Re Pick and MTSF

[sheff postie]

What are the rules for a re pick under mtsf? We are just about to go through one in our MC for Distribution and it seems to me we are getting bent over and shafted. we are mostly still in rotations with 7 1/2 tonne and transits in the rotation with mixed shifts. Many people have permanant swaps in and out of shifts, we have 3 union reps all telling us diferent things about what allowences are pay protected and what arent, the lastest one we have heard is permenant swaps dont count and 600 substitution doesnt count if you dont get it all the time anyone shed any light on it for me im confused

[wolfie citizen smith]

are the duties having a major change to them i.e 25% of the content changed or a time change by 2 hours? if not.. then under the national agreement of the way forward you do not have to put your duty into the re-sign.......................................tell your 3 reps that

[Martin Walsh]

MTSF 2 came in during the pay and major change agreement of 2003 which included the introduction of one delivery.

It deals in the main on resigns and the selection of duties which require an allowance. Royal Mail did not want someone signing for a night job and knocking someone off a night job and then having to pay night allowance to the person who signed for the night duty as well as pay protection to the person who lost the duty.

Therefore the selection criteria for jobs which attract a shift payment be that night , late or early shift 1 And 2 mail centre only must therefore be offered to those who hold the relevant shift payment first. Those who have been on the shift longest get first pick. It gets far more complex as automation jobs are also ringfenced but this is an overview.

As someone who has and is dealing with this issue at a high-level this is a nightmare.

[sheff postie]

Thanks Dingo. So if you have been dealing with this at a high level can you answer me 2 questions. 1 I do a swap out of mornings into nights will the shift payments for this be taken into account ? i get mixed shift allowance. 2 What sort of pick will a leave reserve get who has been doing mostly nights? if you could answer me these 2 questions it would be great, Cheers.Also why can people on permenant duties withdraw there duty from the re pick? that seems very unfair if MTSF gives them first choice to pick there original shift.

[Martin Walsh]

Sheff when you say you do a swap is it official and when you are on sick or annual leave do you still recieve the allowance ? In terms of reserves it will depend if you have fixed shift reseves most mail centres will have. If you have fixed shift reseves then they will be able to sign but based on how long they have been based on the shift. In many cases if there has been a reduction of duties on nights then it is unlikely that there will be enough jobs for the remaining night shift so first and foremost the duty selection will go to those on nights in reciept of the shift allowance based on how long they have perfromed nights ( not on senirority )

Now when you say that someone does not have to go into a resign then your not talking about MTSF but the way forward criteria. However I would argue if you had 100 nights in mail centre and you were only going to have 60 nights going forward then all those on nights should be included as all jobs have been touched and will have pay protection issues.

[Pinhedd]

Hi all,

Sorry to hijack the thread but i'm in need of some clarification on the MTSF too if you don't mind?

I am currently on a weekend shift where there are 9 duties, we all receive full night allowance and a Sunday premium which puts as on the highest allowances in the Mail centre.
We are currently undergoing an MGV review and its likely im told our weekends will be going as we are in receipt of RTD money but don't do any driving Saturday nights. We have been told they will likely go as they want to have all MGV drivers driving and not bag cutting etc.

Our union rep has been quite adament that the resign amoungst the MGV drivers across all shifts will be done on seniority alone and that he has agreed with management that they will pick up any pay protection involved regardless. I have read the MTSF agreement and what i make of it, it should be done on highest allowances should have to pick first and that must pick onto the next highest availlable shift to minimise the amount of pay protection being paid. am i correct so far? Or do we get allocated a job on the night shift?
Under the way our rep sees it, every one will pick on seniority and say for example i could not pick a weekend or night i would pick a late and the receive full pay protection.

Last year we had a mini resign on weekends whereby they cut the jobs by half some took VR the rest of us 9 left were then placed in a revised seniority list based on highest allowances top. This time our new jobs all receive the same allowance and the resign is involving all shifts. I have had numerous discussions with our rep who feels if it is done on allowances it effectively has done away with seniority. The Mail centre manager dealing with it at the time has moved on and now our rep is trying to revert back to his old way which we have been told that the last full resign in 2006 was done incorrectly as it was done on seniority and the pay protection was all over the place. as he did not fully understand the agreement and neither it seems did the Management at that time.

Our rep is taking VR very shortly and i'm concerned if we do it his way i may or may not get a night and if, for example i had to pick an early and get full pay protection, what happens when the next resign happens and its done on MTSF then i would not be allowed to pick a night duty regardless of seniority as i would not be allowed to displace a night duty holder at that time, whereby i shouldn't have been displaced myself in the first place which has already happened in 2006 i only got back on weekends a while later after that resign because they created more weekends and under pay protection was obliged to.

so any advice would be welcome
i have contacted CWU head office and they also told me that there should be a revised seniority list but the person i spoke to seemed a little vague about the issue. so is it on highest seniority amoungst weekends pick first as we have all been on same allowance for more than 3 years or do we get allocated jobs? or can our rep do it on seniority?

Many Thanks in advance for you replies.

[Martin Walsh]

If your rep can get away with that then fine but I dont think the MTSF police will allow it as it will protentially cost them a lot more in pay protection and paying new people to perform nights.

