Hi there,
Here is the latest Mount Pleasant bulletin.
MORE, NOT FEWER!
Not only did Romec have the cheek to take on new casuals on 0-hour contracts. But now they want to sack many of them and keep only six to fill existing vacancies. This must be a joke! We need more hands in here, not less! So first, all of them should stay, second, we need even more people, and third, equal pay for equal work. That should go without saying!
TEN TO ONE
We’ve had enough of the divisive games of Romec managers, with some of us being “punished” by being given duties we don’t want or can’t do. Yes, just because it might happen that we have to go off sick or take leave for family reasons.
So we’ve decided to put the message across – loud and clear: WE want to choose the duties that suit us best, ourselves! We are the only ones capable of this - and of exposing the real and drastic shortage of workers! And if things don’t change, we’ll have to go back and confront the manager again. This time, we’ll be taking bets on who wins the fight!
OUR WAGES NEED TO CATCH UP
Why did some of us in Romec not get our ballot papers to vote “no” against the 2.5% pay offer which had been so warmly recommended by the CWU? We see that 96% apparently voted to accept. We wonder how many voted in total, however?
CCTV OUT!
One more thing: our 2 sacked workmates (whose jobs will not be covered) must be reinstated - and there’s a good chance, because it’s been ruled that CCTV footage may not be used against any worker!
LATE LOAD
We don’t appreciate the fact that, thanks to the cuts in collections - late in the day and only once from many boxes - we’re now getting work in extremely irregularly and very late - like 8pm, when we only have 90 mins to process it before the end of shift. Did those big brains in RM think about that before they went ahead with these cuts? In fact, their only real “plan” it seems, is to disrupt and erode everything, with Moya’s golden helping hand.
THE BREAK WAS TOO SHORT
What a nice, but all too brief holiday we had on nights in processing! Pity that Bee the B’s week on dayshift couldn’t be extended - sorry guys! But of course everyone would like to see him spend the rest of his RM “career” in a quiet place which is as faraway s possible!
WE NEED ALL THE INFO
We can say cheers for the annual leave forms, but we haven’t got our leave allocations for the second signing so it’s not really possible to work out what we can apply for... So why give them now?
PUTTING IN WILL PUT US OUT
This is really annoying: managers tell us we can put in for leave in December but, we’re warned, we’re unlikely to get it! Of course, they know many of us prefer to take some holidays before and after Xmas. But every year they get meaner and meaner and now that shareholders come first, they’ll be even worse. Scrooge spirit comes early this year...
ONE BOSS MUCH LIKE ANOTHER
We hear it’ll be crunch time this week for managers because their allocations to different areas will be decided. And crunch time for us too, because we’ll find out who’ll be bossing us around for the next period. The trouble is that there are so many bosses who’re pretty dire: apparently RM didn’t dare to sack them because they were the ones most likely to cost it money - by taking it to court for unfair dismissal... Yup, this is how they select which bosses keep their jobs!
MISSING OUR THIRTY WINKS
We wonder if this changeover will mean we all now have to attend the Work Time Sleeping every week? Many of us permanent workers have been left out for the past few months. And how we miss being plugged into the colourful pods and having our brains well-sanitised...
HAYES AND BORIS ON THE SAME PLANET?
We see that Hayes, now joined by Boris, is making a fuss about the zero-hour contracts and poverty pay TNT (sorry, Whistl!) workers are getting. They say they’ll do something about it, Hayes seriously declaring “We have fought hard to ensure that terms and conditions of hard-working RM postal workers are fair and decent but competitors in the industry seem to want a race to the bottom over employment standards”.
But hang on a second; isn’t Romec owned 51% by RM? Perhaps Billy would like to come here and take a look at casuals’ pay & conditions - the 0-hour contracts he opposes so stridently, in RM ?! Or is he just having a laugh?
HAIR-RAISING PLANS FROM BORIS
We see the local campaign posters are put up against the Mount Pleasant development scheme after the news that it’s going ahead - beginning with building on top of our parking lot. Boris even promised 98 “affordable” flats out of the 681 to be built… Well, we still need answers from RM as to the plan for the HMP site as a whole - and above all, where we will be parking!! As for the affordability of flats, at £660pw for 4 bedrooms… maybe trifling prices for Boris and Co’s budget, but not ours!
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