15/06/22 Mount Pleasant Bulletin

[jimallen]

Hi! This is the Mount Pleasant bulletin of 15 June... Comments welcome, as usual.

FAREWELL AND KEEP IN TOUCH!
Quite a few of our workmates are taking their EVRs. And
yes, there were fewer EVRs offered than we expected,
which means that some of us who really wanted to go,
couldn't... It's a measure of how desperate workmates
were to leave, that they've taken the small amount on
offer. And with the current rate at which inflation is
growing, this is going to seem even more miserly.

PORTAL STARGATE MACHINE
The Parcel Sorting Machine is starting to take shape
now… to us it looks a bit like some futuristic portal to
another dimension. Wouldn't be too bad if it did fling the
parcels through space and time to their destination… On
the other hand, could we put some managers through it?
Perhaps it would send them back to the other planet they
came from!

SKATEBOARDING WITH YORKS?
This reinforcement of the floor to accommodate the
Parcel Sorting Machine was a real quick fix, wasn't it?
Since there is now a step up to get to it, managers
decided to add a slope... and now it looks a bit like a
skateboard park! But it also means that we're going to
have to push full yorks up the slope and hold on to empty
yorks down the slope.
PS: We can't understand why they've used those "soft
floor tiles"; they're obviously going to deteriorate, and
obstruct the yorks we're pushing along. Oh well, another
of managers' "cheap solutions" that they'll have to re-fix
in a few months time...

MACHINE-MANIA
The first machine is not even in yet, and already we're
hearing managers talk of a second? We're expecting a
hassle and a hazard with this one, due to the fact it's
being squeezed in to our work area… Where exactly
would a second one go?

OF COURSE WE WEREN'T LATE
Does anyone remember how we were told that the scan
in/scan out system would "not be used against us"? As
we thought, that's a lie! Managers on the Late shift have
been pulling workmates into the office and showing them
a list of all the times they (apparently!) scanned in late!
It's said this information has come from HR in Sheffield…
And how can they claim we were late? We just forgot to
touch our cards when we arrived...

NEW YORKS, NEW YORKS...
Oh, and in a more recent huddle session in the packet
area, some of us were told to go and get new yorks when
the ones we use are broken... The problem is there
aren't enough decent, intact yorks, on the one hand, and
not enough of us to go hunting for them, on the other! So
until they buy dozens of new yorks, and hire dozens of
new workers, the "black market" in yorks will continue!

REJECT KING ETC & Co.
The amount of rejects we're getting from the machines is
reaching record levels! We all know Jumbo Dumbo is a
capricious beast, so you'd imagine managers would
make sure there are enough of us to deal with all these
rejects? Of course not, the only thing we hear from them
at the end of our shift is "5 more minutes"... No can do,
we need to scan out of here on time! Anyway, why
should we even do one minute overtime for them?

IT'S JUST TOO MUCH
Tuesday to Thursday is royal madness in here. On
Nights, we're getting 700 to 800 small tracked parcels
scanned per person, and even more for big parcels! It's
exhausting; it's repetitive-straining, and stopping is the
only answer!
PS: And by the way, since managers told us we can't
go before 5.40am (yes, they're checking the scan in/out
logs), this gives us one more reason to slow down!

WHAT ABOUT THE NEW JURASSIC?
So we did finally get our deserved nap during that Work
Time Sleeping session a couple of weeks ago on Nights.
What's more this time, managers showed 3 videos in one
go, so that there wasn't even time for questions. Next
time can we please choose the movie?

CWU EDGING CLOSER TO A STRIKE...
After hearing very little from the CWU recently, on
Tuesday TP suddenly gave us an update via a Facebook
video… He said the 4-week Dispute Resolution Process
had finished, and so our ballot for strike would run from
28 June to 19 July. Why they won't start the ballot
sooner, he didn't say… But he did say, "this has the
potential to be a big and a long dispute". Big, certainly.
Long, not necessarily, if we're all out and stay out till we
win!

TEE PEE'S BETRAYAL
He was also keen to point out that the ballot was only
about pay, and everything had to be separated out into
it's own "box". Really? What? And even worse, he said
that the CWU was "not in disagreement about change",
and will in fact meet RM to discuss about our Ts&Cs next
week!

OUR REPLY
From what this union sell-out is saying to us, it seems
there is no time to waste, we need to get out and stay
out. We should not wait for his dirty deal, ballot or no
ballot.

"RELEGATE" HIM!
Cue more whining from Simon Thompson following the
news that RM had been "relegated" from the FTSE 100…
He told us: "We are now a parcels company that also
delivers letters, and this means we need to behave more
like a parcels company". What does behaving like a
parcels company mean? Well, for him, it means cutting
staff because we have a "reduced workload"... Parcels
are a "reduced workload"? Where on earth did he get
that from?

