The Unions. They're at it again

m_stan

Bloody unions have this country to randsom. Looks like the lads in Dublin Bus are about to go on strike.

Between the Dart drivers, Bus drivers, An Post, Aer Lingus etc - the unions have way too much power. I can see the sense in them defending employees rights, but this has gone too far.

Start the backlash.

lostexpectation

this time I tend to agree, athough I liked to a logical defense of their position
if your not supposed to work more then 48hrs a week then your are not susposed to work 48hrs a week. There must be inumerable ways in which not working so many hours would actually be a huge benefit despite yourself and any finanicial issues.

I guess there have been negotiating this, but the first we hear of it is talk of a strike, so people can can ****ing bus drivers ****ing unions!!!

mike65

You've got to admire the wilful way the unions belive the world is flat.

A law is passed at EU level to protect workers health and the company to whom it aplies implements it as they should and then the workers demand compo???????? Dublin Bus will have to employ more drivers to make up the workers worked shortfall as it is.

Mike.

A Dub in Glasgo

As I understand it, a company cannot force staff to work more than 48 hours. However, staff can elect to work more than 48 hours should they wish. It should never have got to a position that Dublin Bus was reliant on their staff to work over 48 hours in order to operate.

bonkey

mike65 wrote:

A law is passed at EU level to protect workers health and the company to whom it aplies implements it as they should and then the workers demand compo????????

I don't know the background, but I can forsee a situation where the demand could be considered reasonable.

If overtime was a previously agreed mechanism (over or under the table) to implement a net increase in takehome pay without granting a payrise (or exceeding government-imposed caps), then they are effectively being forced into taking a paycut.

There may also be a consideration (I feel) to be made had they allowed overtime to be become a widespread regular expectation, rather than a solution to unforseen short-term staffing shortages.

Whether or not either of these is the case, and whether or not people agree that either would give some legitimacy to the claim, I don't know.

I also don't know what a driver's standard working week is, not how much overtime they were working. Will this enforcement of the new legislation merely cap their overtime, or will it prevent them from working it entirely?

jc

bonkey

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

As I understand it, a company cannot force staff to work more than 48 hours. However, staff can elect to work more than 48 hours should they wish.

I thought that was the 40 (or 38.5?) hour week, and the 48 was a second limit posted on how much extra the worker could elect to work?

Must go check up.

Bloodychancer

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

As I understand it, a company cannot force staff to work more than 48 hours. However, staff can elect to work more than 48 hours should they wish. It should never have got to a position that Dublin Bus was reliant on their staff to work over 48 hours in order to operate.

No that is the way it works in the UK where they got an exemption from this.


Here it is forced you can work over 48 hours in a week but spread over 3 or 6 months the average has to be 48 hours or less

Dublin Bus is reliant on overtime not just to cover emergencies but as part of the normal week for example the Nitelink service is completely operated on an overtime basis

The problem is that the implementation of the 48 hour week not only limits the ammount of overtime it has other sections about minimum rest times enforced days off maximum work time without a break etc which are all good but the implementation of these affects agreed work practises

The unions and the management have been talking for about a year now and the talks broke down last month with no agreement

Management then issued a notice that they were going to go ahead and implement the 48 hour week and its various parts without agreement on the 4th of December
Management claimed that they could implement it with "minimal effect" on current agreements but when questioned by the unions as to what effect it would have on various different agreements the company could not/would not elaborate on the impact on various agreements

The Unions informed them that change to agreements had to be negotiated and that in view of the companies threat to go ahead without agreement they would ballot for industrial action
Which they did and it was overwhelmingly endorsed

Apparently the company have suspended the implementation date and offered to re enter talks but I have no had this confirmed once that happens the threat of industrial action will be lifted as well


It is not a straight forward we want more money thing although the loss of earnings is a big part for drivers who are dependant on the regular overtime that has always been available and indeed on which the company have relied on them to do to provide a service.

