*From:* "Peter Smyth"
*Date:* Fri, 22 Jul 2011 19:21:52 +0100

wrote in message
...

As a consequence of everything being so tight, a driver requesting
time
out "or special leave" as it's known) may be refused. This is the
same for
whether the special leave is at the beginning or end of the duty,
or for a
day or more. If it's for a day in advance and cover is available,
it might
be possible for that person to arrange to take a day or more of
their
leave at that time. In which case, that time off would be shown as
leave
and he would be paid as normal and it wouldn't go against them.
This is
normally the case if more than the allowed time off for funerals is
required.

One of the few exceptions for not granting special leave would be a
funeral. A driver phoning in to say that they have to wait in
because
somebody is late turing up, a plumber etc. is late finishing, they
have to
pick up their children from school etc. will normally be given
short
shrift and told to "be in on time or you'll be booked" because if
they're
not in on time, it may be that their train (or another train later
because
a spare is already being used) is cancelled.

Is it possible for drivers to agree to swap shifts with each other?

Peter Smyth



Drivers can swap shifts, and indeed many do, especially those who like to
work at certain times of the day, such as lates, earlies or middles. You
can also swap rest days. The problem is getting somebody to change with
you at the last minute. If you're on a similar shift it's not so bad, but
there has to be a minimum of twelve hours between shifts. Therefore,
whilst a person who should be doing an early turn that day can swap their
shift for a late turn, the driver on the late turn couldn't swap their
shift for the early turn, unless they were rest day the day before.
Otherwise, in an extreme example, a driver finishing at 01:30 in the
morning on a late turn could then book on at 04:55 the same morning for an
early turn.

Drivers are not allowed to do overtime (the unions won't allow it) unless
this is unavoidable due to getting back late when finishing their duty, or
it is additional overtime (normally a few minutes) on certain duties as
agreed by the unions. As a consequence, After they have finished their own
duty, a driver can't then "do a rounder" of another duty because that
driver will be in late.

Roger