Early IPS sorting

[joewyan]

Yes that’s true but why would you take a part time job if you can’t afford to live on those hours?

Gosh, let's think . . .

Maybe because you have been instructed by the JobCentre to get any job that is going?
Maybe because working 20 hours for RM is as good as 30 hours at min. wage and so you changed jobs so you could in fact do more overtime, which you needed to do anyway on your min.wage job to make ends meet?
Maybe because crap as RM often is, it's actually miles better as a job than most of the 'self-employed' jobs out there that are really just licensed corporate exploitation.

If you're on 39 hours at RM you almost certainly don't need your overtime as desperately as someone on 20 hours probably does. You may want it as desperately, but that's a different thing.

Morally speaking nobody on 39 hours should get any overtime unless all the part-timers have declined it because heaps of the p/t staff actually need it.

Yes quite agree 20 hours at RM is as good as 30 at minimum wage but DON’T take a job if you can’t live on the wage without overtime. Surely that’s common sense! As a part timer I think your claim that FT staff shouldn’t get overtime until all PT staff have what they want is ridiculous, why should FT staff be disadvantaged because other people have less contracted hours.

[Dorset Plodder]

If you had an aggregate list of overtime in order to ensure the overtime was fairly distributed, then it would seem he wouldn't be able to sign for the early IPS as he is already getting other overtime.

A VERY GOOD point Clash. I would love to see aggregated overtime lists openly displayed. In the spirit of clear & transparent management I think it would be a BIG step forward.

However.... in Royal Mail World it's not going to happen (perhaps in a few DOs). We have quite a few of the "Old Mafia" that regularly clock up 15 hrs plus a week on Overtime (incl SA). The point has been made that these colleagues are preventing others from being made up to FT. I would tend to agree as there's at least a couple of Posties job's worth of hours being done on Overtime. An openly displayed Aggregated Overtime List would at least perhaps make some of those individuals feel a little bit guilty, when there's others on 20 hour contracts struggling to make ends meet.

We all know that RM love people that work loads of overtime, the problems occur when those people are on leave, or as recently happened "Burn Out" and just say they've had enough. Then Management is flapping about trying to get others to cover the short fall. Good Luck with that.

[Dorset Plodder]

The O/T kings and runners make up the early ips crew or the Breakfast Club as they're known in the office. Early IPS needs looking at as, oddly enough, these guys have their mech trays and some packets done when I walk in. There is either not enough IPS to do or too many people on the gravy train.

Yes very spooky that isn't it Sir H? Always very jolly our Early Birds.... laughing and joking with a cup of tea and a chat with their mates, wandering about..... and as you say all their Mail thrown off and onto their packets.

I've mentioned to the DOM that perhaps they should be throwing off the double prepped duties, or even households on the lapsed duties, if they've got that much spare time......but strangely enough never ever gets said.

[Dorset Plodder]

Yes that’s true but why would you take a part time job if you can’t afford to live on those hours?

If you're on 39 hours at RM you almost certainly don't need your overtime as desperately as someone on 20 hours probably does. You may want it as desperately, but that's a different thing.

Morally speaking nobody on 39 hours should get any overtime unless all the part-timers have declined it because heaps of the p/t staff actually need it.

Well said DGH. But once we get into Morals: You're preaching to the deaf in the majority of Delivery Offices. In my experience the majority of our colleagues are a bunch of selfish individuals who wouldn't understand the principle of team work if it was explained to them in words of one syllable!

Most of them seem to look at themselves as some kind of "Self-Employed Postie", who is only concerned with doing their own duty's work,getting tied up and out on delivery so they can knock off early. Never mind about helping out a newer colleague, or perhaps going back onto the IPS because they'd finished throwing off and the sorters were still going. No just look busy. They're the ones complaining because the second lorrie's running late of the guy in the cage hasn't finished sorting the Specials! Morals.... they wouldn't understand the meaning of the word.

[fishtank]

If I'm a part-timer on 20 hours but my kids are grown up and my wife earns £55k a year do I deserve the overtime more than a full-time member of staff who is the only earner in a family of six?

Some f****d up thinking on this thread.

