mariomike said:
Heard that from citizens for many years. I cried all the way to the bank.
We could get into a Unit Hour Utilization ( UHU ) discussion. But, suffice to say, it's "work" just being there. Regardless of how one measures productivity.
Pay and hours of work remain the same whether you are out breaking your back, enjoying a tasty BBQ, washing your car, watching your favorite TV show, or sleeping on the job.
FWIW, regarding scheduling, in the city I reside, firefighters work ten 24-hour shifts every six weeks, and paramedics work twenty 12-hour shifts every six weeks.
Impressed a scheduling discussion has gone on for three pages, and counting!
Mariomike, you have a tendency at times to equate civilian scenarios onto the military world as if they are mirror images of each other, which they aren't. For instance, in this case, civilian (even DND civilian) firefighters negotiate their pay and benefits with the employer. And that includes the conditions of work. For those of us in the military, that doesn't happen; one set of pay and benefits apply no matter what the conditions of work. That ends up in policies that have wiggle room and room for interpretation as to how those policies apply to non-standard examples.
So, if we use the idea that 24 hours of work (whether that be time spent actually working, time spent on standby at work watching the hockey game or time spent asleep), followed by 24 hours off completely, and then another 24 hour work cycle results in five days off, how do we square that with folks posted aboard ship where they are "at work" for the entire time they at sea? The Army when they deploy on exercise? When we deploy on Ops? What about guys like EiTS who spend an entire weekend on call who I am guessing is still expected to show up for normal duty on Monday morning if they haven't launched? The various other people who are put on call without compensation (Duty JAG, Duty MO, Military Police Duty Officer, Duty Supply Tech, Duty Image Tech, the IRU each Bde maintains on reduced notice to move...)? We certainly aren't compensating those personnel (who are entitled to the same basic benefits as a firefighter in a firehall) to anything near the standard that is happening in this situation. If we did that...nobody would be at work, ever.
We in the military are given a lot of latitude as to being flexible with the work hours of people in order to make up for some of those discrepancies. For instance, if someone has to go take their kid to the dentist at two in the afternoon and the member has nothing that "requires" them to be at work, the general attitude is the person is out the door and done for the day; they don't need to put in a leave pass. Same thing for stuff like medical and dental appointments, hell, even PT time. For us that is "duty" type stuff so we go during working hours but in the civilian world, the vast majority of people don't have that flexibility. If they want to do that kind of stuff, they are going off the clock and using one type of leave or another because the employer has an expectation that that person is going to work for the hours they are mandated to work...if they want to keep their job.
As a result of that flexibility though, there is a requirement that what we do is within defensible bounds. When it gets out of control, that is when push back happens, such as with the Navy's sliders. I knew guys who headed home after soup on Friday on a regular basis and after lunch, the Dockyard was pretty much a ghost town. When the unions called foul because they were being blamed for work not getting done on the ships, the Admiral had no choice but to make sliders go away (although if I was a betting man, they have slowly crept back in).
And then there are the unintended consequences where having people work certain periods of times kicks in entitlements that they otherwise wouldn't have that increases the costs for the CAF. In this instance, all of the firefighters working that shift are now entitled to rations at public expense for their duty period. There is also the fact that there is now less time available for the folks working these shifts to do the other military oriented stuff that needs to be done because out of that 24 hour period, I don't think it would be reasonable to expect them to be "working" from 0730 hrs to 2300 hrs (or whenever bedtime is) whereas my observation is that during a 12-13 hour night shift, at least a portion of those waking hours were spent doing "work" related activities before winding it down for the night and the day shift followed a pretty standard day routine of anyone else on the base.
Looking at it from the viewpoint of someone who has subordinates who work shift, this schedule is causing problems for the supervisors. Maybe it is keeping enough people on shift, maybe it is getting people's annual leave expended. I don't know what the actual issue is that has caused the local leave policy to be changed so that the they need to take 2 days leave for 1 shift off but my gut is telling me that if this gets "pushed" via a redress or something, the whole scheme is going to fall apart.
Eye In The Sky said:
I think we're starting to blurr the lines between "duty hours" and "work hours". If we do that, we'd also have to factor in lunch breaks, smoke/coffee breaks, admin time, etc for the *normal* work week folks. I don't know a single mbr who sits down in their workspace at 0800 and has at it until 1600.
True, but on the other hand, every place I have been have a standing order which designates working hours, including lunch and breaks. Makes it much easier to ding the problem children who can't get out of bed in the morning.
Edit to add: We have a similar problem with our shift workers and it really comes to a head when posting season rolls around and shift workers are posted to an Embassy. 8 days of special relocation can equate to 3 weeks of time off if not managed properly.