John_C

Bloodychancer wrote:

for example the Nitelink service is completely operated on an overtime basis

That's fair though isn't it, the drivers who work late get paid extra? What alternative would the drivers propose, that it be the same drivers always on Nitelinks with a seperate contract?

Bloodychancer

John_C wrote:

That's fair though isn't it, the drivers who work late get paid extra? What alternative would the drivers propose, that it be the same drivers always on Nitelinks with a seperate contract?

Well under the 48 hour week A driver would only be able to work one Nitelink a week or a driver may not be to work it at all because the time the Nitelink finishes at if his normal days work starts too early the next day he has to have a minimum 11 hour rest period.
Nitelink finishes about 5:30am if the drivers normal duty starts before 4:30pm he cannot do the nitelink

Also the Nitelink works to long without a meal break so the company would have to provide a break facility which they currently do not.

The problem is that there are no proposals at the moment as to how any of this would work just a threat from the company to implement the 48 hour week with no details.

tallus

Bloodychancer wrote:

No that is the way it works in the UK where they got an exemption from this.


Here it is forced you can work over 48 hours in a week but spread over 3 or 6 months the average has to be 48 hours or less

Dublin Bus is reliant on overtime not just to cover emergencies but as part of the normal week for example the Nitelink service is completely operated on an overtime basis

The problem is that the implementation of the 48 hour week not only limits the ammount of overtime it has other sections about minimum rest times enforced days off maximum work time without a break etc which are all good but the implementation of these affects agreed work practises

The unions and the management have been talking for about a year now and the talks broke down last month with no agreement

Management then issued a notice that they were going to go ahead and implement the 48 hour week and its various parts without agreement on the 4th of December
Management claimed that they could implement it with "minimal effect" on current agreements but when questioned by the unions as to what effect it would have on various different agreements the company could not/would not elaborate on the impact on various agreements

The Unions informed them that change to agreements had to be negotiated and that in view of the companies threat to go ahead without agreement they would ballot for industrial action
Which they did and it was overwhelmingly endorsed

Apparently the company have suspended the implementation date and offered to re enter talks but I have no had this confirmed once that happens the threat of industrial action will be lifted as well


It is not a straight forward we want more money thing although the loss of earnings is a big part for drivers who are dependant on the regular overtime that has always been available and indeed on which the company have relied on them to do to provide a service.

My understanding of the European working time directive was that you could not be forced to work any more than 48 hours in any one week unless you so chose to do so.
Likewise, you cannot be made to come back in to work until at least 11 hours from the time you last left. There is a certain amount of flexibility in the 11 hour thing though, once it spaces out over the entire week ... similarly to the 3-6 months thing you stated at the start of the post.
Anyhoo.... deviating from the op .. just thought I'd get my 2cents in

A Dub in Glasgo

Bloodychancer wrote:

No that is the way it works in the UK where they got an exemption from this.

Thanks for that

I work in a safety critical part of the railway industry and we are subject to a more stringent set of rules regarding working hours.

Bloodychancer

tallus wrote:

My understanding of the European working time directive was that you could not be forced to work any more than 48 hours in any one week unless you so chose to do so.
Likewise, you cannot be made to come back in to work until at least 11 hours from the time you last left. There is a certain amount of flexibility in the 11 hour thing though, once it spaces out over the entire week ... similarly to the 3-6 months thing you stated at the start of the post.
Anyhoo.... deviating from the op .. just thought I'd get my 2cents in

