Holiday help needed.

[Broxi51]

Hi
Can a rep or area rep please give me some advice and any literature that they can find to help me on this following problem.
Towards the end of last year, approx November, our temp Dom was instructed by the cluster manager to limit the amount of annual leave from 7 to 4 persons per week. We have 51 members of staff in our office and as of January 6th 2009, most members of staff still have annual leave to take. One postman has in fact still got all 6 weeks from this current year plus 1 week from last year. We approached our manager today to ask for holidays but still he wont allow any more than 4 off. If this continues we will be unable to take our annual leave before the end of the year. I have 2 weeks left and I realise you can carry 1 week over but I dont want to. I want my 2 weeks before the end of March. Is there any literature that I can take into the Dom showing him that this is in fact a breach of my contract and as such I can sue Royal Mail for not giving me my annual leave within the allocated time. I know that this is wrong of the Dom but without any official literature he will disregard our requests for annual leave. If I can show him that he is wrong then I am sure he will be off with stress which would be such a great morale builder for the office.
Many thanks in advance

[gaza1968]

Hi the agreement to look for is the way forward under leave section which goes into how it should be allocated ect. and how the rotations should work, have you a local rep if so was he aproached? thats what the weekly resourcing meetings for. if the dom still refuses your leave take out a grievence and dont send it to the cluster as he is involved but to the dsm and copy in the area rep

[Broxi51]

Thank you Gaza for you response. I have copied a letter that I have typed for the temp dom.
Do you think that it is ok? Could I add anything?
Many Thanks again

Dear blah blah,

ANNUAL LEAVE

Last December we made you aware that allowing only 4 members of staff off in a week would make it impossible to allow all members of staff to take their annual leave within the year April – March. As you are no doubt aware, failure to allow all members of staff their due annual leave will lead to Royal Mail being in breach of contract and could lead to staff taking legal action against Royal Mail.

The following extract has been taken from the way forward agreement 2000 which as you are no doubt aware is the latest update on annual leave requirements.
Annual leave up to one week (or 5 odd days) may be carried over into the next leave year, and up to five days may be anticipated during the last month of the previous leave year. Transfer of leave in excess of these limits requires written permission from the line manager, except that leave that cannot be taken due to sick leave may be allowed in the following year. Where this is granted and would reduce the annual leave taken in a particular leave year to less than four weeks, the individual must also confirm in writing that they are willing to voluntarily forgo their statutory leave entitlement under the Working Time Regulations 1998.
Please note that all transfer of leave is entirely voluntary and not mandatory. Any members of staff must be asked if they wish to transfer any annual leave to the following year.

We urge you to please hasten on this as any more weeks delayed could make the office unable to function as a unit whilst annual leave is being taken.

[Picket]

You said the changes came in November last year and that leave was reduced from 7 to 4 people a week. Was there already a leave arrangement list showing people's leave from before the changes came into place. If the rest of this year was already arranged and people had their leave booked then i cannot see how they can take that away from them, surely RM would have to wait until they draw up the following years annual leave entitlement. Like Gaza suggested info on leave is in the Way forward agreement, but your unit or area rep should get involved.

[Broxi51]

Hi Picket. We did have an arrangement for 7 to be allowed off. This has worked but not everyone had taken their full allocation of leave when the Dom cut it to 4 citing high sickness problems. Most weeks from December forward had only 4 people off but he is not allowing any more off if it means that the 5 or more will be off. Our high sick was due to 2 being off We are current understaffed with 51 staff to 53 duties. We also have 3 more posties leaving. One is leaving RM and the other 2 have got transfers to an office nearer their home. We do realise that we are needing a lot more staff and the Dom is aware and trying to get permission from his bosses to take on more staff but at the moment the staff are wanting what is rightfully theirs, annual leave. He is starting to realise that he has problems with annual leave but is trying to sweep them under the carpet. We do have a union rep and I am working together with him on this to produce a letter that the Dom must face up to. Many thanks for your response

[gmzx]

hi. i think you will find that your rep is dealing with this issue at moment, it is your rite to take your anual leave in the leave year ,not your prob if the dom cant cover, i beleave that there will be a proposal to increase your leave reserves and that the cluster has agreed to it, the 34 grevince forms worked wonders