Reserve postman rest day rotation

[Fair4all]

Is it reasonable to expect to be on a rest day rotation (as a reserve postman) the same as postmen/women with a fixed duty? I am never given a Saturday off (or long weekend for that matter) unless I specifically request it or book it as leave. My rest day will always be given as the bank holiday when they come around!

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

Due to the nature of what a reserve postman covers duty wise ie holidays etc it's is not feasible to give them a rotating day off, the only way to be able to give them a rotating day off permanently would be for the Dom to dictate annual leave to enable the rotation to work that would mean no one would get a choice on holidays so looking for a rotating day off unfortunately is a non starter unless covering a single duty for a few weeks

Saturdays though are a different kettle of fish. You are entitled to the equivalent number of Saturdays off that the office has chosen for its duty plans ie 1 in 4 or 1 in 6, please note it's the equivalent off. Again due to nature of reserve your not going to get say every 6th Saturday off but you should get an average of 1 in 6 off just in an irregular pattern, Also just to point out the agreement is for Saturday's off NOT long weekends off so no entitlement to the following Monday off as well as the Saturday unfortunately

[trythat]

All our reserves use the same rota system as ervyone else (1 in 6), even when we were on days off, they had a rotating day off. I don't understand why every office don't treat the reserves the same as fixed duty OPG.

[Fair4all]

Thank you for your replies. The reserves in my office never seem to get a fair allocation of Saturdays as rest day. Even if I've covered a duty for a long period of time, I've missed out on the Saturday. This has been very helpful when I take this up with the managers.

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

All our reserves use the same rota system as ervyone else (1 in 6), even when we were on days off, they had a rotating day off. I don't understand why every office don't treat the reserves the same as fixed duty OPG.

It's virtually impossible to do with out paying lots of ot and have willing volunteers for that ot, if a postie is on annual leave and his day off is Tuesday covered by the floater the reserve covering his duty is due a saturday off then how is the duty covered that week on the saturday

[POSTMAN]

What I usually say...

Get a seniority list of the reserves.
Go down the list so they reserves get the pick of what duties are available for the next week.
They should then in the interest of fairness...
Have the day off of the duty they are covering,if it's 'Bobs' duty and it's a Sat off then they have that.If 'Bob' was on it he would have that day off wouldn't he!
Get some kind of aggregate list,that way you can keep an eye on who's had Sat's off,if some,even if they are low on seniority in the list have not had a Sat off for a while then they get priority.

It really is not hard to do,it's just lazyness on the managers and reps part.

[trythat]

All our reserves use the same rota system as ervyone else (1 in 6), even when we were on days off, they had a rotating day off. I don't understand why every office don't treat the reserves the same as fixed duty OPG.

It's virtually impossible to do with out paying lots of ot and have willing volunteers for that ot, if a postie is on annual leave and his day off is Tuesday covered by the floater the reserve covering his duty is due a saturday off then how is the duty covered that week on the saturday

We work 5 weeks on and then week off, so we have groups and the reserve is part of that group and get a week off the same as anyone else. As a rep, I've always tried to make reserves are treated the same as fixed duties. If we need to pay OT, so be it, we always need a certain amount of OT in the office any way, we always have enough people who want it, so I suppose I've not known anything else. DOMS come and go, but as I've said, I've always tried to have days off at the front of their thoughts

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

All our reserves use the same rota system as ervyone else (1 in 6), even when we were on days off, they had a rotating day off. I don't understand why every office don't treat the reserves the same as fixed duty OPG.

It's virtually impossible to do with out paying lots of ot and have willing volunteers for that ot, if a postie is on annual leave and his day off is Tuesday covered by the floater the reserve covering his duty is due a saturday off then how is the duty covered that week on the saturday

We work 5 weeks on and then week off, so we have groups and the reserve is part of that group and get a week off the same as anyone else. As a rep, I've always tried to make reserves are treated the same as fixed duties. If we need to pay OT, so be it, we always need a certain amount of OT in the office any way, we always have enough people who want it, so I suppose I've not known anything else. DOMS come and go, but as I've said, I've always tried to have days off at the front of their thoughts

5 weeks on then 1 off is not the same as rotating days off as you don't need rest day covers and that's effectively what your reserves have become, in effect you don't actually have reserves in your office hence you don't see the problems for offices that work on a rotating day off