There is an opt out clause but Ireland has not applied the opt out clause


http://www.eic.ie/legislation/working_time.htm



"Article 22 of the current directive gives Member States the option not to apply Article 6 laying down the 48-hour maximum working week, subject to certain conditions. These conditions are:

the employer must obtain the worker's consent to work more than 48 hours a week
no worker must suffer any disadvantage if he does not agree to opt-out
the employer must keep up-to-date records of all workers who opt-out
the records must be available to the competent authorities, which can ban or restrict hours worked in excess of the 48-hour limit if necessary for health and safety reasons.
The opt-out was negotiated by the UK when the directive was first adopted in 1993. The UK has been the only Member State to apply the opt-out on a general basis until this year. Following enlargement, two new Member States, Cyprus and Malta, are applying it on a general basis. Luxembourg applies the opt-out to its restaurant and catering sector in order to avoid more stringent national rules on reference periods for calculating working time so that it can cope with seasonal peaks. Following Court of Justice rulings in 2000 and 2003 that defined time spent on-call by health professionals as working time, France, Spain and Germany have applied the opt-out to their health sectors"




Ireland could apply the opt out clause and Bus drivers who are willing to work more than the 48 hour maximum could sign an opt out
However the Irish Government has decided not to allow its citizens to decide how many hours they should work

Memnoch

errr what working time directive?

most doctors I know work 60-80 hours a week regularly.

I just completed an 84 hour week myself.... I would give anything for a 48 hour work week

Bloodychancer

Memnoch wrote:

errr what working time directive?

most doctors I know work 60-80 hours a week regularly.

I just completed an 84 hour week myself.... I would give anything for a 48 hour work week

there is a gradual scale for junior doctors i think it is 58 hours for a couple of years reducing to 48 eventually (maybe)

However as a recent court judgement stated that on call hours counted towards the 58 chances are that the Irish Government will apply for the opt out clause for the Health sector soon just as the Germans French and Spainish have.


The basic idea behind this was to create more jobs if they limited the number of hours workers could do then companies would have to employ more people which is fine in France with high unemployment but not great when it comes to here where there is not that problem at the moment
And it does not transfer well to Doctors etc its not like a hospital can just take them on from the nearest job centre.

Bloodychancer

tallus wrote:

My understanding of the European working time directive was that you could not be forced to work any more than 48 hours in any one week unless you so chose to do so.
Likewise, you cannot be made to come back in to work until at least 11 hours from the time you last left. There is a certain amount of flexibility in the 11 hour thing though, once it spaces out over the entire week ... similarly to the 3-6 months thing you stated at the start of the post.
Anyhoo.... deviating from the op .. just thought I'd get my 2cents in

Just on that as well there is no flexibility on the 11 hour break also in the 7 day week you have to have at least one 24 hour rest period plus the 11 so effectively 35 hours

tallus

interesting heh .. it's a number of years since I attended a seminar on the working time directive.

Memnoch

how come there isn't more information about the working time directive around?

I'm wondering when it's going to be implemented. What the rules for the health sector are, and how I can avoid being forced to work stupid hours and still keep my job

48 hours is fine, 84 just takes it out of me too much.

as for your question about the limitations on the number of doctors, I think it's more a case of the Irish government (and british) for that matter creating overly stupid beauracracies. There are pleanty of doctors looking for jobs, and pleanty from over seas as well who would love at a chance to work in europe. It wouldn't be difficult to fill jobs if the need was there. But it's much easier to just exploit the one's that are already here, since it's still better off for them financially than back where they come from.

the thing that worries me the most about this time directive is that I fear workers are just going to be exploited. It's pretty costly to take on your employers legally if they decide to exploit you. How does one stop the government from not hiring doctors who refuse to work more than 48 hours for instance?

Bloodychancer

Memnoch wrote:

how come there isn't more information about the working time directive around?

I'm wondering when it's going to be implemented. What the rules for the health sector are, and how I can avoid being forced to work stupid hours and still keep my job

48 hours is fine, 84 just takes it out of me too much.

as for your question about the limitations on the number of doctors, I think it's more a case of the Irish government (and british) for that matter creating overly stupid beauracracies. There are pleanty of doctors looking for jobs, and pleanty from over seas as well who would love at a chance to work in europe. It wouldn't be difficult to fill jobs if the need was there. But it's much easier to just exploit the one's that are already here, since it's still better off for them financially than back where they come from.

the thing that worries me the most about this time directive is that I fear workers are just going to be exploited. It's pretty costly to take on your employers legally if they decide to exploit you. How does one stop the government from not hiring doctors who refuse to work more than 48 hours for instance?