The rule is that those in reciept of the allowance longest get first pick on any duties which attract the same allowance as they are in reciept of. It is ilrevlant whether they all will recive the maximum pay protection of 3 years. It is not based on seniority but on the time spent in reciept of the allowance.

[Pinhedd]

Ok thanks that makes it a little easier to understand. Would our Sunday premium then come into play on top of the night allowance we receive? And what effect would that have if weekends were no more with regards to the existing weekday night staff? Would we just slot into place depending how long we have received night allowance or would we go above them because of the added Sunday premium? I know it's complicated It's got my head spinning but as he's going I just want to make sure it's done correctly nothing more nothing less as we would suffer any fall out after he's gone.

Once again thanks for your quick reply

[Fatboyslim]

If I can have my say on MTSF...

The MTSF agreement is a good agreement in theory. But, the one size fits all clearly causes many problems. I can quite clearly understand the logic of protecting ones earnings. But, correct me if I'm wrong. there is no flexiblilty.

In our MC we had a resign about a few years ago. Nothing of this MTSF was mentioned. so, we all picked what we liked. If we had been told the 'implications' about the MTSF agreement. We would have picked to what our seniority would allow. To 'preserve' your position in the pecking order.

Circumstances change. I've seen situations where staff with 30+ years service go to the bottom of the list as when the original re-pick was implemented. They were quite happy on a low allowance duty. Circumstances can and indeed change. You now have a situation where they will never be able to better themselves. How can this be?

Like i say. I have heard of many a dispute in a MC because of this agreement. It should have been explained fully.

Good agreement in theory. But, the inflexibility will cause problems for years to come...

[Pinhedd]

i totally agree with you, i have done 23 yrs and now am starting to get near the top of the seniority and then bang!! it all goes out the window, the only saving grace for me personally when this all came to light is that i am on a higher earning shift than some.
We have senior men who are now it seems stuck on collections with no possibility of getting off. All i want to know is that it is all implemented correctly by the rules in which it was agreed, and thats the thing about MTSF it has been agreed. I for one was not aware of the consequences of it until within the last year or so and even now it seems like a plate of spaghetti would be easier to unravel.

[sheff postie]

I have to agree with you all, we have a lot of senior people panicing because they are not going to get a good duty because they have been getting no shift payments, now they are making deals to try and get themself's a decent duty and that is causing resentment with people like me who have taken the duties they didnt want (nights) and given them the duties they did want (mornings) because of the shift payments. I have a young family and a mortgage and needed the money i dont like nights but it is necesary at this moment in time, now i have got people trying to take all that away. So the situation is senior men are resenting me for taking there seniority away and people like me are resenting senior men for making deals to limit our pick of duties. Its not a good situation. By the way i have served 16 years and started when i was 17 so i have got an ok amount of seniority its not like i have been hear 2 minutes and demanding a good duty.

[mbt69]

Hello. I work nights at a mail centre in distribution. There are 7 night driving jobs being taken from nights. Jobs on earlies & nights have changed content & duty times. Orginally there was to be an open re-sign across early,late,twilight & nights. Now we have been informed that this cannot happen due to pay protection & the mtsf. Instead, each shift is having its own resign in seniority order. When all have re-signed, the 7 losing their distribution nights get to sign for the remaining jobs. The remaining jobs are processing nights or early distribution reserves. This does not seem fair as the seniority of the displaced staff is being ignored. I have read the MTSF agreement & this does not seem to be the correct procedure. Could someone please enlighten me ! Thanks.

[Martin Walsh]

Yes its covered in MTSF 2 which came out in 2003 under the pay and major change agreement and deals with the selection criteria which is needed under mtsf 2. The orginal MTSF agreement was agreed in 2000 and the unions version of the mTSF agreement has a young picture of yours truely on in a postal uniform delivering , I was put on the cover when by John Keggie when I opposed the MTSF agreement at a national briefing.

MTSF2 basically concerns the fact that Royal Mail will not pay twice for pay protection. For instance allowing seniority to be used in a resign which allows someone to sign from an early onto a night and then paying that indivdual night allowance and then paying the person who was on nights and got knocked off pay protection.

In fact by the strict letter of MTSF what should happen is not only do you have a shift resign but instead of seniority to choose the duties on the shift it should be the length of time you have done in reciept of the allowance.

Dont blame me I opposed the agreement.

[wrighala]

Could I ask for a little clarification on this as my Union rep insists that any seniority under mtfs is worked out on allowances (as stated here) and then on length of service (ie seniority), not the length of time you've been getting those allowances... is he correct? Also is a person that's been on permanent nights automatically above the person that used to rotate or is it just down to how long you've received an allowance (even if not every week)?

Hope that's clear.

[Martin Walsh]

Could I ask for a little clarification on this as my Union rep insists that any seniority under mtfs is worked out on allowances (as stated here) and then on length of service (ie seniority), not the length of time you've been getting those allowances... is he correct? Also is a person that's been on permanent nights automatically above the person that used to rotate or is it just down to how long you've received an allowance (even if not every week)?

Hope that's clear.

It is based on how long you have been in reciept of the allowance. However this is not always clear especially if someone has been on nights prior to the way forward when you were not paid shift allowances on NDA for the hours you worked. Now if you rotate than you average the allowance so MTSF states if you are selecting a duty which is a permanent night then you will come after those who are currently in reciept of permanent night allowance. Hope that is clear.