
attacks on our Ts&Cs! This is the sort of agreement,
cooked up behind closed doors, that has led us to
where we are now. We need to say loud and clear
what we want this time!

GIVE THEM A FINGER...
Another thing the union leaflet said: "we introduced
Sunday working". Again, this "we" means that the
union is running RM now? Last we heard, it was still
Simon Thompson and Co... But more seriously, we all
knew that after "voluntary" Sundays (and Saturdays at
the Mount), management would push for compulsory
weekends. The writing was all over the wall...

...THEY TAKE THE ENTIRE HAND
In fact, rather than agree to more strings, we have to
untie some already-existing strings! For example, scan
in/scan out; weekend working for some part-timers;
casuals are being used regularly, etc. This de facto
produces a two-tier workforce! So when's the strike?

WASTING OUR TIME
And now, union officials tell us that they've only now
triggered the "4-week window on the Dispute
Resolution Process", which begs the question: why did
they wait so long before they did so? Did they really
think the bosses would agree to "no string, inflation
pay" without a fight? And while we wait, prices keep
going up..!
PS: And yes, this time-wasting 4-week window was
part of a previous agreement which contained a nostrike
string attached. It's always useful to remember
past sell-outs...

AT HIS WITS' END
Mr Witless was forced to ask for staff from upstairs last
week, as there was so much work in PSA. At one
point it looked like Xmas with the amount of work in the
area, snaking all the way to the entrance of PSA! It
looks like it's going to be a very christmassy summer...
So where are the extra permanent workers going to
come from?

WE WANT HIM BACK!
One of our workmates at RM-PFS is being victimised!
We know he has a medical condition, so it's hard to
understand why the Elephant deliberately gave him
work which was completely inappropriate for him. This
case makes us very, very, angry! Our workmate
should be reinstated immediately and given the kind of
work which he is willing and able to do, period!

SOME IDEAS?
How many of us at RM-PFS have had enough of
management? Most of us. In fact, the Elephant
behaves like dictator, "with small boots" - as we say in
French! But let's remember he's a minority of one!

HELPING OURSELVES
The drilling going on to install the Parcel Sorting
Machine is hard on the eardrums! And managers did
not even distribute the (very necessary) earplugs. We
had to go and fetch them from a room, which we first
had to find, and only on our breaks... Well, if they're
leaving it to us to sort ourselves out, we prefer to wait
outside until all the works are done, thanks very much!

UN-DELICIOUS
So what's the canteen company Eurest trying to
achieve? Getting rid of the Night service altogether?
Because that's what it looks like, when sometimes on
Nights we end up with no other choice but their watery,
"Plantdisgusting" curry (with ~4 paneer cubes) or a
cheese slice... And we're asked £4 for this? They
should be paying us to eat the stuff!

LIVELY NIGHTS
So we might sound like a broken record, but we're
going to say this again: bring the chef back on Nights!
The Night canteen worker needs help and we need
good food, simple! And since we're at it, we remember
the shop that used to sell all sort of things on Nights,
like cards, sweets... We also want that back!

HOT AIR AND AEROPLANES
The media is reporting that RM want to use drones to
deliver post. But these aren't the hovering drones that
Amazon is reportedly developing to do deliveries. No,
these are basically small unmanned aeroplanes, which
need to land in a flat space in order to deliver their load
– so not exactly Bladerunner 2049 yet! Currently, they
are meant to reach out-of-the-way areas, like Orkney.
But Simon Thompson says he wants to expand them
to "all areas" of the country… does he expect them to
land on the roof of MP? Oh and by the way, the Civil
Aviation Authority hasn't even given RM a licence to
use them yet!

[Tman]

Somebody actually decides them. So prices can be fixed. But the other way to tackle rising living costs is - obviously - to increase wages!

Straight out of the 1970s "Economics for dummies" text book. Do people really still believe this over-simplistic and trite nonsense?

[baldrick]

But the other way to tackle rising living costs is - obviously - to increase wages!

Straight out of the 1970s "Economics for dummies" text book. Do people really still believe this over-simplistic and trite nonsense?

Trade unionists believe in collective action to improve and defend wages and conditions.
The RMT is balloting for industrial action.
https://www.rmt.org.uk/campaigns/rail/defend-rail/