Going on Strike

[Dolph]

You're talking about two different things. A job cut is more than Bill Bloggs getting sacked you know. What if Eric Hippopotamous retires next week from his 40hr per week job and his jib becomes vacant but they decide to turn his 40hr full time vacancy into a 30hr part time vacancy? Thats a job cut that they're doing more and more.

That's a cut in available man hours, not a job cut.

Whether that is the right thing to do depends on the average staff utilisation statistics and the efficiency of man hours to tasks.

 

[Dolph]

I get paid for 48 hrs but rarely do that much.

And that is where the argument falls into the unreasonable territory. In any normal industry, you work the total of hours you get paid, you certainly don't get to complain if some weeks they definitely expect you to complete your contracted hours, or if they run a bank system where your unworked but paid for hours can be called in when the business needs it.

 

[Jeff Lynne]

I take it this agreement was as an alternative to paying hours actually worked each week, which would have resulted in lower pay when working requirements were low. If this was the case, then it's entirely justified.



Are they actually making you do additional hours overall, or is this a follow on from the protests a few years back about postmen being made to work all their hours if they finished the task they had been given early rather than just going home?

First point there is wrong, unless I misunderstand. We get paid for 40 hrs regardless, thats our basic pay.

Second part, yes. That was another agreement that RM reneged on. When they got rid of the old fashioned second delivery, which IMO was a waste of time and money they brought in longer but later first deliveries combined with an array of tasks including sorting and various jobs around the delivery office before you left. The big selling point of it was "job and finish" so once you'd finished your delivery you were free to go home.

A couple of years later they see a guy come back to the delivery office 30mins before he's due off and think, hmm, he can have some extra work.

 

[Jeff Lynne]

That's a cut in available man hours, not a job cut.

Whether that is the right thing to do depends on the average staff utilisation statistics and the efficiency of man hours to tasks.

A cuts a cut. The work still has to be done. Just cos they've lopped ten hours off of a delievery it doesn't make it ten hours less work, we still have to absorb that work into our own duties. When they do it more and more you begin to notice these things.

The agreement was full time staff were to come in, throw off their deliveries and do 1hr 30mins sorting beforfe going out. There are that many part timers now that 1hr 30mins isn't long enough and more often than not we're sorting for 2hrs.

Some days I'm dead on my feet before I've even left the office!!!

 

[scorza]

And that is where the argument falls into the unreasonable territory. In any normal industry, you work the total of hours you get paid, you certainly don't get to complain if some weeks they definitely expect you to complete your contracted hours, or if they run a bank system where your unworked but paid for hours can be called in when the business needs it.

Depends on the work, there are plenty of jobs where you're paid to process a finite number of widgets (these days with safeguards to ensure the minimum wage and EWTD aren't violated). If a fisherman signs up to 3 weeks at sea with a boat, but the boat catches its quota after 2 weeks, then it's pointless staying at sea for the extra week.

 

[Jeff Lynne]

And that is where the argument falls into the unreasonable territory. In any normal industry, you work the total of hours you get paid, you certainly don't get to complain if some weeks they definitely expect you to complete your contracted hours, or if they run a bank system where your unworked but paid for hours can be called in when the business needs it.

There have been mentions of that kind of thing.

I can tell you now, if they ever tried to introduce that the delivery side would grind to a halt. a lot of it is run on goodwill, with people driving to their first point of delivery in their own cars, but if that stopped the extra time that it would take to ferry people out and bring them back would see people bringing mail back every day.

They know it too.

 

[Jeff Lynne]

Depends on the work, there are plenty of jobs where you're paid to process a finite number of widgets (these days with safeguards to ensure the minimum wage and EWTD aren't violated). If a fisherman signs up to 3 weeks at sea with a boat, but the boat catches its quota after 2 weeks, then it's pointless staying at sea for the extra week.

Maybe you'd understand why we strike then? As we have these agreements in the past couple of years which are being repelled one by one by the management to suit their own end.

 

[Sankari]

I get paid for 48 hrs but rarely do that much.

Well now, can't complain about that, eh? Paid for 48 but not even working it? A nice little earner, I'd say.

Looks like RM's managers have a case to answer, if this is how badly they're running the business.

 

[jamief]

I get paid for 48 hrs but rarely do that much.

Surely that is the reason that the RM is running poorly then? Complaining about managers yet you don't do the work you're paid for?

 

[Jeff Lynne]

Well now, can't complain about that, eh? Paid for 48 but not even working it? A nice little earner, I'd say.

Looks like RM's managers have a case to answer, if this is how badly they're running the business.

What do you think I do? 13hrs? I probably make two hours over the course of a week, twenty minutes per day.

 

[Vonhelmet]

Striking is a necessary evil sometimes, as otherwise you risk employers taking liberties and walking all over staff, holding them to ransom over their jobs. On the other hand, it seems insane for people to strike over, say, pay rises below 3% or redundancies during a recession.

 

[Captain_Slick]

Yeah, you can't really complain about anything if you're paid for hours that you don't even work.

I fully support sacking anyone who strikes because they're not getting paid for not working.

