Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Tough Titty!

Only 3 days into the new working year and it seems some of my colleages have spent an intensive Christmas period preparing for a good irate moan upon their return!
It has been common knowledge for at least 6 months, that when we returned to work this year, at some point we would start working split shifts (6am-2pm and 12pm-8pm) and working regular Saturdays.
So for the last three days, 2 of my colleages have sat in the tea room, moaning and shouting to anyone who will listen and anyone who won't, because management have decided to implement the changes that we knew were coming, and nobody tried to fight.
It states in our contract that they can call upon us anytime between 6am and 12am during weekdays and Saturdays, so as far as I can see, the company is quite within it's right to ask us to do this.
For the last 2 years I have worked on the "shop floor" as one of the grunts, I have worked more then my share of Saturdays as have others in the department, (last year I worked 10 Saturdays whilst most of the others, barr 2 or 3 worked none) but these were always on a voluntary basis! (My feelings were that if I put my hand up and volunteered when it suited me (i.e when I am not going to watch Hull City on a saturday afternoon) then I would be in a good position to say "no ask someone else" when they needed people on days when I was going to the football.
The problem with all this, is that when we all applied for jobs working in this department, we all asked about the working hours and wether we work saturdays, to which the management replied "we only work one shift (6am-2pm) and we never work Saturdays and there are no plans for this to change in the future" so people took the jobs on that basis, as some people have young children and do most activities with them on a Saturday. Other then getting to the football matches I don't have any worries or commitments such as kids.
As it stands, my only veiw on this is "tough titty" to us, but nevertheless, people are looking at bringing in a union rep/solicitor to see where we stand!
On a personal level I'm not entirely bothered about the changes, they won't effect me that much, although my attitude would change if I couldn't get to the football as a result, but feel they would be willing to accomodate me in that respect, but I also feel that we shouldn't let the company walk all over us, with out us putting up any kind of resistance, so if the people want to fight it, then I'm in! Who knows, maybe this could lead me onto fighting my own revolution in the future, just like the great Ernesto 'Che' Guevara! Oh hang on a minute, I've rambled off into Walter Mitty territory, I'll stop now.

3 comments:

Bazza said...

Or maybe Wolfie Smith!

Kev Brown said...

Now your talking!

Anonymous said...

Like I always say Kev don't listen to management lies believe only what is in your contract.

Only a matter of time before you lot become fully interchangable with liquids and dries.

Make sure you have a good look at your contract just to make sure it's all above board.

RD