That’s the railway, and a old fashioned concept of a Union to enforce staff breaks.
Absolutely.
On that note, am I right in thinking single manned boxes don’t get a PNB as such, but are expected to exercise discretion to take their breaks around their workload?
I'd argue that is more of an issue with their regular sickness policy than anything else (ie. staff shouldn't be punished for being ill, be it covid or any other illness).
Covid shouldn't have a special status when it comes to sickness policies, it is just sickness policies should be changed to actually be fair and not punitive!
I heard recently that a recent change had meant if you were not vaccinated and sick with Covid for NR you would be treated as sick (i.e counting towards absence totals) as opposed to the special status for Covid sickness that had been in place for most of the pandemic?
Absence policies tend to be targeted at regular short term absence, on the basis that one day per month for three months can be more disruptive to the business than someone taking (say) a block of a week off once in the same period. That shouldn’t cause a problem so long as the policy is applied consistently and fairly. As many of us are aware Covid related absence has been excluded from these policies for much of the last two years by many employers and I’m sorry to say some people have used this as a license to take the Micky (for example, claiming they need to isolate with symptoms, only to receive a negative PCR test several times over). That isn’t at all fair on colleagues who generally end up working harder as a result.
One thing we can agree on: Covid related absence needs to be treated exactly the same as any other sickness absence.
