About 6 years ago in my unit, which is indoor, the Union agreed to more flexibility for extra annual leave slots. In practise, this meant that junior members were cross-trained on other duties. If we complained, we would be surrounded by seniors and shouted at and the union rep would tell us we had to be flexible. I know someone who has trained and worked on 14 duties and even though he only has to do his own duty now, he still hates the cushy duty seniors because he feels that he has been doing more than his fair share of work so that they can skive.Militantdave wrote: Full office rotation is the only answer.
As soon as the Union agreed to flexibility, the writing was on the wall for demarcation.
If I had known about the Grievance Procedure at the time, I would have launched one. As luck would have it, there was a plot to remove me from my section last year. After a bit of fighting, I remained in my section and now everyone in the section has to be able to do all of the tasks in the section. Rotation is inevitable and if it reveals that some of the bullies can't do the job, management will either have to upgrade the duties in the section or deal with the underperformance of the bullies.
If length of service is to be rewarded so that staff turnover is kept down, there should be increases in basic pay for every year served. Seniority shouldn't be used to allocate annual leave or duties but other objective methods of selection should be used like rotating turns through a section and lotteries.
