new start times again

[heapsy]

Prior to the dispute last year, we had a 05.00 am start. This was changed from a 05.15 am start way back at the time of the "Way Forward" agreement some 10 or more years back. This gave us double our shift allowance, as agreed under the deal at the time and all was well. When we returned to work following the dispute last year, our start time was changed to 06.15am. At first this caused a few problems, child care, change in sleep patterns etc, but we did adjust and found it DID have some benefits, more time for socialising, and or longer in bed etc etc. within a short time we agreed an earlier start time for the Saturday, as per the local arrangements section of the national agreement following the dispute. This did cause a few problems, (mainly sleep related) although many, myself included, did like the idea of a slightly earlier finish to the weekend. We had our start time changed again, with an 05.45 start time brought in, Mon - Sat. This removed the awkward issue of the different starts, but created a problem of having to get used to an earlier start again. I think, and I know there are some who would agree, the main concern is changing our start times and health issues surrounding this, coupled with the later finish, which as we all know, causes problems at the end of our day, child care etc. I have heard, and i'm not sure if this will be the case, or if it is just rumour, that staggered starts will be introduced to accommodate the introduction of machines into the delivery offices. Can anyone confirm this?

[dvbuk55]

I can't confirm the staggered start times but I have seen something which indicates that there will be a two tiered workforce both contractual and shift patterns. I am sure it was something to do with the new machinery to sequence walks in sorting offices, I'm sure it was on here and was the result of testing the machinery which took x number of passes to sequence a walk which was over such a time span that staggered starts became inevitable. Sorry it's not more official but maybe an email to HQ would garner more info.

Staggered start times of course are quite common in our office at least, the start times vary from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m..