Family friendly at NDC

[studmuffin]

We have just finished a drivers resign at ndc, and in a nutshell seniorty is finished at ndc due to the nazi style senior managers, beating the morale out of the drivers, with their new big stick with the words 'family friendly or flexible working' written on it.
before the resign started, 23 duties, YES 23 DUTIES, were withdrawn and given to drivers who had applied for ff and had been approved. some of the reasons they have been given are are absolute joke, but hey if the cash machine is handing out free money, you are going to be in the queue.
we have junior men on absolute prime early jobs, some of these drivers have less than 5 years service and would have no chance of these duties, if the resign had been on seniorty.
i have more than 20 years service and because of the hitler style managment at ndc and their new weapon called flexible working, i have been forced onto nights because all the early duties have been given to the ff drivers.
last time i worked nights was over 15 years ago, i dont like nights, never wanted to work nights, but because another driver has to take his kids to school at certain times, i am FORCED to working a completly alien shift i have never wanted to work, not even for the extra money. if somebody has family commiments why should that affect what time i start work ?
the real reason for this the low low morale at ndc, is the two senior muppet managers at ndc. they do not want seniorty, they do not want a happy workforce, they want to extract everybit of morale out of you. i have today seen a driver crying because of the low morale at ndc. in all the time i have been working i have today seen the morale sucked out of a man beacause of the faceless managers at ndc, they are a absolute disgrace, they are supposed to be responsble for the wellbeing of the workforce.
next year will be worse, 20 more have applied for ff and they will be given it, as it erodes seniorty and unless you have kids, you will have NO chance of a early duty. i do not know of any other royal mail site that is bending over backwards to bring in ff. only at ndc is this s**t happening.

[POSTMAN]

Blimey,will move this to your forum as well.

[swoosta]

What times are the FF lot going for?
What times are left for the rest?
examples please

[studmuffin]

What times are the FF lot going for?
What times are left for the rest?
examples please

ff guys have been given duties that start anywhere between 5am and 1000am and finishing no later than around 6pm, although there are a couple that start in the afternoon
the duties that are left are on earlys, mainly tue-sat, with the sat you can be finishing anywhere between 3pm-10pm
with the prime earlys going to ff guys, there are a lot of tue-sat dutys, examples :-

ff duties
0501-1607 t-f
0505-1502 m-f
0548-1610 m-f
0700-1629 m-f
and a few more similar to these


early duties that were left to sign for included a few m-f, but there were alot of tue-sat examples:-
0700-1630 t-f
0835-1659 sat
0845-1645 t-f
0937-2007 sat
0845-1720 t-f
1030-2019 sat

[swoosta]

are these 600 drives?

[studmuffin]

are these 600 drives?

no, all class 1 artic dutys

[swoosta]

what are the 600 duties like?

[Mercian]

are these 600 drives?

No they are C and C+E drivers

What Studmuffin fails to say is there are also a lot of duties that have been taken out for drivers covered by DDA which also includes more of the M-F prime duties leaving even less for more senior guys to pick from. This along with 17T duties pulled to be picked preferentially by drivers with only a class 2 license thus dropping senior Artic driver even further down the list. (The ruling at NDC since it opened has always been that no drivers are taken on without a full class 1 license but a lot have recently been accepted in on transfers and these are bucking the system by getting preferential picks way ahead of their seniority level)

Add this to the fact that MK VOC had agreed and picked their duties for Network 2010 but then it was decided by RM to remove their work load and move these drivers to NDC to join the resign there - so dropping most people by another 10-15 places down the seniority list. With the best will in the world these drivers should not have been allowed to transfer in until NDC had completed it's resign.

Add all this to the fact that there is now more drivers than there are duties at NDC , you are unlikely to get anything resembling a favourable duty/shift unless you have got more than 30 years seniority in.

[studmuffin]

are these 600 drives?

No they are C and C+E drivers

What Studmuffin fails to say is there are also a lot of duties that have been taken out for drivers covered by DDA which also includes more of the M-F prime duties leaving even less for more senior guys to pick from. This along with 17T duties pulled to be picked preferentially by drivers with only a class 2 license thus dropping senior Artic driver even further down the list. (The ruling at NDC since it opened has always been that no drivers are taken on without a full class 1 license but a lot have recently been accepted in on transfers and these are bucking the system by getting preferential picks way ahead of their seniority level)

Add this to the fact that MK VOC had agreed and picked their duties for Network 2010 but then it was decided by RM to remove their work load and move these drivers to NDC to join the resign there - so dropping most people by another 10-15 places down the seniority list. With the best will in the world these drivers should not have been allowed to transfer in until NDC had completed it's resign.

Add all this to the fact that there is now more drivers than there are duties at NDC , you are unlikely to get anything resembling a favourable duty/shift unless you have got more than 30 years seniority in.

yeah, agreed but why was all this s**t allowed to happen in the first place ? the senior managers aint up to the job, its common sense and simple maths not to allow drivers to transfer in when there are not enough dutys for everybody.
you are Absolutely correct when you say only drivers with class 1 drivers should be allowed in. this highlights the sort or inept managers that are in charge of ndc.
the ff policy does not have to be given to any tom, dick and harry that apply for it, but the managers bend and break the rules to generally piss off every driver

[heathrow86]

I work at a VOC not a million miles away from the NDC, whilst we only have 2 family friendly drivers on staff, they have been catered for by seniority as they are senior men. Our earlies were completely wiped away in the Network 2010 duties, however our union managed to get some more put in.