[SpacePhoenix]

NEW YORKS, NEW YORKS...
Oh, and in a more recent huddle session in the packet
area, some of us were told to go and get new yorks when
the ones we use are broken... The problem is there
aren't enough decent, intact yorks, on the one hand, and
not enough of us to go hunting for them, on the other! So
until they buy dozens of new yorks, and hire dozens of
new workers, the "black market" in yorks will continue!

There isn't time to go through the yorks so if they're useable they're going to get used. Probbaly 90% of the time it's broken clips, which just get "repaired" using bag ties.

REJECT KING ETC & Co.
The amount of rejects we're getting from the machines is
reaching record levels! We all know Jumbo Dumbo is a
capricious beast, so you'd imagine managers would
make sure there are enough of us to deal with all these
rejects?

Assuming it's IMPs and iLSMs they can't be being TPM'd properly or the mail is being fed in incorrectly

IT'S JUST TOO MUCH
Tuesday to Thursday is royal madness in here. On
Nights, we're getting 700 to 800 small tracked parcels
scanned per person, and even more for big parcels! It's
exhausting; it's repetitive-straining, and stopping is the
only answer!

700-800 small Tracked scanned per person per shift. I'm calling bullshit on that. 1,000 per hour is easily doable depending on the size of the items. Even for the large you can do 2-3k over the shift

[Tman]

a common-sense arrangement could have been made with Argentina -
indeed such a deal was proposed, which would have
been quite satisfactory to the 1,847 Falkland islanders.

Given that the previous vote returned a >95% result to remain British it's hard to think that there would have been any "quite satisfactory" arrangement with Argentina.

C*rbyn used to spout similar nonsense though when challenged, could produce no proof that there ever was any proposal nor how it would be viewed by those affected, ie, the Islanders themselves.
To add in enemy dead to inflate the total dead and then blame those total 907 deaths on Thatcher is just fatuous.

[SpacePhoenix]

a common-sense arrangement could have been made with Argentina -
indeed such a deal was proposed, which would have
been quite satisfactory to the 1,847 Falkland islanders.

Given that the previous vote returned a >95% result to remain British it's hard to think that there would have been any "quite satisfactory" arrangement with Argentina.

C*rbyn used to spout similar nonsense though when challenged, could produce no proof that there ever was any proposal nor how it would be viewed by those affected, ie, the Islanders themselves.
To add in enemy dead to inflate the total dead and then blame those total 907 deaths on Thatcher is just fatuous.

Are you sure that you've posted that in the correct thread?

[baldrick]

a common-sense arrangement could have been made with Argentina -
indeed such a deal was proposed, which would have
been quite satisfactory to the 1,847 Falkland islanders.

Given that the previous vote returned a >95% result to remain British it's hard to think that there would have been any "quite satisfactory" arrangement with Argentina.

C*rbyn used to spout similar nonsense though when challenged, could produce no proof that there ever was any proposal nor how it would be viewed by those affected, ie, the Islanders themselves.
To add in enemy dead to inflate the total dead and then blame those total 907 deaths on Thatcher is just fatuous.

Are you sure that you've posted that in the correct thread?

Tman is quoting from the facing page of the Workers Fight MP bulletin.

[denhamhoop]

NEW YORKS, NEW YORKS...
Oh, and in a more recent huddle session in the packet
area, some of us were told to go and get new yorks when
the ones we use are broken... The problem is there
aren't enough decent, intact yorks, on the one hand, and
not enough of us to go hunting for them, on the other! So
until they buy dozens of new yorks, and hire dozens of
new workers, the "black market" in yorks will continue!

There isn't time to go through the yorks so if they're useable they're going to get used. Probbaly 90% of the time it's broken clips, which just get "repaired" using bag ties.

REJECT KING ETC & Co.
The amount of rejects we're getting from the machines is
reaching record levels! We all know Jumbo Dumbo is a
capricious beast, so you'd imagine managers would
make sure there are enough of us to deal with all these
rejects?

Assuming it's IMPs and iLSMs they can't be being TPM'd properly or the mail is being fed in incorrectly

IT'S JUST TOO MUCH
Tuesday to Thursday is royal madness in here. On
Nights, we're getting 700 to 800 small tracked parcels
scanned per person, and even more for big parcels! It's
exhausting; it's repetitive-straining, and stopping is the
only answer!

700-800 small Tracked scanned per person per shift. I'm calling bullshit on that. 1,000 per hour is easily doable depending on the size of the items. Even for the large you can do 2-3k over the shift

Both of you are having a laugh the most Tracked I have ever scanned in a shift was 4900 unless you are only scanning them and no sorting whatsoever but 700 to 800 a shift even the slowest Scanner I have ever worked with would scan more than that. On an aside not finishing Nights until 5 40 am my heart bleeds try being there until 6am every day and having managers pressure you to stay to finish the despatch

[SpacePhoenix]

1,000+ small Tracked an hour is scanning AND sorting