Being forced to take full break

[fishtank]

Breaks of less than 40 mins can not be split. This would apply to shifts of 7hrs or less so most PT and FT on shorter days (normally sat).

To be fair Phil the Meal Relief section of the way forward only cites these as "probable patterns".
And it states that The actual pattern of breaks within these rules will be agreed locally but in order to conform to the working time directive at least 20mins would have to be around the middle of your working day.
So...i think you could split a 30min break but it would have to be 20/10 not 10/20.

[newtimes]

If the shift is 6am to 2pm, then lets say normally you take a 20 min break at 9.30am before you go out and the other at 1.40pm till your finishing time 2pm. If the manager makes you take your full 40 mins break at say 8.20am for that 40 mins the manager will get someone else to throw the walk in. This means that you will be theoretically 40 mins ahead on your duty as someone else is doing your work during your break. Our managers try it now and again but when told "if you make me take it all then i expect everyone to as well," they soon back down.

sorry I still do not understand fully, I understand the part about in your 40 mins break and the prep and tying down can be done by someone else, but you are not working any longer, you are still working the same amount of time. Is it that the out door time is increasing by 40 mins and thats where the dispute is, as you then require to split you break time to stop exhaustion, but you have no break time left as your manager has forced you to use it all up. Therefore the efficiency saving at the start is actually being lost during the delivery span.

[Lincox]

Newtimes, this is exactly what management attempt to do. They are reducing your indoor activity and increasing the amount of outdoor time. If you have gone through a revision you are now in a situation that you have no argument in terms of the outdoor span, as our glorious leaders at CWU have now agreed with Royal Mail that the Delivery Span Tool can be removed from the BT2010 Agreement as it is detrimental to Royal Mail and CWU revisions in as much that the new delivery methods should be used as an enabler for longer delivery spans.

[chunk]

Being forced to take full break

Postby celerycelery » Yesterday, 15:13
New manager last week told a member of staff who wanted to finish on time which meant leaving his lapsed bit, he was to take his full 40 mins break before he went out. The managers idea was that during the 40 min break he would get another manager to throw in rest of the walk and start to tie it up therefore hoping that this would stop staff member from cutting off. Surely this is bullying and harassment as the postie only wanted to finish on time. Told him to get the manager to put it in writing that he wanted him to take full break before going out as i was sure he couldnt do this to him. Manager said "forget it then, ill get your lapsed bit covered this time".

If your mate usually takes his break out on delivery ?
ok taking it just before would usually make no difference to his finish time..........except that in this case he would gain 40 minutes manager prep
at no cost to him and then would finish earlier as he would got 40 minutes more delivery time.
Now you wont often get me sticking up for rm managers on this site.....

[Lincox]

The arguments here are not really about time, as the postie will still only work to his contractual hours. They are more about the change in the physical nature of the work from indoor to outdoor and how this effects fatigue and health and safety issues. 40 minutes have been added to his outdoor work which we all know is far more tiring than indoor work. Has this manager made a full evaluation of the consequences of his decision, by taking into account the age, physical condition of the employee and what can reasonably expected of someone delivering mail for a further 40 minutes. I would doubt it.
The other question is should managers be carrying out work of OPGs, outside of emergency situations and operational needs.

[newtimes]

The arguments here are not really about time, as the postie will still only work to his contractual hours. They are more about the change in the physical nature of the work from indoor to outdoor and how this effects fatigue and health and safety issues. 40 minutes have been added to his outdoor work which we all know is far more tiring than indoor work. Has this manager made a full evaluation of the consequences of his decision, by taking into account the age, physical condition of the employee and what can reasonably expected of someone delivering mail for a further 40 minutes. I would doubt it.
The other question is should managers be carrying out work of OPGs, outside of emergency situations and operational needs.

This is were I agree with you on the evaluation of the consequences of his decision, on another post someone said it could be worked out by the calories we use up and you can get an app for a smart phone. At the end of the day we can only do so much and this takes us back to having strong and fair representation.

[wookie]

So, if they force you to take a 20 minutes meal relief BEFORE you go out, could you, theoretically, cut off say 1pm and take the other 20 minutes IN the office and then go back out. Thus, wasting travelling time back to the office.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

So, if they force you to take a 20 minutes meal relief BEFORE you go out, could you, theoretically, cut off say 1pm and take the other 20 minutes IN the office and then go back out. Thus, wasting travelling time back to the office.

No unfortunately unless they have no toilet facilities on the duty.

Regrettably as I understand it, travelling time to a break is included in the break. This is because current legislation allows you to take a break away from work so it makes it a voluntary act, if they allowed you to claim TT back to the office then they are acting unfairly if someone takes a break before delivery and is not allowed to claim an extra 10 minutes to go to the local shop to get a pastie.

The reason I mention a toilet stop is this would be one way you could get back to the office in duty time, if there wasn't a toilet stop on your delivery then standard practice would be to return to the office. However 2 things come to mind, as soon as they realise your using it to take a break on a regular basis they may question it, and the other is if you elect to take a break after going to the toilet then TT back to the delivery would come out of the break.

However this is only opinion and I may be wrong.

[hans solo]

wrong because tt you would still be in uniform and prob in van or carrying mail so if they insist on tt being your break fcuk it where does the mail go and i would also refuse to go in van you would still be working if you were driving too many grey areas what do mgmt get for breaks tt to asda i dont think so