MOD shift working policy use and effectiveness

PCS has written to the HR director as we understand that new and detrimental guidance has been issued to members that severely limits your ability as shift workers to get all the leave you are entitled to. We wrote to the department two weeks ago and got no response, we were in talks about this in the spring but those talks were terminated. We urge all members to check the amount of full shifts you were able to take off work last year and let PCS know. 

The shift working policy in MOD was created to bring three older policies together into one document to cover all shift workers. This was a messy process and resulted in a policy that is at best open to interpretation.

Consequently, members are telling us that they believe the policy is not being applied properly, whereas MOD asserts that it is. We therefore have a problem here that PCS are trying to solve for both you and the department.

We are willing to cooperate to find a simple way of administering a shift working policy for all shift workers, especially for the MOD guard service that relies on allowances and premium payments to keep guards from leaving. The offering in the newer OMEC contract is so substandard that recruits are immediately alienated.

PCS has engaged with the MOD about MyHR and shift working. We told MOD that MyHR was not suitable for shift working, it defaults to a 37-hour 5-day week. MOD ignored us and did not listen to your voice. Now we deal with the fallout from this. We have proposed changes, working groups, work arounds and solutions. We have had talks with MOD and the policy team, we now seem to be ghosted in the time-honoured tradition; if it is too difficult, ignore it and hope it all goes away.

This problem of MOD’s making is not going away, and we are going back to MOD raising this on your behalf to demand a solution. You can help, be an active member of PCS, demand your branch calls a meeting to discuss these issues and attend the meeting, get non-members to join PCS.

The new contracts were brought in after 2015 when the MOD attacked our membership by getting rid of Check-off and the deduction of membership dues from payroll. The employer attacks our membership, numbers fall, and new contract is born. You see the relationship, lower membership equals detrimental changes, the solution? Increase membership and campaigning activity and win!

If you want to be involved in helping us to resolve these issues then we are putting a group of members together to discuss this issue and most importantly find solutions to it. We need to know what you want and how to get it, then we will take this solution to the MOD team to get what you want.

Action to take now

• Encourage your workmates & all new starters to join PCS the only recognised union for MGS staff.
• Let them know PCS challenged OMEC to the top of the shop in MOD
• Organise your workplace, become a PCS rep or advocate
• Email to DSG@PCS.org.uk to update your details and let us know you work for MGS not simply MOD
• Send up to date email address and mobile number so we can contact MGS members to update you on the campaign
• Sign up to PCS digital
• Read all PCS emails and engage with the ongoing PCS campaigns.