29/01/2020 Mount Pleasant Bulletin

[jimallen]

Hi all, find below the Mount Pleasant bulletin of the 29th of January. Comments welcome as usual!

EXECUTIVE ACTION? OUR REACTION!
Should we really be surprised that RM is just going ahead
and implementing all those changes that it wanted? After
all, we should have had a strike before Xmas, but that
was put off for all sorts of reasons (injunction, election),
even though we could've been re-balloted by now, and
ready to go into action! This so-called “executive action”
which the CWU leadership is now reacting against was
already on the cards when they were sitting round the
table with Rico Back & co. before Xmas.

RE-BALLOT NOW!
So after much jostling for a place at the negotiating table,
the union officials have finally announced a re-ballot for
strike action (although they're not saying exactly when) –
and of course they should! But not because their noses
have been put out of joint, but because this is overdue!
We need to to prepare for an all-out fight, organised by us
on the shop floor along with our own reps, and for as long
as it takes!

THE GREEN LIGHT TO SEE RED
It seems that, as usual, our local union reps have been
kept out of the loop by the top officials. But we don't have
to wait to get TP's or Dave Ward's green light – we know
how to go green without anybody showing us!

DUMPING ON DELIVERIES
Apparently RM's offensive has started in 15 offices where
they're whittling out particular jobs to create parcels only
deliveries, adding collections to deliveries, trialling later
start times, and, by cutting even more jobs, making
casuals a permanent feature. So surely we should be
preventing any of this from proceeding, right now, even
before any ballot.

RIC-O-BACK TO THE DARK AGES
By the way in Greenford some time back, the bosses tried
a clock-in and clock-out system (part of their Automated
Hours Data Capture) to follow every move we make –
now they're talking about introducing this system
everywhere else. Don't they know that the clocking
system has been thrown out in most modern workplaces,
as something belonging to a previous era and certainly
out of kilter with the 21st century...

NO PILLARS, NO GIMMICKS!
We have to say something about this fixation that the
CWU has with the 4 Pillars Agreement – nothing good
has, nor will, come out of such thinking. Remember, the
“Shorter Working Week” was in that agreement, and
where's it gone now? As for job cuts and casualisation,
this is happening in front of our eyes. So let's talk about
fighting for more permanent jobs, shorter hours and better
conditions on our own terms.

15% PLUS INTEREST!
And by the way, we can add to our list of demands the
pay rise that we all need. And there is much to catch up,
due to the below inflation pay rises that we've been
getting all these years. As for getting it in April, we know
RM prefers to drag its feet and keep the money in their
bank earning interest for months! So we expect to get our
pay rise on time this time.

CBT: COMBAT BACK THERAPY!
Last week in WTS, the managers only seemed to want to
talk about their own “disappointed” feelings. Yes, they
were “disappointed” that the union was re-balloting us.
Do they want us to offer them some therapy? We know
just the ticket!

PROOF OF THE PUDDING
We've seen how many vacancies there are around us in
HMP... We're short in almost every area, platform,
bullring, conveyors, primary letters. And what proves the
point is how many casuals are brought in by managers in
each of these areas. These should be permanent jobs.

DOCTOR WHO?
Maybe managers in here are undercover GPs? Because
some of them keep trying to interpret our own doctor's
notes when we come back from sick leave. Of course, it's
all about getting us back on duties asap, but sorry,
between our professional GPs and MP managers' advice,
we know who to choose.

CARING ABOUT OUR HEALTH? YES, SURE!
So now we hear that RM is screening the health of RMPFS
engineers... only? But what about everybody else?
Cleaners also work with hazardous chemical products
and the rest of us have been working in a construction
site, breathing in silica dust and who knows what, for over
a year now! In fact, all of us should be screened, x-rayed,
hearing tested, blood tested, etc.!

NO REAL MYSTERY
And meanwhile, walkouts in DOs continue. A couple of
weeks ago, the media reported a “mystery” walkout in
Havant (PO9 and PO10). It's strange that nobody's
talking about why it happened, but of course we can
guess the reason... Yes, the DOMs everywhere are
pushing their luck and bullying workers and we all know it.
Yet another reason for a national strike ASAP.

TAKE THEM ON TRACKS
We see RM is trying to win green points by boasting
about the 87 electric vans. And naturally it has nothing to
do with saving the CC/ULEZ charge... But if they really
want to be green, are they going to take the mail off
polluting diesel lorries and relaunch the cross-country
mail trains?

WE CAN USE THIS TIME BETTER!
Work Time Sleeping continues to live up to it's name.
What do we ever hear there except management
propaganda? What's odd is that they haven't been trying
to soften us up for the latest round of attacks... not yet
anyway! But wouldn't the time be better spent running
our own meeting, discussing how to fight back?