Bank holiday call out.

[Tim 77]

At the firm I work for there's 4 of us who cover out of hours call outs so each of us does one week a month.

At the minutes we get a stand by fee + double time on all call outs.

Now it's fell that my week starts tomorrow (Dec 31st). Although I'll be 'off' on New Years day with pay I'll still be expected to go out if a call comes in. We've been talking amongst ourselves at work and think that as well as what we get for call outs we'd also like another paid day added to our holiday entitlement if our call week happens to include a bank holiday.

Does this sound fair or are we asking too much?

Does anybody else do call out over holiday periods here?


Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[JohnD]

If you work on a Bank Hol you ought to get one day off in lieu. You won't be able to drink or visit friends and family if you're on call-out, even if you end up not getting any calls.

This ought to be covered in your Contract of Employment, anyway. have a look at it

(don't tell me you haven't got one)

 

[Inky Pete]

There are changes to the law in the process of being enacted, check out this link:-

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/WorkingHoursAndTimeOff/DG_10029788

The minimum holiday entitlement an employer must give to most full time employees is currently 24 days - which includes the 8 public holidays. In April 2009 this will increase to 28 days.

Basically what the government is doing is to ensure that employees get a minimum of 20 days paid leave per year, plus lieu days for any public holdays worked.

We work on a similar basis to you, covering 24 hours a day 365 days a year as a mixture of shifts and on-call time. We used to have a really complicated system whereby our public holiday on-call guy was credited with an hour of holiday for each hour actually worked, plus an hour for every 4 hours on duty but not working. This became an unnecessary hassle to keep track of so now we just say that the guy who covers the public holiday gets a full day off in lieu regardless of what calls he gets.

 

[Bilioustrumpstaine]

If I had to work on a bank holiday I used to get double time and a day of in lieu.

 

[roughcaster]

I'm on call 24/7/365/6.My pager is never switched off, except if I am out of area which is very rare. I always inform the Centre of this. When the call-outs come,(30 plus per year, where we are) I get the minimum wage,and no call-out fee. Money here, has nothing at all to do with it,we would do it for free.I am committed to this, along with 7 others in our team, all depending on each other,anytime,Day or night. Myself and 2 other members of the team,have been doing this since 1989. I know this is a different kind of "Call-Out" as to what the topic is about, but nevertheless, a Call-Out. A Happy New Year to you all.


Roughcaster.

 

[Thermo]

on call as what roughcaster?

 

[roughcaster]

As a Coastguard Rescue officer. I am a member of Lossiemouth Coastguard Rescue Team,one of HM Coastguard's teams around Britain. We are a cliff rescue/search team. We have our area of coastline that we respond too should an incident occur,but we can be deployed elsewhere.We are paged as required,and train twice a month. We work with all other agencies as required. We come under Aberdeen MRCC.(Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre).

Roughcaster.

 

[Tim 77]

As it happenend I got two calls on New years day. One was a council job, the RCD was tripping due to a neutral/earth short caused by a drawing pin the tennants had used to put up their new calendar!

 

[Thermo]

As a Coastguard Rescue officer. I am a member of Lossiemouth Coastguard Rescue Team,one of HM Coastguard's teams around Britain. We are a cliff rescue/search team. We have our area of coastline that we respond too should an incident occur,but we can be deployed elsewhere.We are paged as required,and train twice a month. We work with all other agencies as required. We come under Aberdeen MRCC.(Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre).

Roughcaster.

thought it was something like that. we did a lot of jobs with the coastguard when i was on the dive and rope team in the police. Bet it gets a bit blowey up that way!

 

[Bilioustrumpstaine]

As a Coastguard Rescue officer. I am a member of Lossiemouth Coastguard Rescue Team,one of HM Coastguard's teams around Britain. We are a cliff rescue/search team. We have our area of coastline that we respond too should an incident occur,but we can be deployed elsewhere.We are paged as required,and train twice a month. We work with all other agencies as required. We come under Aberdeen MRCC.(Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre).

Roughcaster.

Fair play to you mate .

 

[gasandoilman]

As a customer would you mind paying double or more than double to have someone come out?

 

[roughcaster]

As a customer would you mind paying double or more than double to have someone come out?

If you need the urgent services of of a tradesman in an emergency to avoid further damage/destruction, in a commercial world,you or I would have to pay what is asked. Thankfully, no matter how people get into life threatening situations, and no matter the costs involved in bringing the situation to a successful conclusion, three little words, "safe and well" are priceless.

Roughcaster.

 

[oilman]

At the firm I work for there's 4 of us who cover out of hours call outs so each of us does one week a month.

At the minutes we get a stand by fee + double time on all call outs.

Now it's fell that my week starts tomorrow (Dec 31st). Although I'll be 'off' on New Years day with pay I'll still be expected to go out if a call comes in. We've been talking amongst ourselves at work and think that as well as what we get for call outs we'd also like another paid day added to our holiday entitlement if our call week happens to include a bank holiday.

Does this sound fair or are we asking too much?

Does anybody else do call out over holiday periods here?


Thanks in advance for any advice.

If you don't like the requirements, which to me seem reasonable, get another job as there is obviously something there that irks you.

 

[Tim 77]

If you don't like the requirements, which to me seem reasonable, get another job as there is obviously something there that irks you.

What I want is the feedback from other people to see if what I'm getting is reasonable or not.

Nothing there irks me.

 

[oilman]

What I want is the feedback from other people to see if what I'm getting is reasonable or not.

Nothing there irks me.

Then why should it concern you what (by implication) others are getting? Some are always more equal than others.