Revised Bank Holiday approach

A revised approach to scheduling UPA2 staff in Resources will be tried this Easter.

This resulted from a meeting between your representatives and Resources management held to discuss Bank Holiday scheduling over last Christmas.

Following discussion at the meeting reviewing UPA2 staff schedules in Post Production and Studios over last Christmas, management have agreed to revise their approach on a trial basis over the Easter period 18-21 April 2003.

The revised approach will, in the union's view, be more in line with Resources Terms and Conditions section 9(e) than current practice.

The emphasise under the revised approach will be to try and schedule Post Production and Studios UPA2 staff either on Duty over the Bank Holiday period in Easter, or to schedule staff off during the entire period through the use of released from duty (RD) days, Off Duty (OD or ODX) and Protected Days off (PD or ODP).

For staff scheduled to be on duty during the period the use of RD days should be avoided.

However the union accepts that it would be extremely difficult to allocate all staff as above due to the pressures of broadcasting. The union would see a realistic figure of such scheduling difficulties to be 5% of UPA2 staff in Post Production and Studios.

Currently, allocating practice is to spread the work around, so many of people find they are working one day of the Bank Holiday, with another day as OD or PD, and the public holiday itself scheduled as an RD.

It is be expected the new approach would fewer people working, but doing more days, and those not working given the whole holiday period off as for Easter RD, OD, PD, RD.

Those who want to will be able to apply to take leave across the Easter break as usual (the staffing level permitting proviso remaining in force, as before).

The new approach, if continued after Easter to cover future Bank Holidays, will also require a longer term view of such scheduling to avoid, when possible, the same people working on a series of Bank Holidays.

At the meeting with management to discuss Bank Holiday scheduling the situation over last Christmas was reviewed.

Figures for Studios over the Christmas five-day Bank Holiday showed that 20% of operational staff were, in the union's view, not scheduling in line with Resources Terms and Conditions section 9(e). In Post Production the degree of such inappropriate scheduling was lower.

After further discussion management agreed to revise the approach to Bank Holiday scheduling as outlined above on a trial basis. It is expected a further meeting with be held after Easter between the union and management to review the situation.