kemaro:
We’ve been told in work today that the company will no longer be paying overtime at time & a half , instead if you work over the time will have to be taken back at a another time , for example half today would mean half hour earlier finish tomorrow, highly unlikely on a Friday anyway, but that is now what is going to be expected, and no accruing of time to have a full day off either , they’re squeezing every last penny away from us, was talking to a lad from another local firm who said they used to get overtime but now if they do 50 hours one week ,next week they only do 30 .anybody else have similar sanctions being imposed ? …
told today were being cut to gauranteed 45 hrs instead of 50,fuel bonus is either going completely,cut by 50 % or £1 off it,meant to ring rep by monday,pointless ,£150 p.m pay cut,im alright[abit not happy,no-one likes loosing money],but alot of our younger ones were struggling with mortages,bills extra,this will tip them over edge.
at place today and on board it says youre expected to do 5 trunks per day,if you do 5 youll get 100% of your wages,do 4 and youll now only get 75 % makes you wonder
Was stood down last night, no work for me, I’m not an agency driver I work full time for the company, this might sound like a simple night off but i can’t help wondering about the long term.
Can only hope things pick up.
Does anyone else think that 50+ hours for a “standard” working week (as opposed to 9-5 35 hours for ordinary people) is a joke if they are not going to make a decent amount of that “overtime” of some description?
£750 gross sounds about right for a contracted 50 hour week. Nowdays, you’re lucky if you can gross £500 for those hours - and that’s the night rate!
The solution for those with kids is to drop hours into the tax credit zone, and spend more quality time at home with the family whilst only dropping a little from the gross £500 in the process.
Eg. work 2x12hours@£9ph is a gross of £216 plus tax credits of around £107 takehome £323. Compare this to how much you take home out of £500 gross for working over double the hours! Don’t forget the intended tax allowance being upped to £10k from April means you won’t be paying much tax on earnings of around 10-11k by this reckoning.
From April 2012 tax credit claimaints are required to work an average of 24 hours (from 16 now) to qualify thus, along with having kids under 16 living in your household of course. A wife not working also helps it has to be said, as her wages would drop the amount awarded.
I did this myself because the overtime dried up where I worked. I have to admit that the system has worked fine throughout 2011, but has come unstuck as of this past month as I’m not getting enough hours in on the agency to qualify as of this week (I need 32 this week and 32 next week if I’m not going to have my tax credits stopped - So far this week zippo!)
The next screw is being tightened , if things dont pick up dramatically then it is going to be job & knock , so back in the yard at 2 , go home , lose pay,… tracker could be fitted to monitor us aswell , any less money & it will be to costly to drive to work …