The work time directive became law in Ireland in 1997
But 1998 was the first year of operation

Some workers were exempt from the work time directive including Doctors and transport workers

That exemption is now over hence the problem

http://www.entemp.ie/publications/employment/1997/workinghours.doc

To whom does the working time directive apply?

to all sectors of activity, both public and private
Air, rail, road, sea, inland waterway and lake transport, sea fishing, other work at sea and the activities of doctors in training were excluded from the 1993 directive
The above sectors were brought within its scope in the 2000 directive.
All the excluded sectors except doctors in training have been covered, under national law, since 1 August 2003.
Doctors in training have been covered since 1 August 2004. They will work a maximum week of 58 hours until 2009. From 1 August 2009 their maximum working week falls to 48 hours.

However the funny thing is that a new work time directive is due early next year

http://www.eic.ie/legislation/working_time.htm

What will change under the new Commission proposal?

(1) The opt-out

Member States will only be able to apply the opt-out if it is expressly allowed under a collective agreement or an agreement between the social partners and if the individual worker consents.

If no collective agreement is applicable and there is no workers' representation empowered, according to national rules, to negotiate an agreement (which may be the case in small and especially micro businesses), the worker's individual consent has to be obtained by the employer. The conditions attached to the worker's individual consent are tightened:

it cannot be given at the same time as the contract of employment is signed or during any probation period
it has to be given in writing
it is valid for a maximum of one year (renewable
no worker can work more than 65 hours in any week
employers are obliged to keep records of the number of hours actually worked and to make those records available to the responsible authorities if required.
The proposal does not include a definition of "workers' representation empowered to negotiate" but leaves this to national law and/or practice. The existence of a body for information and consultation of workers, as required under other EU legislation, will not necessarily constitute workers' representation for the purposes of this proposal.

(2) On-Call time

The proposal introduces a new category, "on-call time", in addition to "working time" and "rest time" and states that the inactive part of on-call time does not constitute working time within the meaning of the directive. However, it also gives Member States the option, under national law or by collective agreement or agreement between the two sides of industry, of counting the inactive part of on-call time as working time.

"On-call time" is defined as the "period during which the worker has the obligation to be available at the workplace to intervene, at the employer's request, to carry out his activity or duties".

The proposal defines the "inactive part of on-call time" as the "period during which the worker is on call but is not required by his employer to carry out his activity or duties". The inactive part of on-call time does not constitute rest time, which is counted separately.

In the proposal, if the worker is residing at the work place but is resting and not actually working, his on-call time will not be counted as working time. .At present, under the Court of Justice rulings, if the worker has to be available but is not required to be present at the workplace, this has to be considered as rest.

(3) Time Limits for Compensatory Rest

The limit of 72 hours is set for granting compensatory rest to workers where the compulsory rest periods are waived. (These waivers are possible for the groups of workers mentioned above who can be exempted from the directive's key provisions). The ECJ judgments referred to above interpret the existing directive to mean that compensatory leave has to be taken immediately.

(4) Reference periods for calculating the working week

The standard reference period over which the average working week is calculated remains four months. However, Member States have the option, in the proposal, of extending it to one year, provided that the social partners are consulted and social dialogue is encouraged. In that case, the workers cannot work more than 65 hours in any week. The proposal also states that the reference period can in no circumstances be longer than the duration of the employment contract.

What happens next with the proposal?

Council and Parliament have to agree the new legislation under the codecision procedure.

When will the new directive take effect?

That depends on how long it takes Parliament and Council to reach agreement. It could be adopted by late 2005 or early 2006. After that, Member States will have two years to put national laws implementing the directive on their statute books.