[Strong bull]

There are the mafia idiots in our place on full time contracts who manage to come in a couple of hours early most days ,do SA collections and work there days off.Regually hear these people moaning they can't work their day off .Some who are on the 9 day fortnight moan they couldn't work their days off, Fri sat and the Monday off and want to work it,seriously needs to get a life. The usual excuse is I've got nothing else to do,unbelievable

Meanwhile P/T like myself have not a chance of getting there contracted hours up or anybody getting a day off in 6 months time due to staff shortages.I stopped doing O/T quite a whistle ago as a protest(gets me nowhere but makes makes me feel better) .I cut my spending down and apart from the regular arguments with linos and Dom when I cut off I'm actually much happier and enjoy life as I have energy.Every time I get asked if I want O/T or they offer it me to finish round I decline but I'll have a F/T contract to which they say there are none available or they will see what they can do and would I do some in the meantime.Must think I was born yesterday.

I have been at R/M over 4 years now and seen many really nice,good workers on P/T contracts leave due to this issue of nobody ever being made up(despite regular promises of I'll see what I can do) and being screwed over with holidays, bonuses,shares,sick pay etc.I think one chap has been there 8 years and still on a 27 hour contract despite doing regular O/T

Its really no good enough.while I think everyone should get offered the same amount of O/T when there is around 30-50 hours plus 6 S/A duties going pretty much every day in our depot there is scope for many people to be made up to F/T but nobody ever does.

[crimson king]

Every time I get asked if I want O/T or they offer it me to finish round I decline but I'll have a F/T contract

I love this and shall no doubt be using it in the future.

[kingeric]

If I'm a part-timer on 20 hours but my kids are grown up and my wife earns £55k a year do I deserve the overtime more than a full-time member of staff who is the only earner in a family of six?

Some f****d up thinking on this thread.

That's the most f****d up thinking on here to be honest. You're bringing in personal circumstances into a work place. That becomes endless.

Do you give overtime to one guy who gives his money to charity or one guy who spends it all down the pub?

What people do with their money or what their others halfs earn means nothing. The fact is we should all be able to earn the same amount.

I've seen plenty of posts here about the Tories and the rich getting richer and things like that. But then you half full timers wanting more money and saying the part timers should be blocked from earning more because of their contract. That's the same thing but on a micro scale.

[fishtank]

That's the most f****d up thinking on here to be honest. You're bringing in personal circumstances into a work place. That becomes endless.

If you don't treat people as individuals with individual personal circumstances what are you doing other than breeding intolerance, some part-timers need overtime, some don't, some full-time staff need overtime, some don't.

But then you half full timers wanting more money and saying the part timers should be blocked from earning more because of their contract.

I never said that, I don't think anyone on this thread did. I think you just made that up. The rather ridiculous comment from DHG was that full-time staff shouldn't be offered overtime if a part-timer wants it. My own position is that all staff should be treated equally and have equal opportunity to work overtime....because we don't know what their personal circumstances are.

[General Mannerheim]

The O/T kings and runners make up the early ips crew or the Breakfast Club as they're known in the office. Early IPS needs looking at as, oddly enough, these guys have their mech trays and some packets done when I walk in. There is either not enough IPS to do or too many people on the gravy train.

Yep same at our shithole.
Their frame is always bagged up and ready to go and others who come in on time are shafted and have `the conversational merry go round ` off the Gestapho.
I'm confident though that the union will sort it all out because Uncle Terry said that he's confident that cultural change will happen.

[Alexei]

What is unfair in my office, is this strange practice of nepotism employed by the DOM for early IPS. You never get considered, despite having a supreme local knowledge, yet always asked to clear or work rest days. Which itself is another issue - duty holders on IPS, still sorting from 4 revisions gone, without a care to update their local knowledge, whereas floaters and reserves are overlooked.

[cpsteve]

So the early sorting prep your walk thing is the norm think i will upset a few and put my name down, with my low o/t average i should be top of the list.

[postslippete]

There will always be some sort of favouritism when it comes to allocating overtime in the Royal Mail. I'm usually last on the list btw - which is what gives me a great reason to not work past my time on my own duty! What I don't understand is that the Union are trying to get us all on a shorter working week - so why not take an hour off us (for no loss in pay) and give the part-timers an extra hour?? There are many part-timers who get called in early from time to time just to prep their own duties and it might help to readdress the balance of hours.

[fishtank]

so why not take an hour off us (for no loss in pay) and give the part-timers an extra hour??

First of all if we reduce our basic week to 38 hrs the part-time staff will see an increase in pay of 2.6% over and above any pay rise agreed by the union.

Secondly the reason we're trying to reduce the working week is because at least on paper indoor workload is decreasing so giving that hour to part-time staff is not going to address that and the business is not going to absorb the cost of increasing the hourly rate of all staff without reducing the number of overall work hours.