(10 Apr 2014, 6:42 pm)aureolin wrote I'm quite surprised that unpaid breaks exist, baring in mind the nature of the industry. I realise it's not a legal requirement in the UK, but is this industry standard nowadays?
What happens if a late running service causes you to run into your break. Does the driver still get the full break, or would that cause a potential knock on affect on the driver's next assignment on rota? Not to mention that it creates a two tier workforce.
I've been standing with supervisors when just such an incident has happened and the drivers complained that he's so late 'he's ran into his bait' or he's 'gotta leave now or he's going to miss out on his next bait' for examples. I do believe it's a legal requirement to have their full break time as stated on their duty, so if a guy pulls in 10 minutes late on the 50 and has a 1 hour break to fulfill, then when he goes and does his next run on the 28 he can't sign on for another 10 minutes because he needs to have that amount of time not driving, thus delaying the service by 10 minutes (that would carry on for the rest of the day, because if he hasn't made up time then the next driver who comes back after him in the same vehicle might have run 5 minutes into his break and as a result delays his next run trying to catch up). I think it's the driving laws or something like that.