Bloodychancer

this might be of interest to you

http://www.imo.ie/view_categories.php?cat_id=13&doc_id=4010&sCat=13

Memnoch

i guess that clears some things up, thanks for that.

I agree that on-call time should only count if u are required to be in the hospital. Because the reality is that only consultants do "on-call" from home and they NEVER get called to the hospital anyways. Though OCCAISIONALLY a cardiology consultant may be called to do an emergency angiogram. I'm not sure about how it is for surgeons.

Still I wish the opt out clause wasn't there, with it there is no way to stop the govt from forcing it's will on doctors.

bonkey

Memnoch wrote:

Still I wish the opt out clause wasn't there, with it there is no way to stop the govt from forcing it's will on doctors.

The safeguards, requiring that it cannot be signed with the employment contract or during any probation period seems like a reasonable start.

jc

Memnoch

ya one can hope.

Still i'm skeptical, if this working time directive thing is planning on being implemented some time soon we should have heard something about it at work in terms of shift changes or hiring more doctors etc.

Because as things stand they can't let us work just 48 hours a week and still continue with the same schedule that is currently employed. The hospitals would have to dramatically shift the way they operate in order to implement it.

I know it's doable, it's been done quite successfully in England.

I think there is a rule in the time directive that stops people from working more than 13 hours at a stretch or something like that, and if that's the case that would eliminate 24 hour on calls which equal 36 hour shifts. i.e. starting at 8am and finishing at 5pm the next day. I would be really glad if that was part of the deal!

Anyone know when this all is supposed to be implemented? Or maybe it was implemented already and we are just being abused

John_C

I still don't understand the specifics of the disagreement. Are the drivers unhappy because management hasn't published what the new timetables will be? What solution do the drivers want? Do the drivers want one day a week of nightlink or one week on of nightlink followed by 2 weeks of day driving?

Bloodychancer wrote:

Well under the 48 hour week A driver would only be able to work one Nitelink a week or a driver may not be to work it at all because the time the Nitelink finishes at if his normal days work starts too early the next day he has to have a minimum 11 hour rest period.
Nitelink finishes about 5:30am if the drivers normal duty starts before 4:30pm he cannot do the nitelink

Also the Nitelink works to long without a meal break so the company would have to provide a break facility which they currently do not.

The problem is that there are no proposals at the moment as to how any of this would work just a threat from the company to implement the 48 hour week with no details.

Bloodychancer

John_C wrote:

I still don't understand the specifics of the disagreement. Are the drivers unhappy because management hasn't published what the new timetables will be? What solution do the drivers want? Do the drivers want one day a week of nightlink or one week on of nightlink followed by 2 weeks of day driving?

No the specifics of the disagreement are spreadover many areas

an example would be

DB at the moment has about 35% of its drivers are Spare which basically means they dont know what they are due to work from day to day. They find out what they are due to work tomorrow today

On the spare drivers early week they work early duties if there are spare early duties for them to work
If there are no spare early duties they may have to work a relief duty which basically starts between 11am and 2pm and finishes between 8pm and 10pm

All spare drivers have to take there fair share of working relief type duties (ie a driver can only work a second relief duty in a week when all other early spare drivers have worked one)

under the 48 hour working week it is also compulsory to have 11 hours of a break between shifts so if a driver was working till 9 0r 10 they could not work an early the next day which would mean a spare driver put on a relief at the start of the week would have to work reliefs all week

That is just one example there are loads more which involve details of how the shift works including working days off changing shifts to facilitate appointments etc etc

It is impossible to bring in the 48 hour week without changing loads of agreements change has to be negotiated the company had basically decided that they did not need to negotiate and that they would just go ahead

But they were unable to give the employees any information on how specific things would work bar saying it would have in their opinion "minimal effect"

IMO for what it is worth

I think the company have realised in the wake of the wellington Quay accident that if such an accident was to happen again and the driver had been working long hours ( not that i believe that was the case there) that they as management that had allowed drivers to work 80+ hours a week could be liable as well and that they would be in an indefencible position.

