Election material

[dafydd]

Went over my time by an 30 mins today. I told the DIM but he said he couldn't pay me overtime as we had election material and we are getting paid for that. It' the first day of the election material and we've got 3 days to deliver it so I only took where I was going. Where do I stand here?

[GT85]

http://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/communit ... =1&t=69295

[eastie]

Went over my time by an 30 mins today. I told the DIM but he said he couldn't pay me overtime as we had election material and we are getting paid for that. It' the first day of the election material and we've got 3 days to deliver it so I only took where I was going. Where do I stand here?

Do you realise there is a thing called CUTTING OFF where you work to your time
Why go over if they are not paying

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

general rule of thumb is if you didn't have the election material would the rest of your mail have caused you to go over?

If yes then you claim ot

if no the no you don't claim ot as the only reason you are going over is election material

[k979aaa]

general rule of thumb is if you didn't have the election material would the rest of your mail have caused you to go over?

If yes then you claim ot

if no the no you don't claim ot as the only reason you are going over is election material

Would this not be better solved by not counting all this material and set payments with a more generous figure of a standard overtime payment each day as the work would encompass the workload involved.

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

general rule of thumb is if you didn't have the election material would the rest of your mail have caused you to go over?

If yes then you claim ot

if no the no you don't claim ot as the only reason you are going over is election material

Would this not be better solved by not counting all this material and set payments with a more generous figure of a standard overtime payment each day as the work would encompass the workload involved.

potentially but then would the electoral comission be happy about paying extra to basically cover heavy mail days and not soley the items they want delivered

[Harv12]

we got well and truly shafted with this, dom said not to count the items just get them preped and get out the door, he said he would double the call of the duty you were on, iv 649 so worked out at 3p per item idt get £38.94, i actually got £32.22. he has said that he only got 45k for the payment and had to only pay us 1.6 per door. i had 3 4 or 5 at most doors same with everyone else at our office. i also worked over 40 mins over and was told i couldn't claim over time.

union said payment has been made and it too late todo anything

once again shafted by this company, ive been with royal mail for over 17 year now and it get worse every single year. i used to love my job aint no more

[Chewster]

But HOW can a postie reasonably be expected to know if political material or mail caused them to go over their time? Are we supposed to take 2 stopwatches out with us and time separately exactly how long everything is taking us? And if it's unaddressed leaflets that we have multiple days to deliver and you only take where you're going, surely that would incur no extra time aside from, what, 10-15 minutes throwing them into the frame? And unless it's a particularly quiet day, addressed leaflets shouldn't really be taking us much longer either.

At the end of the day, I'm paid by the hour to deliver stuff, and I claim for every hour I work, end of story. Everyone else in my office is of the same mindset, and we've yet to have a manager moan to any of us about it. If our managers decide to act upon this "not getting paid overtime for election material", then people in my office will start cutting off, which very very rarely happens in my office. I don't know about other offices, but in ours at least managers want us to just deliver everything and never cut off (which does suit most of us fine, absolute hound for the pound here) because they are all so very unwilling to go out and deliver anything themselves. I've only seen them do it in the few days between Christmas and New Year, where people seem to be mysteriously "ill" all of a sudden, and even then it's very rare that they'll bother their arse. On the last day before new year, I had a delivery that had 3 days of mail in the frame...

[psyCrowe]

Managers in my office love it when election material comes in, it's basically a free pass for them to not pay out overtime on a heavy day and use the "wilful delay" scare tactic. Office is dominated by runners who know no better, so they get away with it.

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

But HOW can a postie reasonably be expected to know if political material or mail caused them to go over their time? Are we supposed to take 2 stopwatches out with us and time separately exactly how long everything is taking us? And if it's unaddressed leaflets that we have multiple days to deliver and you only take where you're going, surely that would incur no extra time aside from, what, 10-15 minutes throwing them into the frame? And unless it's a particularly quiet day, addressed leaflets shouldn't really be taking us much longer either.

simple sort the mail in, then before putting election leaflets in, assess how long it's going to take you to deliver, just like you do when following the cutting off procedure say to yourself do I have enough time to soley deliver the mail? If yes and you go over then you know roughly it's the election material that causes you to go over, any decent postie can estimate how long their delivery will take from looking at their frame sorted in, as for taking 10-15 min to throw in, if you are over your time by only 10-15 min then it's clear that the election material took you over so shouldn't claim the 10-15 min

[NewPostieUK]

if no the no you don't claim ot as the only reason you are going over is election material

In my office we don't go along with this ridiculous charade.

My employer gives me work to do and if it takes me into overtime he pays me overtime. If I ever fail to be paid for overtime I won't be working it for a very long time.

We used to go along with this election garbage and say it was the other stuff that made us go over but it's such a foolish state of affairs we don't bother pretending anymore.

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

In my office we don't go along with this ridiculous charade.

This charade? you mean the national agreement that has been agreed to and fought for by the cwu?

