saturday lunches

[Forty6and2]

Yesterday as we saturday air people were delivering our packages, we received a mass text from the center. The text message was for anyone who does saturday pick-ups and said that "anyone who has pick-ups is REQUIRED to take an hour lunch per our management team." They have never said anything like this to us before. Upon returning to the building and discussing the text message with my fellow workers I was informed that our center manager originally wanted "anyone with pick-ups on saturday to take 2 hour lunches", but the saturday operation manager downgraded it to 1 hour instead of 2 hours.

My question is - Are they allowed to tell us we are REQUIRED to take a one hour lunch? This has never been an issue for us on saturday. We are happy just taking a 30 minute lunch and then getting back to work, but now they are forcing us to take a longer break so they don't have to pay us as much overtime.

 

[Jones]

What does your supplement say?

 

[dilligaf]

We can take an hour lunch but it has never been forced on us. In an old contract we had 1 hr lunches. In succeeding contracts that was 'grandfathered' in and anyone can still opt to take an hr. We only have 1 driver here that still occasionally takes an hr. 46, I would get ahold of our BA and ask him if they can force it. I would think that past practice can come into play on this. If your practice is 30 min then that is what it should be. Check with A.C. or M.C..

 

[mattwtrs]

Since most Saturday operations are part time why even question it?

 

[Forty6and2]

why not question it? the drivers who have pick-ups are being REQUIRED to take an hour lunch instead of our normal 30 minute lunch so in effect we get screwed out of a half hour of overtime pay.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

why not question it? the drivers who have pick-ups are being REQUIRED to take an hour lunch instead of our normal 30 minute lunch so in effect we get screwed out of a half hour of overtime pay.

I was going to suggest just staying out an extra 1/2 hour but then realized that I am sure the NDA has to be at the airport at a certain time so that may not be possible.

If past practice was 30 minutes I would definitely contact your BA.

 

[New Englander]

why not question it? the drivers who have pick-ups are being REQUIRED to take an hour lunch instead of our normal 30 minute lunch so in effect we get screwed out of a half hour of overtime pay.

Can you explain to me how taking an hour lunch over a half hour lunch screws you out of 30 minutes of overtime......

Perhaps I'm just stupid.

 

[over9five]

Can you explain to me how taking an hour lunch over a half hour lunch screws you out of 30 minutes of overtime......

Perhaps I'm just stupid.

I took that to mean he must have down time in the middle somewhere that is now covered by the full lunch.

Full lunch = 1/2 hour less of paid down-time

 

[sortaisle]

why not question it? the drivers who have pick-ups are being REQUIRED to take an hour lunch instead of our normal 30 minute lunch so in effect we get screwed out of a half hour of overtime pay.

Is there work for you to do? If there's work to be done then I can see your beef. But if your standing around or if your just ho-humming on your pick up route, then I can see where they're coming from. Taking a 2 hour lunch for the pickup guys in Spokane would mean cutting a lot of their route out and making things really difficult for the managers. Over here the pick up guy has his regular route, then when he gets done he can help out someone who's hammered, or he takes a lunch till he starts his pick ups. The Couer d' Alene driver does the same thing. Then we all get to converge back at the building to go drop off the air at the small local airport. Taking a 2 hour lunch is out of the question for us.

 

[dilligaf]

I took that to mean he must have down time in the middle somewhere that is now covered by the full lunch.

Full lunch = 1/2 hour less of paid down-time

You may be right Over. However 46 and I are in the same local and we (FT drivers) are not being forced to take down time as unpaid lunch. Yes, there are some rtes that have (or had in the past) down time between del and p/u. I will check with our air drivers and verify that this is true with them as well.