On a better (personal) note, it is clearly stated in the document that anyone with a consistent history of booking off Sundays will be given a one off opportunity to be exempt from all Sunday working by giving written notice prior to the new protocol being implemented.
But you are only exempt if the Company can employ someone else to cover it. If they can't then you have to work:
"Where an existing employee (where Sundays is currently outside the working week without a contractual commitment to work) does not currently work any rostered Sundays then they could give 12-months’ notice to not work Sundays as an extra weekend shift providing extra weekend staff can be employed to cover. If cover cannot be provided, then the employee would be required to work their rostered Sundays (the ‘commitment to work’ stands)."
One thing that did stand out is “The standard Leave Entitlement for new employees will be 5 weeks and 8 days inclusive of bank and public holidays”. Where do I get some of that?!?!
It isn't that good. The legal minimum for someone working a full time job is 28 days per year in total.
But what the document doesn't define is what is considered "a week".
At the moment my leave is defined in days - I get 30 days per year.
If "a week" is considered to be 5 days then this is an increase in 3 days overall. (5 x 5 = 25 + 8 =33). However I could loose 2 of those each year because of the new arrangements for Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
However a separate section of the documeont (in respect of spare turns) says
"the principle that three days’ work constitutes a week’s work." If that is the case then 3 x 5 = 15 + 8 = 23 days, which is 7 days less than now. This would be below the legal minimum of 28 days, however that is based around a 5 day week. The Gov.uk website says that someone who only works a 3 day week is only legally entitled to 16.8 days leave a year.
Terms are broadly acceptable to me as a guard, most of the changes proposed were already agreed to when we settled the last dispute and got a reduction of hours. Station staff I feel a bit sorry for and would fully understand if they reject it. New starters get utterly shafted however I fully expect it will put people off from joining the railway (perhaps that is the point?), even more so when the economy picks up and wages rise again.
I am open minded to modernisation and change, and was hopeful that this new proposal could lead to and end to this dispute, and that I would be able to vote yes.
When I saw the headline bullet points yesterday I considered that - being selfish - not many of the proposed changes affected me that much so would therefore be acceptable. I already have Committed Sundays for example, so there is no change there.
However the devil is in the detail. And there is plenty of detail now which I do not like.
Take Spares. The document says that TOCS *MUST* produce rosters with full weeks of spares. It also says that if you have a full week of spare then you have unlimited movement and can be given any duty no matter what time it is. That means you could be moved from earlies to lates and all over the place. Even worse is that they can change your rest days at a weeks notice. So if you thought your days off would be Wednesday and Thursday a week before they can unilaterally change them to be Friday and Saturday, for example. This makes it absolutely impossible to plan anything outside work at all. A family meal? Going to a Wedding? Going to a concert or event which you need to buy tickets for? Well you can't book the day as leave to guarantee you can attend as you are on rest day so aren't in work in the first place.... until a week before when they move your rest day to a different day.
Can someone point me to other jobs where your manager can just move your weekend days off at a weeks notice and you can't do anything about it? How on earth do you plan anything at all?
It also implies that when spare changes can be made on the day of the duty subject to you being given notice. Currently I have 72 hours posted notice - i.e. they cannot alter my hours of duty and booking on times less than 72 hours before the day. This document says this reduces to 48 hours from the start of the actual shift (not the actual day concerned) but that also
"Further changes can occur up to and including on the day because of service requirements with adequate notice to staff affected.". So I am meant to start work at 1200 tomorrow for a 7 hour duty finishing at 1900. I get a phone call or email in the morning saying I must now turn up at 1500 instead for a 10 hour duty not finishing till 0100? (as they can also extend your day by up to 3 hours now) This might affect out of work commitments, travel arrangements, childcare etc etc.
See also my comments about Annual Leave above, as there is no clarity on the exact numbers of days etc. The way annual leave MUST be allocated is also significantly less flexible than my current arrangements
There is no stipulation for minimum number of rest days (in fact the document expressly says that TOCS can't have a minimum number of rest days) and also states that Sunday coverage should include spares etc like any other day. There is no stipulation for a maximum turn length.
There is no stipulation for a length of spare turn (other than that it must be flexible and based around the average turn length at the depot).
For all the above it just says that the company decides. (The document elsewhere states that the RMT can not dispute or fail to agree anything implemented as a result of this agreement being accepted).
The combination of the above means (assuming the timetable stays the same and the current diagrams remain broadly similar) I could go from doing a 4 day week with 1 committed Sunday every 3 weeks (so 13 days in work every 3 weeks) to a 5 day week with 2 committed Sundays every 3 weeks (so 17 days in work every 3 weeks). So I could loose 4 days off every 3 weeks - that could involve me working an extra 60+ days per year for little to no extra money save for some extra overtime payments for the extra committed Sundays.
The stuff in regards attendance management, sickness arrangements, etc; the type of work you can do; training principles and methods; new technology; and other such things I am not that bothered about (if anything I have often thought lots of them are a bit too generous). I could even cope with the extended range of movement on spare duties i.e +/- 3 hours with a 3 hour increase in length of day (so you could finish 6 hours later than planned for example).
However my days off are my days off. I like to plan my life, go on day trips or short breaks, go out for meals, go to events. The fact that my days off can be changed at a weeks notice making planning anything like that almost impossible for much of the year is a big no no. Much like the RMT red line on DOO - this is my red line.
For example - In April this year I've been invited to a friend's wedding. By coincidence it is on a Saturday when I am rest day. So I can go. So I will book a hotel, make travel arrangements etc. But come the new rostering arrangements I may find out a week before the wedding that the Saturday is not my rest day after all, they may move my rest day to Wednesday instead. So suddenly, at a weeks notice, I can't go. Great. Sorry, no. That is unacceptable.
I'd rather take no pay rise and just stay as I am thank you.
