End of the Financial Year

[Dorset Plodder]

Has anyone else received the Lecture in WTL about NOT being paid Overtime for Mondays & Tuesdays? I know they ALWAYS get touchy around this time of year when their Budgets are concerned, they've asked us to "Flex Up" so we're utilising all paid hours. And have have told us that, "According to the Traffic Figures Mondays & Tuesdays are NOT busy days"

Fair enough Tuesdays are normally the lightest of workloads (but often it's the only day you can finish on time), but no way are Mondays light. Just because there's no Specials and Parcels are normally light, we get shed loads of flats and circulars. If you "Make" time up on Mondays & Tuesdays they are basically telling you to work over the rest of the week and not get paid.

Postie: "Excuse me isn't this Banking Hours.... Which has not been agreed with the CWU"? DOM: "No this is Flexing Up, which is part of the Flexibility agreement you signed up for". Postie "Isn't that just a 30 min period, which must be repaid that week"? DOM: "No it's just a Swings & Roundabouts agreement". Postie: "There's no such Agreement"! DOM: "Well I'm just saying if you come back early on Monday & Tuesday you've got to use those hours to cover any overtime you may go over during the rest of the week"!

[POSTMAN]

The fukwads do try bless 'em.

[smileski]

Point of Clarification on 30 mins Flexibility

Both parties re-affirm their commitment to the 30 minute flexibility arrangements within the Pay and Modernisation agreement. The following provides clarification of the agreed approach.



Where necessary, for example when traffic volumes are unexpectedly high or resourcing issues arise, individuals may be asked and may themselves request to vary their duty times by up to 30 minutes on a swings and roundabouts basis. Individual circumstances will be taken into account and total weekly contractual hours will not change. This means that individuals may flex their duty times by up to 30 minutes on any given day and this will be balanced either way over the next 5 working days. However this period can be extended by local agreement. A local record will be kept. Any requirement to change times of attendance or flex will take into account individual's personal obligations and responsibilities.



There is no other agreement in place between Royal Mail and the CWU that overrides or supersedes this statement. To be absolutely clear any hours worked before or after official duty times should attract the appropriate overtime payment, unless there is an arrangement agreed in line with the above.



Where managers continue to insist that working beyond duty time is part of some imaginary flexibility agreement then a disagreement should be put in place to resolve the matter using the IR Framework.



Any enquiries to Bob Gibson's Office, quoting reference 230.03

Email address: hnutley@cwu.org

[smileski]

Judging by your name Dorset plodder we are probably in the same sector, I saw the email sent out by DSM'S last week stating that there was to be no pressure O/T on Mondays or Tuesdays. It also said no single claims of more than 30 mins any other day of the week!!
As well as no more than 6 hours to be paid to cover a whole town walk (ie people working day off) basically absorb the indoor element. Our attitude is if they won't pay the overtime the work won't get done simple

[Dorset Plodder]

That's the one Smileski. We had the brief but, unfortunately didn't pay much attention to it, assuming it was the usual "If the cap fits wear it" lecture (we've got a few Runners who make up a bit of time).
Some Duties were pretty busy today, loads of parcels, and when the guys came back they were told, "Waste of time putting that Overtime down because it won't get paid". OK They were told but a quick reminder wouldn't have gone amiss. Guys got to try and make up 1 1/2 Hrs during the rest of the week...Yeah right Not on a Wednesday.

Plus if they're going to stick to that 30 mins a day for the rest of the week, you're only going to get 2 hours Max. Guess there's going to be a bit of cutting off for the rest of the month.

[Jpro747]

This whole penny pinching strategy by management, trying to save on thier budget by taking overtime payments from hard working employees is f**king sickening. I'll also add that royal mail made £430m profit last year, I wonder home much of that came out of our pockets. We should all be on strike.

[fishtank]

I saw the email sent out by DSM'S last week stating that there was to be no pressure O/T on Mondays or Tuesdays. It also said no single claims of more than 30 mins any other day of the week!!

What this email actually means is that DOMs should resource the office in a way which reflects the traffic. That is a completely reasonable position to take.

Unfortunately and this is aimed at any lurking managers out there, we are mostly managed by idiots who see something like this and instead of thinking "how can I manage my office more efficiently?" they think "how can I manage my staff more efficiently?". When the DSM asks why staff are booking OT on a tuesday the first thought these "managers" have is "I'll go and ask the staff why they are booking OT on a tuesday?", the answer is simple, you haven't managed the office properly.

I have always thought we should be able to write "piss-poor management" in the reason column of the overtime sheet. It's usually the root cause.

[Dorset Plodder]

I wouldn't go as far as that Jpro but I agree with your sentiment. I've just been Reviewing the Cutting Off Procedure to make sure I don't drop myself in the Crap Tomorrow. I know for sure there's NO WAY am I going to be able to complete on a Busy Wednesday (even with a Generous 30 mins Overtime)

The Ironic thing is the whole off the "Overrunning Delivery Procedure" Document is slanted towards Posties who are trying to Delay Delivering the Mail, and putting the USO at risk! Most of us are happy to Deliver the Mail, we just want paying for any extra time it takes (without jumping through all these Budgetary hoops)!

[jimmynailsalive]

Tuesday is the day the van gets filled up, washed, hoovered, checked over, catch up on D2D's as we have 5 this week etc.

Today I got the van filled and made up about 1/3rd of D2D's for tomorrow and missed the rest of the above so Yes Tuesday might be light on mail but it's catch up day.

[Hitcher]

As well as no more than 6 hours to be paid to cover a whole town walk (ie people working day off) basically absorb the indoor element. Our attitude is if they won't pay the overtime the work won't get done simple

They've been paying for 6 hours in our DO for years now and still the idiots do it!

[Chelseablue]

Bin told its gonna get worse this next year and half . Can't wait

[Jpro747]

I wouldn't go as far as that Jpro but I agree with your sentiment. I've just been Reviewing the Cutting Off Procedure to make sure I don't drop myself in the Crap Tomorrow. I know for sure there's NO WAY am I going to be able to complete on a Busy Wednesday (even with a Generous 30 mins Overtime)

The Ironic thing is the whole off the "Overrunning Delivery Procedure" Document is slanted towards Posties who are trying to Delay Delivering the Mail, and putting the USO at risk! Most of us are happy to Deliver the Mail, we just want paying for any extra time it takes (without jumping through all these Budgetary hoops)!

Yeah, no one wants to go home thinking about how they're going to have to tell the DOM they can't complete tomorrow, arguing and giving the same list of reasons as you did the week before. All this pointless pressure that causes nothing but stress.

[Lounge Lizard]

Bin told its gonna get worse this next year and half . Can't wait

this next year and half and every subsequent year.

[Chelseablue]

We've near went on strike for less in past ,,. You just want to get on with the job , but no ,,

[Dorset Plodder]

Discovered that OT will be paid as usual, i.e The time taken to deliver it, IF The traffic Figures say it's BUSY! "The Computer says NO"!

All set up to finish on time yesterday, approached the DOM with the required, "I'm not going to be able to deliver within my duty time...what do you want to do about it"? Only to get, "It's OK traffic figures say you can claim overtime for Pressure", I was half tempted to say, "No thanks I'll finish on time", but TBH I don't mind the extra work Provided I get paid for it. Not too much to ask surely?

Perhaps they should have a Red & Green Light on the wall to let you know when its "Officially" Busy and just not "Normal" busy, because we're obviously too dim to know the difference!