Reserve days off especially saturdays!!

sardonicus · Post by **sardonicus** » 13 Dec 2016, 21:27

contract - 20hrs over 5 days between Mo and Sat 14 months service so far, average working hours for a week in the last 16 weeks is 40 hours!

After working 20 Saturdays now in a row and still being refused a saturday off unless i give approx 2 months notice ( and no guarantees then), I went to the union rep with a copy of the cwu/royal mail agreement 2010 regarding saturdays off.

The union rep came back to me a couple of days later and told me he spoke to 'area' and the answer was 'no' - no saturday entitlement because in the agreement is the word 'majority', and as he put it - i was in the minority! ......NICE

I have been refusing to work over on Saturdays recently and have been telling whoever im working with not to take too much out as i will need dropping back to depot for 14.10 - managers not happy at all, as stuff left in - im on the monster walks every saturday without fail, never the shorter or easy ones, despite the schedule saying im on shorter or easy one for the whole previous week - bloke who was on the s**t one gets moved to my one and then im moved to where he was!

SO THE QUESTION IS - can I just pitch up on Thursday this week and say, 'sorry im only able to work 4 hours on saturdays from now on' - MY CONTRACTED HOURS? - (4hrs)

What you think?

when/if they say 4 hours is not enough to do a duty in I can then say, 'well why the f**k have you given me a four hour a day contract in that case?'

BUT seriously can i pick and chose ie work over 4 hrs on a weekday and insist on 4 on a saturday, im guessing technically i can but wont be there too long lol

lightningpostman · Post by **lightningpostman** » 13 Dec 2016, 21:45

paulpaulpaul wrote:contract - 20hrs over 5 days between Mo and Sat 14 months service so far, average working hours for a week in the last 16 weeks is 40 hours!

After working 20 Saturdays now in a row and still being refused a saturday off unless i give approx 2 months notice ( and no guarantees then), I went to the union rep with a copy of the cwu/royal mail agreement 2010 regarding saturdays off.

The union rep came back to me a couple of days later and told me he spoke to 'area' and the answer was 'no' - no saturday entitlement because in the agreement is the word 'majority', and as he put it - i was in the minority! ......NICE

I have been refusing to work over on Saturdays recently and have been telling whoever im working with not to take too much out as i will need dropping back to depot for 14.10 - managers not happy at all, as stuff left in - im on the monster walks every saturday without fail, never the shorter or easy ones, despite the schedule saying im on shorter or easy one for the whole previous week - bloke who was on the s**t one gets moved to my one and then im moved to where he was!

SO THE QUESTION IS - can I just pitch up on Thursday this week and say, 'sorry im only able to work 4 hours on saturdays from now on' - MY CONTRACTED HOURS? - (4hrs)

What you think?

when/if they say 4 hours is not enough to do a duty in I can then say, 'well why the f**k have you given me a four hour a day contract in that case?'

BUT seriously can i pick and chose ie work over 4 hrs on a weekday and insist on 4 on a saturday, im guessing technically i can but wont be there too long lol

you have every bit of right to sign for overtime when you want it , depending on office its base don aggregate, so sign for the days you want do your contracted hours on the days you dont

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 14 Dec 2016, 16:10

paulpaulpaul wrote:contract - 20hrs over 5 days between Mo and Sat 14 months service so far, average working hours for a week in the last 16 weeks is 40 hours!

After working 20 Saturdays now in a row and still being refused a saturday off unless i give approx 2 months notice ( and no guarantees then), I went to the union rep with a copy of the cwu/royal mail agreement 2010 regarding saturdays off.

The union rep came back to me a couple of days later and told me he spoke to 'area' and the answer was 'no' - no saturday entitlement because in the agreement is the word 'majority', and as he put it - i was in the minority! ......NICE

I have been refusing to work over on Saturdays recently and have been telling whoever im working with not to take too much out as i will need dropping back to depot for 14.10 - managers not happy at all, as stuff left in - im on the monster walks every saturday without fail, never the shorter or easy ones, despite the schedule saying im on shorter or easy one for the whole previous week - bloke who was on the s**t one gets moved to my one and then im moved to where he was!

