Further Changes to Meal Break Policy 1/12/14

Further Changes to Meal Break Policy

Dear Member

The Trust has yet again changed the meal break policy, basically going back to the agreement from earlier this year. UNISON has issues around these changes for the following reasons;

• The policy they have reverted back to was changed because the Trust said it wasn’t working as members were not getting breaks and it was costing the Trust too much money in meal subsistence payments

• The current policy has not been running long enough to give a balanced view, basically running the policy for only 6 days is not long enough.

• UNISON was informed the policy was changing with little discussion and believe it could be just another knee jerk reaction due to increased demand

• UNISON members are entitled to a meal break in the middle of the shift in order to comply with the working time directivewhich states the break should be‘somewhere in the middle of the shift, not be at the beginning or at the end’. These constant changes are causing confusion and low morale

UNISON believes the length of the break will not change and the windows are 3-5hrs on an 8hr shift, 4-6hrs on a 10hr shift and 4.5-6.5 on an 11&12hr shift and a £10 subsistence payment will be paid if crews do not START their break within these windows. UNISON is meeting with the Trust Operational Management team on Wednesday to discuss A&E workforce development, rotas and now meal breaks.

UNISON Branch needs to gather members’ views around these changes, the Committee is staggered that the Trust has reverted back to a policy which many members agreed with previously and demanded a return to earlier this year, but the Trust argued wasn’t working.

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