Agreement or not, that's ridiculous. RM needs fully privatising, quickly, if this sort of thing is commonplace.

 

[RDM]

I get paid for 48 hrs but rarely do that much.

Then what exactly is the problem? I am not sure why it is an issue for a company to ask you to work the hours it pays you for. Why is that unreasonable?

 

[Dolph]

First point there is wrong, unless I misunderstand. We get paid for 40 hrs regardless, thats our basic pay.

You get paid 40 hrs (or 48 hrs) but don't always work it. Hence asking you some weeks to do slightly over your contracted hours balances out the weeks when you don't.

The alternatives would either be reduction in paid working hours to actual hours worked, or redundancy until the number of hours available matches the number required.

The hours bank result sounds like a good deal to me.

Second part, yes. That was another agreement that RM reneged on. When they got rid of the old fashioned second delivery, which IMO was a waste of time and money they brought in longer but later first deliveries combined with an array of tasks including sorting and various jobs around the delivery office before you left. The big selling point of it was "job and finish" so once you'd finished your delivery you were free to go home.

That would be an agreement they were bullied into in the first place (again under strike action), and that made them uncompetitive with their competition?

A couple of years later they see a guy come back to the delivery office 30mins before he's due off and think, hmm, he can have some extra work.

Quite right too, RM can't keep working practices like that with it's current financial issues.

 

[scorza]

Maybe you'd understand why we strike then? As we have these agreements in the past couple of years which are being repelled one by one by the management to suit their own end.

I don't know enough about the specifics of this dispute to say either way. I'm not one of these forummers who think it's the job of employees to bend over and take it from management in the hope that one day they'll get a pat on the head and told they're a good boy though.

Generally speaking, I think it's perfectly acceptable for employees to group together and withdraw their labour if they feel that their employer isn't fulfilling their obligations to them. It's also right that there is proper protection for these employees to stop unscrupulous employers from engineering strikes as a cheap way of laying off people. Sometimes the unions can go too far though.

 

[Dolph]

A cuts a cut. The work still has to be done. Just cos they've lopped ten hours off of a delievery it doesn't make it ten hours less work, we still have to absorb that work into our own duties. When they do it more and more you begin to notice these things.

It doesn't have to make it 10 hours less work if it was not running to capacity previously. If the work was actually taking 9 hours less than contracted, then there's only 1 hours less work to find to fit the new shift pattern.

The agreement was full time staff were to come in, throw off their deliveries and do 1hr 30mins sorting beforfe going out. There are that many part timers now that 1hr 30mins isn't long enough and more often than not we're sorting for 2hrs.

Some days I'm dead on my feet before I've even left the office!!!

And I've not had an undisturbed holiday in the last 18 months, because there has always been something that's come up. It's the nature of work that sometimes we don't get exactly everything that we want.

 

[Sankari]

Surely that is the reason that the RM is running poorly then? Complaining about managers yet you don't do the work you're paid for?

The managers are responsible for determining shift lengths and ensuring that the hours allocated to each worker are appropriate for the job. I'd be looking at them first before blaming workers for enjoying an easy job.

What do you think I do? 13hrs? I probably make two hours over the course of a week, twenty minutes per day.

If so, this would mean that you do indeed work the 48 hours for which you are paid. So which is it? You work 48 hours a week, or you don't? I imagine you're a salaried worker, right?

 

[Dolph]

The managers are responsible for determining shift lengths and ensuring that the hours allocated to each worker are appropriate for the job. I'd be looking at them first before blaming workers for enjoying an easy job.

Given the militant nature of the workforce and the long history of reluctance/refusal to change, I would say the blame has to be shared. Most of the current situations are compromises made under previous strike action/threat of strike action to try and keep even more ludicrous working conditions than they have now. There have been ongoing attempts to change working practices by management that have been fought every step of the way by the CWU and its members.

 

[Jeff Lynne]

Yeah, you can't really complain about anything if you're paid for hours that you don't even work.

I fully support sacking anyone who strikes because they're not getting paid for not working.

Agreement or not, that's ridiculous. RM needs fully privatising, quickly, if this sort of thing is commonplace.

Good Lord, maybe this kind of thread needs discussion in Speakers Corner because GD only attracts this kind of clueless input.

 

[Jeff Lynne]

You get paid 40 hrs (or 48 hrs) but don't always work it. Hence asking you some weeks to do slightly over your contracted hours balances out the weeks when you don't.

The alternatives would either be reduction in paid working hours to actual hours worked, or redundancy until the number of hours available matches the number required.

The hours bank result sounds like a good deal to me.



That would be an agreement they were bullied into in the first place (again under strike action), and that made them uncompetitive with their competition?



Quite right too, RM can't keep working practices like that with it's current financial issues.

You were posting quite reasonably for a while but all of a sudden, plop, the head has gone right back up the managements ass.

If you really want people to think that you are neutral and you see both sides then at least pretend that you do in this thread instead of arguing the toss with everything I have to say.

And if you think banked hours with the dishonest ranks that make up RM management is a good think then you're off your rocker.