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Posted By Serena Merry
Does anyone have any information or guidance about refuse collectors duties please. The crews I am responsible for start at 04.30hrs and finish around lunch time. They do not have any breaks and toilet facilities are not always available? Any help would be appreciated.
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Posted By Bob Youel
What is lunch time - yours or theirs -
if they work a standard day [average is approx 7-8 hours per shift], then from the point of starting,they are entitled to have a break after 5 hours working [bit out of date re the employment regs so check]. Other breaks are at the discression of any agreements between employees and management.
you need to manage the toilet issues
most refuse collectors that I have worked with operated the "job and finish" system therefore these issues never [officially] came up. The 'job and finish' system unoficially suited both management and the workers - be careful as you could be treading on many toes.
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Posted By Peter Lee
12. - (1) Where an adult worker's daily working time is more than six hours, he is entitled to a rest break.
(4) Where a young worker's daily working time is more than four and a half hours, he is entitled to a rest break of at least 30 minutes, which shall be consecutive if possible, and he is entitled to spend it away from his workstation if he has one.
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Posted By Steve Sedgwick
As Bob hinted at earlier, the guys will be choosing to start at these times and not have their official break.
Its a problem that I have seen before when you allow workers to operate a "job and done" system. The worker gets into the "mind set" that the earlier they start the earlier they finish.
Their official start time maybe 6am, but if they are allowed to they will start 1/2 hour early, then it becomes 1 hour. They eventually get round to starting at 4am or 3.30am. They become consumed with the prospect of finishing earlier; they think they have achieved something by finishing at 11.0 or 12.
Trying to understand the incentive for starting work at 4am I asked a bin man once what he does when he gets home. He said he was knackered so he went to bed for a couple of hours.
I would agree though that management should not allow these people to work like this, the last thing on their mind is H&S, and there are some very substantial risks with this job. But the system suits management as they get the bins emptied on time. I expect that this may not be the case if they had to clock on at 6 and clock off at 2 to be paid their 8 hours.
Steve
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Posted By John Ridd
All of the above cautions are of course correct, and I don't advocate starting as early as 3 or 4 a.m. but there is a different angle from which to view the H&S issues - at those times of day the crews would probably be able to move around the streets much more quickly AND, importantly safely at least from a traffic perspective; they also create less conflict than when blocking major thoroughfares at 8.30 in the morning, although noise would clearly be an issue.
Starting this early also means that a nominal 6 hr route might only take 4 to 5 hrs. Their truck would also be 'first' at the landfill, so no queuing - from a binman's point of view it is easy to see why there are a lot of positive's to this (in the summer at least).
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Posted By Serena Merry
Thanks for the information - I have not had to deal with the issues previously. I have arranged to spend a 'day' with one of the crews on a fairly informal basis as I would like to get them on my side. All your comments are very much appreciated - I will be treading very carefully! The phrase gently gently catchee monkee comes to mind!!
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