Normally, this bloke is on his way home without fail by 1400, so I rarely see him when I return off my walk. However, today he was still in the depot at 1430, but the section managers office was locked. Consequently, one of the posties grabbed the keys from the Callers Office (as we always do when we need access to dockets) and those of us that needed to filled in our claims (mine had been agreed that morning by deputsing section manager, as my double prepper was unable to sort my walk out, after being stitched up by a driver covering his round on Saturday).
As the office door gets locked up, temporary DOM gets in a real stress that we have been given access to the keys to enter the office and fill in our rightful overtime claims, "Nobody goes in the office once its been locked up!" We explained we were simply entering our claims on the dockets, to which he replied, "You need to sort them out with your manager in the morning if the office is locked." So I asked does this still apply to those of us starting at 0945, are we not going to miss the deadline for our claim, to which he said no (claim will still go through fine).
Are late finishers within their rights to have access to overtime dockets on the same day, escpecially if they have had the claim agreed earlier that day by a line manager? In essence, should the dockets be available for us to sign at say the Callers Office, for instance (if the DOM wanted the office to stay locked)?
What happens when say I do some overtime on a Saturday? If I've not signed the docket before the managers "run" at 1200, would me asking to enter a rightful claim on Monday morning at 0945 still give me the pay (and possibly the premium rate hours for completing >39 [40 at mo] hours work) that Friday?
Its beyond me why Royal Mail do not use clocking in-out machines, with the normal rule "mess about with another employees card and disciplanary action will be taken," allowing for better records of hours and automatic calculation of rightful overtime!
Or alternatively, why not leave the dockets outside the office with authorised walk numbers printed on the table?