The only thing that sticks in my throat is that we have to work a Saturday. With the union co-operation we are managing to cover them on a rota system, so that we only have to work 1 in 4 Saturdays. Here's the point, we were told other depots such as Nottingham, PRDC etc, are allowed to cover there weekends on a completley voluntarily basis, and bring agency drivers in for those jobs not covered. Yet as we are controlled by the same management as NDC we are not allowed to do that. But when I am working rubbish hours all week so not seeing my family properly and then being told to work weekends whilst the same managers are at home with there families, it gets to you.

[Mercian]

Hiya Heathrow and Studmuffin :)

After over 10 years at RM I still cannot get a day shift... on the imposed duties I got nights and on the resign the only "most suitable" shift is a Tue-Sat nights To be honest I do not want O/T I just want a straight 37 1/4 hours but our glorious reps seem to think everyone wants to max out their hours.

Unfortunately the divide and conquer rule is well in effect-and working- with (for the sake of anonymity lets call him "Howie") the mutual boss of all the midland sites - he wanted the strikes so he could call in the agency drivers to further destroy work relationships and I believe he wants to cause so much grief as possible especially at NDC that he can get the senior drivers to resign so he can staff up on new contracts with new blood who will toe his line for the minimum cost to him. Bear in mind he has authorised the acceptance of MORE DRIVERS than there are DUTIES into NDC

Don't forget NDC is now the dumping ground for all weekend and Bank Holiday cover for Central England and North London. Just ask why is it that Parcel Force who are supposedly a separate company yet NDC pick up all their weekend/bank holiday and generally sh*t duties ? Why is it that the likes of East London lost so many duties that NDC now have to do things like Harrods collections in Central London or Dartford local collections or travel empty to Southampton or Bournemouth to collect and deliver into London only to return empty to NDC ??

As Studmuffin says the moral at NDC is at an all time lower than low

All the NDC drivers asked for is a fair spread of duty content and hours and equitable application of the FF/DDA rules across all sites as in a NATIONAL application of the rules which is why so many came out on strike. Unfortunately even the NDC area CWU rep seems to think that just because NDC is the largest driver site they will continually get the support they ask for. The CWU kept saying during the strikes WE NEED YOU GUYS TO SUPPORT US and yet after the strikes and so much loss of pay, NDC drivers have been s**t from a very great height by both RM and the CWU. Shame on you CWU

[postietaz]

cant you give them notice that you do not want the overtime , thought overtime was voluntary

[roger]

We have just finished a drivers resign at ndc, and in a nutshell seniorty is finished at ndc due to the nazi style senior managers, beating the morale out of the drivers, with their new big stick with the words 'family friendly or flexible working' written on it.
before the resign started, 23 duties, YES 23 DUTIES, were withdrawn and given to drivers who had applied for ff and had been approved. some of the reasons they have been given are are absolute joke, but hey if the cash machine is handing out free money, you are going to be in the queue.
we have junior men on absolute prime early jobs, some of these drivers have less than 5 years service and would have no chance of these duties, if the resign had been on seniorty.
i have more than 20 years service and because of the hitler style managment at ndc and their new weapon called flexible working, i have been forced onto nights because all the early duties have been given to the ff drivers.
last time i worked nights was over 15 years ago, i dont like nights, never wanted to work nights, but because another driver has to take his kids to school at certain times, i am FORCED to working a completly alien shift i have never wanted to work, not even for the extra money. if somebody has family commiments why should that affect what time i start work ?
the real reason for this the low low morale at ndc, is the two senior muppet managers at ndc. they do not want seniorty, they do not want a happy workforce, they want to extract everybit of morale out of you. i have today seen a driver crying because of the low morale at ndc. in all the time i have been working i have today seen the morale sucked out of a man beacause of the faceless managers at ndc, they are a absolute disgrace, they are supposed to be responsble for the wellbeing of the workforce.
next year will be worse, 20 more have applied for ff and they will be given it, as it erodes seniorty and unless you have kids, you will have NO chance of a early duty. i do not know of any other royal mail site that is bending over backwards to bring in ff. only at ndc is this s**t happening.

The thing about the ff policy is that management have no choice about granting it if they have the vacant duties that match the ff requests, as you know its the law.

[Mercian]

cant you give them notice that you do not want the overtime , thought overtime was voluntary

Unfortunately Overtime is built into the Professional Drivers Agreement to cover operational needs along with unpaid meal breaks and compulsory 1 hour breaks for shifts over 8 hours - work 9 get paid 8 - ok they schedule your P318 on break while your trailer is getting loaded/unloaded but realistically how often does that work at customers and MCs ?

[Mercian]

The thing about the ff policy is that management have no choice about granting it if they have the vacant duties that match the ff requests, as you know its the law.

Roger, the law states that the company must look into FF but does not mean it has to pander to requests the extent that RM at NDC has. Nowhere in the legislation does it state that FF applicants MUST be catered for, only that a reasonable attempt be made to match to suitable hours. For example - why cant the FFs do the weekend shifts? that would leave them time to pick up their kids during the week and their partners to cover for the weekends.

FF accommodation does not mean that other workers have to be penalised for not having eligibility - why cannot the FF brigade work the hours they require within NDC but not necessarily driving - they could cover the excess of agency staff that are currently employed daily indoors. That in turn would mean that the problem of too many drivers and not enough duties would be solved. I'm sure if that was implemented then 90% of the FF brigade would suddenly find they don't actually "need" the shifts they say they must have.