On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 15:49:27 +0000, Jason
wrote:

Tube staff are given 52 days holiday

By Paul Marston, Transport Correspondent
(Filed: 24/11/2004)

Station staff on the London Underground will have 52 days off a year,
excluding weekends, under an agreement struck yesterday.

Transport for London, which runs the Tube, said a new 35-hour working
week had been negotiated under which staff would be on duty for 37.5
hours, and then "roll up" the extra two and a half hours into
additional rest days.

Then it's not "holidays," it's time off in lieu of hours worked, but
within a formal limited structure. Plenty of office workers on
flexitime can accrue far more time and thus take far more days off.

The 7,000 station staff would gain nine further rest days to add to
their previous six, plus 29 days' annual leave and eight bank
holidays, giving an overall entitlement of 52 days or 10 and a half
working weeks.

I've seen people on flexitime use it to gain double that as extra days
off.

The RMT union, which has strongly supported Ken Livingstone, London's
mayor and the TfL chairman, said the "ground breaking" deal would mean
that with weekends included, staff would have 43 per cent of the year
off work. Station assistants typically earn £20,000 a year, with
supervisors on £35,000.

It's only 43% is you include weekends! Someone working 9-5 with 25
days leave on paper gets a total of 137 days off work - 35& of the
year. Putting in place a formal structure for another 6% as time off
in lieu of hours worked isn't such a huge difference.

London Assembly Conservatives expressed fury at the settlement, which
follows threats of strikes from the union. A one-day stoppage took
place in the summer after negotiations ground to a halt.

Roger Evans, the transport spokesman, said: "This deal is beyond
comprehension. It is an outrageous insult to every hard-working
Londoner. Yet again we're seeing the unions holding the capital to
ransom. They know the threat of strikes always pays off. The answer is
to ban strikes on the Underground.

Why is it an "insult"? It's not extra holidays - it's days off on
account of extra hours worked!

[snip rest of ****-stirring ********]
--
Nick Cooper

[Carefully remove the detonators from my e-mail address to reply!]

The London Underground at War:
http://www.cwgcuser.org.uk/personal/...ra/lu/tuaw.htm
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