manchester 2008. we work a 5 watch rota. we start a run of 7 tours on a monday doing the conventional 2 days 2 nights, 48 hour shift. we work this until the sunday is our first day on, we then finish on the thursday morning and get 18 days off, sound good? check this, if you apply for a p.h. in excess of 72 hours in advance you are guaranteed the day off!!still sound good, well that was the management spiel in selling the system, oh and by the way, we were getting the system anyway no matter what we said or thought. the reason? cuts of course, reducing the manning on each watch in alot of cases from 16 to 11 on 2 pump and special stations. now because they were potentially giving us longer leave, they wanted those hours back at their discretion. so the situation is this, 2 days 2 nights, rest of 5th day off, back in following day on either 2 days or 2 nights, if its 2 nights, then you get the rest of that 3rd day off back in the following day on normal shift rota, hence the no day off / clear of duty for 13 days and 78 hour shifts.we get these shifts in every run of 7, sometimes more than once. all this on a chair that is not for sleeping on, only resting on. no sleeping bags or duvets etc, you are given two flight blankets ( like on aeroplanes ) and you get 1 pillow between 5 of you, you have to indent for your own pillow case! the public holiday scenario due to manning levels is rediculous, you just get used to not getting them and getting stand ins. the trouble is you can't take p.h's during the year and you can't carry them over to the next year because the system won't allow it. these are family friendly working hours so we are told,