My employer gives me work to do and if it takes me into overtime he pays me overtime. If I ever fail to be paid for overtime I won't be working it for a very long time.

you do realise we used to be paid overtime for election material but as a union we pushed to get this changed to a pence per item basis instead and agreed to not be paid an overtime rate for election material, so if no manager has given you specific authority to claim ot for election material work and you are claiming the ot and taking the pence per item payment instead, you are actually committing fraud

we don't bother pretending anymore

so claiming overtime and it's known to be due to the election material, that looks like the admission of guilt right there

[NewPostieUK]

This charade? you mean the national agreement that has been agreed to and fought for by the cwu?

you do realise we used to be paid overtime for election material but as a union we pushed to get this changed to a pence per item basis instead and agreed to not be paid an overtime rate for election material

No I didn't realise that. I have no idea why we get paid for election items, as well as our £10 per hour. If it's an agreement then it's a stupid and unworkable one. There are so many inconsistencies and 'what if's' that it doesn't make sense.

First of all, being paid for each item is daft. Secondly being paid different amounts depending on which office you work in and/or who your manager is that day and/or what mood he is in, is daft.

Next having to count the items. That's 300 - 600 or more bits of paper. That is stupidly mind boggling. It's open to error and abuse. Who counts the items? I don't prep my frame, do I have to count these items? Before they are prepped? Who will prep them? Who gets paid for prepping them? Who gets paid for counting them? If I have to count them when do I count them, during my break? During normal working hours? That means I would be getting paid, isn't that fraud? Then what? Do I get the person who preps my duty to come back and prep them? Isn't he getting paid? Isn't that fraud? Do I prep them? In my own time? No, I don't want to do that, I don't have enough free time as it is. If I prep them during my normal working hours I'm getting paid £10 an hour for doing it. Isnt that fraud? Doing that means I get out the office later and so finish later, that means claiming overtime. Hold on - that's fraud. But how much of the overtime is down to the election stuff? How do I know?

What about lapsing? If I deliver election stuff, maybe I wont have time to lapse. Can I take election items into account when working out if I can lapse or not? What if want to finish on time and so don't take lapsing, but deliver election items, isn't that fraud?

Isn't cutting off due to election items just the same as getting paid overtime when you deliver them? Aren't people who cut off committing fraud? Or is it the other stuff, the non-election stuff that increases their workload to the point where they need to cut-off? How do they know?

Is delivering election items optional? If it's not part of the workload surely it should be optional?

[Chewster]

This charade? you mean the national agreement that has been agreed to and fought for by the cwu?

you do realise we used to be paid overtime for election material but as a union we pushed to get this changed to a pence per item basis instead and agreed to not be paid an overtime rate for election material

No I didn't realise that. I have no idea why we get paid for election items, as well as our £10 per hour. If it's an agreement then it's a stupid and unworkable one. There are so many inconsistencies and 'what if's' that it doesn't make sense.

First of all, being paid for each item is daft. Secondly being paid different amounts depending on which office you work in and/or who your manager is that day and/or what mood he is in, is daft.

Next having to count the items. That's 300 - 600 or more bits of paper. That is stupidly mind boggling. It's open to error and abuse. Who counts the items? I don't prep my frame, do I have to count these items? Before they are prepped? Who will prep them? Who gets paid for prepping them? Who gets paid for counting them? If I have to count them when do I count them, during my break? During normal working hours? That means I would be getting paid, isn't that fraud? Then what? Do I get the person who preps my duty to come back and prep them? Isn't he getting paid? Isn't that fraud? Do I prep them? In my own time? No, I don't want to do that, I don't have enough free time as it is. If I prep them during my normal working hours I'm getting paid £10 an hour for doing it. Isnt that fraud? Doing that means I get out the office later and so finish later, that means claiming overtime. Hold on - that's fraud. But how much of the overtime is down to the election stuff? How do I know?

What about lapsing? If I deliver election stuff, maybe I wont have time to lapse. Can I take election items into account when working out if I can lapse or not? What if want to finish on time and so don't take lapsing, but deliver election items, isn't that fraud?

Isn't cutting off due to election items just the same as getting paid overtime when you deliver them? Aren't people who cut off committing fraud? Or is it the other stuff, the non-election stuff that increases their workload to the point where they need to cut-off? How do they know?

Is delivering election items optional? If it's not part of the workload surely it should be optional?

Before zx jumps down your neck, I'll point out that election material is technically optional with the conscience clause.

I also have the problem with someone else prepping my frame. I'm not counting election material that is already in the frame, so there's plenty so far that I've not been paid for. Luckily, a fair amount of our stuff has come in pre counted bundles with a little ticket saying how much is there (usually very small amounts though) so I've managed to claim the £10 or so that that has netted me...hardly worth the extra payment..

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

Having problems counting the material doesn't make sense, with unaddressed ones, either you are the duty holder and delivering everything so the total is the exact same as your d2d total, or are a floater/reserve only doing a section so you simply count the drops in that section, manage it the exact same as d2d deliver everything in that section easy to count, just taking them where you are going is asking for trouble, just take them where you are taking the d2d, it's easy to count and you are going to those doors anyway,

and with addressed ones just simply get them counted prior to sorting in, it's not hard takes about a minute at most and if your frame is getting sorted by someone else just ask them to do that and write it down