Reserves Deserve Better
Submitted on 6 March, 2007 - 15:22
Management are still at it. Messing reserve staff around, routinely destroying what little 'work-life balance' you have.
Tubeworker has long campaigned for a better deal for reserves, with some success. What is essential is that:
(a) reserve staff know their rights, so they can refuse abuses by management;
(b) the unions demand both more rostered jobs, and better rights for reserves; and
(c) union reps represent individuals effectively, but also take this up as a collective issue - you can bet that where one reserve is being treated badly, so are plenty of others.
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RESERVES REST PERIODS AND DUTIES.
reserves do have rights all be it slim ones. They are entitled by agreement to 28 days notice of duties. This has been agreed with the board of directors so it should be enforcable.
I know that the agreement is being abused and has been for years but that is our fault as well. We should be refusing duty changes unless they are like for like at a different station. Every rep should be encouraging the reserve staff to put thier complaints in writing so that they can be progressed through the machinary.
A campaign for decent rights for reserves could highlight the problems that these members of staff have and help to aleviate them. Resolutions to Regional Council would start the ball rolling.
I have always been disgusted with the conditions that reserves have to work under. Lets try and make a difference.
Rick Grogan
Know Your Rights
Dear Tubeworker and its readers
I have done a 'Know Your Rights' leaflets for reserve station staff on my group, which is easily adaptable to other locations. E-mail me and I'll e-mail you a copy.
Reserve staff? Who?
Incompetent management and poorly trained/supported AG1's not conforming to agreements regarding duty allocation/changes are only the tip of the reserve staff iceberg of woe.
Within the framework there is scant/no provision or protection of the right of reserve staff to have either a regular rest day pattern or more frequent long weekends. There is also no protection against duty times either side of single rest days, i.e: seven or fewer night shifts followed by a single rest day and then early duties. Believe me, this leaves you completeely cream crackered.
I have been a reserve at several locations at at several grades, some good and some terrible. The problem is that there is no hard and fast rule on this. The framework agreement is pathetically out of date and for many staff, especially new ones,difficult to access and understand. It's about time the unions acted on this and concentrated on getting an overlooked and poorly repredented section of the tube the recognition they deserve.
Yeah, good points
Even the few rights that are in the Framework Agreement are routinely ignored. So telling people those rights - and getting them to complain when they are abused - is essential.
But you are right, we need additional rights too, and the ones you mention are good examples. This would, of course, require the unions to get beyond their usual defend-the-way-we've-always-done-it mentality. And it will require a strategy from the unions to fight and win, cos management are in no mood to roll over, and we don't want to be fiddling while Rome burns.