SO THE QUESTION IS - can I just pitch up on Thursday this week and say, 'sorry im only able to work 4 hours on saturdays from now on' - MY CONTRACTED HOURS? - (4hrs)

What you think?

when/if they say 4 hours is not enough to do a duty in I can then say, 'well why the f**k have you given me a four hour a day contract in that case?'

BUT seriously can i pick and chose ie work over 4 hrs on a weekday and insist on 4 on a saturday, im guessing technically i can but wont be there too long lol

Ask the reps what about the bit that says "including reserves".

BT010 agreement says different

http://www.cwu.org/assets/_files/docume ... -_2010.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

PAGE 25 wrote:Whilst the precise number of Saturdays off and the aspirations of employees will vary from
unit to unit, both parties believe we can deliver cost effective and reliable options that will
maximise the number of Saturdays off for those who wish them. Royal Mail and CWU
commit to achieving at least 1 in 4 Saturdays off for the majority of employees (including
reserves) during the roll out of the operational transformation programme. In some
circumstances this may be exceeded utilising jointly identified options to provide 1 Saturday
off in 2 or 3.
Progress on all the issues/objectives above will be jointly monitored and reviewed at
national level on an ongoing basis.

As to your suggestion of effectively running out of hours by Thursday. Sounds good in principle but it depends on your contract of employment. Royal Mail is usually a number of hours over 5 days out of 6. Yours is this type so the answer is no as your hours are not aggregated to 20 per week, but are 4 hours per working day. You can refuse overtime after those 4 hours though.

no1njm · Post by **no1njm** » 17 Jun 2018, 23:29

WJBuck wrote:Whats the deal with reserves days off?
I'm a part time reserve and the only way i ever get a saturday off is if the planets align and some otherworldly miracle happens.
Lots of the other reserves in the office are unhappy with not being told what day off they are having until the end of the week sometimes as late as saturday.
Surely everyone is entitled to saturdays off every once in a while, and surely there is the scope to plan a rota out for at least a month in advance, but yet this never ever happens. Is it the same elsewhere? I understand there needs to be scope for sick leave etc but it drives me insane.

I'm the same if I'm rotored in on a duty with Saturday off, it's always changed to Tuesday hence the constant arguing with jumped up cretin managers

Post by **97gaz** » 18 Jun 2018, 01:15

Chewster · Post by **Chewster** » 18 Jun 2018, 03:18

97gaz wrote:t's not going to change unless we stop working overtime and duties fail. Then we might get some more staff and the reserves might get some Saturdays off.

This. While I'm generally quite happy to do overtime and even work my days off a lot of the time (hound for the pound me), there are people out there who DON'T want to be doing overtime yet they bloody well do it anyway, meaning the RM bigwigs see no problem as the duty is done every day.

Specials are another issue. The rural deliveries in our office struggle to reach all the specials in time (especially now that Amazon Prime are using special delivery), yet most of them will cut off to get t specials on time, thus making their days a lot longer. We're told to tell a manager if we don't think we'll make a special on time and they'll either get someone spare to do it (not often we have someone spare though) or they'll try their damndest to bully you into cutting off to get them done. We've also been told that they're trying to get our rural deliveries exempt from specials, but of course that won't happen if we keep bending over backwards to get them done on time.

Personally I've stopped bothering telling the managers if I won't make one on time because it's just become a daily farce. I'll cut off for specials if it's not going to cause me too much extra time, but f course sometimes cutting off for specials means sacrificing other specials instead.

I have specials delivered late most days these days, because it simply cannot be done without massively inconveniencing yourself and making your day longer than it needs to be - which I will not do. I've taken this approach pretty much all of this year so far, and I've never had a talking to, so RM managers obviously don't give much of a toss. Seems to be the story of our lives at RM

Post by **97gaz** » 18 Jun 2018, 10:54

danterossetti · Post by **danterossetti** » 19 Jun 2018, 14:47

paulpaulpaul wrote:contract - 20hrs over 5 days between Mo and Sat 14 months service so far, average working hours for a week in the last 16 weeks is 40 hours!

