Annualised hours. What a gem they wish to foist upon us.
During the summer/holiday period, we will be working an average of 50 hours per week (more on this later) and during the slack/winter period an average of 30 per week. So.....even though for the next 4 months we will be doing an average of 50 hours per week, they will only pay us for 40. After that, we will only average 30 per week, but they will pay us for 40.
Fuck. That.
If I work 50 hours per week, I want to be paid for it. I want the money now, to enjoy the summer if I can, not "banked" for future fewer hours. Wonder how much interest they will earn on our "banked" money?
The new shift pattern (6 days on followed by 3 off) is not changed, but the hours within are. And they change from week to week. It all starts on 17th June where I begin with a 05:00-09:00 short day. This is followed by a 05:00-18:00 long day. After this are two 07:00-20:00 days, then a 08:30-21.30 day and finally a 17:00-21:00 short day. Then 3 days off.
The start times can vary between 04:30 and 10:30 and the end times finish up to 23:30. There's an 18 week plan somewhere which shows it all and for at least 4 of those shift I will have days where I do 13 hours four days on the trot.
It also screws your holiday usage up as we are obliged to take a certain number of hours of during May-October. With these new hours, taking 6 days off is now going to "cost" me 60 hours; at present it only would cost me about 50.
Bastards.
Next up is the "plan" to save a certain airline's costs at Gatwick - they charged a certain amount for how long a plane is on stand at the main terminal buildings (that have the airbridges to allow passengers on and off). So.....the plan is, get the plane on stand, get the passengers all off - then we tow the plane to a remote (considerably cheaper) stand, get all the bags off, get all the outbound bags on, tow it back to a stand, get the passengers on, collect the last few "gate" bags and then push it out for take-off. All in 35 minutes.
BA and Virgin do this with their planes, but these are "big" planes on transatlantic routes and they can otherwise be on a stand for 2+ hours. They get towed off up to the area near the cargo sheds, as these planes also have humungous amounts of cargo to carry - so it makes sense for them. But not for bucket and spade flights to Fuertaventura et al
Muppets. Utter muppets.
And they wonder why a large number of our staff are applying for jobs at the other ground handlers on the airport...