And that they have been using the cover of the work time directive to force through change without negotiation.

John_C

OK Thanks,
What's the drivers' position on all of this? In the example you've given above, what do the drivers think the new arrangement should be?
Take it as a given that I agree that bus drivers should have appropriate break and rest times.

lostexpectation

so what should be the real title or headline to this story from a neutral point of view, as opposed to The Unions They're at it again?

Agreement over working time directive still not agreed upon at Dublin Bus? :v:

Bloodychancer

lostexpectation wrote:

so what should be the real title or headline to this story from a neutral point of view, as opposed to The Unions They're at it again?

Agreement over working time directive still not agreed upon at Dublin Bus? :v:

Perhaps
lets jump to conclusions and presume the unions are at fault without the need for any evidence

could be the title

Bloodychancer

John_C wrote:

OK Thanks,
What's the drivers' position on all of this? In the example you've given above, what do the drivers think the new arrangement should be?
Take it as a given that I agree that bus drivers should have appropriate break and rest times.

It is complicated John new rostering arrangement to take account of the new situation would seem to be the only real solution IMO
But that is just one of the issues.

Kernel

Memnoch wrote:

errr what working time directive?

most doctors I know work 60-80 hours a week regularly.

I just completed an 84 hour week myself.... I would give anything for a 48 hour work week

Jesus, you're being exploited, you ought to join a union if you're being forced to do such hours.

If you're a doctor, then you're working those hours to get a massive pay check, so you don't feel hard done by I'm sure.

More power to the unions, the worker has no power without a trade union, and I support the worker. I mean, since our tax system is skewed towards PAYE rather than corporate tax, they're the lifeblood of the economy and the reason why doctors and other professionals can rip people off so much.

John_C

Bloodychancer wrote:

It is complicated John new rostering arrangement to take account of the new situation would seem to be the only real solution IMO
But that is just one of the issues.

It seems to me that if the drivers are not able to put their finger on an unacceptable action by management then a strike is unnecessary. I would agree with a strike if it was to ensure proper rest times for drivers or a similar issue. I picked that as an example because, as a cyclist, I'd like to think that the bus drivers are alert and well rested.

It seems to me that the drivers are going to inconvienence the public simply as a tool for their negotiations with management and I don't support that.

Bloodychancer

John_C wrote:

It seems to me that if the drivers are not able to put their finger on an unacceptable action by management then a strike is unnecessary. I would agree with a strike if it was to ensure proper rest times for drivers or a similar issue. I picked that as an example because, as a cyclist, I'd like to think that the bus drivers are alert and well rested.

It seems to me that the drivers are going to inconvienence the public simply as a tool for their negotiations with management and I don't support that.

What do you want me to do tell you exactly what 2000 bus drivers would find acceptable.What would be acceptable in that issue would have to be seen in the context of an overall agreement on all the issues.
It is complicated in regards that it affects many different agreements. That is why change has to be negotiated.

If that is how it seems to you then perhaps you should re read my posts

There were no negotiations they had broken down the unions had put various proposals to management and they were all rejected
The company issued a notice that they intended to implement the 48 hour week without agreement.
When questioned as to how they intended to deal with various situations including the one I mentioned the company could/would not answer.

In the face of such a threat from the company the Unions had no choice but to ballot for industrial action.

The only other avenue left open to the Unions was to do nothing let the company go ahead and be faced with the obvious industrial unrest that would follow in December and then people like yourself would say where did this come from.

This is not something that has been sprung on the company the work time directive was enacted into law in 1997 with a derogation for Transport workers for a few years to allow those Industries with a high dependency on overtime to prepare for the 48 hour week.
They did absolutely nothing made no changes and only entered into talks with the unions in the last 12 months.