After working 20 Saturdays now in a row and still being refused a saturday off unless i give approx 2 months notice ( and no guarantees then), I went to the union rep with a copy of the cwu/royal mail agreement 2010 regarding saturdays off.

The union rep came back to me a couple of days later and told me he spoke to 'area' and the answer was 'no' - no saturday entitlement because in the agreement is the word 'majority', and as he put it - i was in the minority! ......NICE

I have been refusing to work over on Saturdays recently and have been telling whoever im working with not to take too much out as i will need dropping back to depot for 14.10 - managers not happy at all, as stuff left in - im on the monster walks every saturday without fail, never the shorter or easy ones, despite the schedule saying im on shorter or easy one for the whole previous week - bloke who was on the s**t one gets moved to my one and then im moved to where he was!

SO THE QUESTION IS - can I just pitch up on Thursday this week and say, 'sorry im only able to work 4 hours on saturdays from now on' - MY CONTRACTED HOURS? - (4hrs)

What you think?

when/if they say 4 hours is not enough to do a duty in I can then say, 'well why the f**k have you given me a four hour a day contract in that case?'

BUT seriously can i pick and chose ie work over 4 hrs on a weekday and insist on 4 on a saturday, im guessing technically i can but wont be there too long lol

Your only obligation is to work your contracted hours. As regards overtime you do it if you want it and when you want it. If you have not time to complete then cut off. It is for the manager to deal with how the stuff is going to get delivered.

Sir Henry · Post by **Sir Henry** » 19 Jun 2018, 15:21

I seem of remember some mention during the lark and poop revision that 'innovative duties" or some such doublespeak was mentioned and amongst those proposed were Saturday only duties. Oh that's a good idea says Joe Bloggs postie extraordinaire, many people may wish to work Saturdays only and that would lead to more Saturday's off for everyone. hooray!.
Didn't happen, Boss doesn't know what I am talking about. Why would we take on a person for Saturday when we can just deny people their supposed entitlements?

Celgar · Post by **Celgar** » 19 Jun 2018, 18:54

97gaz wrote:Everywhere is short staffed. People will work their day off through the week so higher management don't see an urgent need to recruit because the work is getting done. Then Saturday comes, nobody will work their day off and the reserves are all working because people (including reserves) are working their day off through the week.!!

It's not going to change unless we stop working overtime and duties fail. Then we might get some more staff and the reserves might get some Saturdays off. The paradox there is because we have more staff overtime will be less available.

I think there is a general demand to do overtime because there are so many part timers in RM now. But most full timers I know just want to do their duty and go home. When they do have to or are 'encouraged' to do overtime they are not happy bunnies.

Celgar · Post by **Celgar** » 19 Jun 2018, 19:14

Sir Henry wrote:I seem of remember some mention during the lark and poop revision that 'innovative duties" or some such doublespeak was mentioned and amongst those proposed were Saturday only duties. Oh that's a good idea says Joe Bloggs postie extraordinaire, many people may wish to work Saturdays only and that would lead to more Saturday's off for everyone. hooray!.
Didn't happen, Boss doesn't know what I am talking about. Why would we take on a person for Saturday when we can just deny people their supposed entitlements?

Yeah. In the previous pay agreement more Saturdays off were promised for anyone who wanted them. Of course we all knew at the time it wasn't really possible and it wouldn't happen. To date it hasn't happened either. You can swap days off if other posties are agreeable and it doesn't mess things up operationally. You can even arrange to 'rob Peter to pay Paul' and move your day off from one week into the next to have two days in the following week. There are those 'wally' weeks as well. But making more Saturdays off even with AL now being calculated in hours rather than days isn't easy or largely possible to do.

Sammy5amsam · Post by **Sammy5amsam** » 03 Feb 2021, 19:30

I've worked for Royal Mail for nearly 2 years now - I have had 2 long weekends in that time.
I hate being a reserve, getting moved around on a daily basis and never having any notice of when my day off will be the next week or what duty I will be on. I'm always clearing up rounds which haven't been out and getting moved after prepping something else because someone hasn't turned up or just because. It's so stressful compared to duty holders who have the same round every day, same van, know when their day off is etc.

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