We haven’t got a workforce agreement in place to opt out of doing more than 10 hours and all the night shift work I have done so far hasn’t gone over 10 hours that’s including breaks or POA the most I have done is 9 hours and we get a flat rate of £100 a shift so all in all I don’t think that’s too bad.
Winseer, you are (possibly deliberately) missing the point. It doesn’t matter what label you, or your employer, or the Union put on the shift, nor does it matter whether you are paid an enhanced rate for working at/beyond certain times of the day or night. Those are totally separate issues and have nothing whatsoever to do with the 10 hour limit on working at night.
Winseer:
Tell that to the supermarkets. 17:00-01:00 is “days” if you’re not careful to make sure it finishes after 3am to make sure you qualify for “nights”.
Another example would be the Royal Mail shifts that finish at 01:50hrs - they are classed as “lates” regardless of how long the shift is.
Start times after midnight are often classed as “Early Starts”, and paid at a rate somewhat below full-blown nights.Because everyone has a different definition of what consitututes “night shift” for the purposes of actually paying a premium rate, the whole notion of “limited to 10 hours if you work nights” becomes meaningless…
I can only imagine yards “enforcing” their drivers to “not work over 10 hours on nights” IF the particular firm is very reluctant indeed to pay overtime over and above 8 hours.
In this case, the 10 hour limit is being used as a “cap on earnings” of course…Imagine palletliner work where you got paid a salary - and were guaranteed to be booking off by 10 hours into a night shift!!!
£500pw (normal palletliner pay) for 5x10hours MAX would be a pretty fair wage. In practice, you’ll be working at LEAST 10 hours per shift, and more often 12-15 hours. I’m talking of Kent firms that run into places like Fradley Park, Burton, & Brum airport here. There are probably some depots around the country that run into the hubs that are less than an hour’s drive out - but of course I am not familiar with any of them.
You’re confusing what the companies pay as days/nights with what the working time regulations class as night time working.
For the working time regulations if you do any work between 00:00 and 04:00 for goods vehicles (01:00 to 05:00 for PCV’s) you’re classed as a night worker, the supermarkets, or anyone else for that matter, can pay what they like, it makes not one iota of difference to the RT(WT)R.
Regulation 2 - Interpretation:
“night time” means in respect of goods vehicles the period between midnight and 4 a.m. and in respect of passenger vehicles the period between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m;
Regulation 9 - Night Work:
Night work
- (1) The working time of a mobile worker, who performs night work in any period of 24 hours, shall not exceed 10 hours during that period.
(2) The period of 10 hours may be extended in relation to particular mobile workers or groups of mobile workers for objective or technical reasons or reasons concerning the organisation of work, by a collective agreement or a workforce agreement.
(3) Compensation for night work shall not be given to a mobile worker in any manner which is liable to endanger road safety.
(4) An employer shall take all reasonable steps in keeping with the need to protect the health and safety of mobile workers to ensure that the limit specified in paragraph (1), or extended in accordance with paragraph (2), is complied with in the case of each mobile worker employed by him.
Winseer:
Because everyone has a different definition of what consitututes “night shift” for the purposes of actually paying a premium rate, the whole notion of “limited to 10 hours if you work nights” becomes meaningless…
Not for the purposes of the WTD because the hours are clearly defined in law. Your employer may decide something entirely different but that doesn’t alter the fact that under the WTD if you work any time at all between midnight and 4am you have to abide by the night worker limits.
SteveBarnsleytrucker:
We haven’t got a workforce agreement in place to opt out of doing more than 10 hours and all the night shift work I have done so far hasn’t gone over 10 hours that’s including breaks or POA the most I have done is 9 hours and we get a flat rate of £100 a shift so all in all I don’t think that’s too bad.
Yup, I’d say that’s not too bad at all. Keep that job there 
Most of the night shifts i do are 10-12 hours long, the shifts start from around 15.00 - 20.00
…so I was right to duck the palletwork then. Every time I was going in there, I felt I was breaking the law on “too many 15 hour shifts in a week” (ie more than 3) so I avoid palletwork these days with a passion.
At RM we might have had a Workplace agreement in place, but there are still 12+ hour night shifts in there now - and RM ‘don’t recognise POA’ at all, so how the hell does that sit with this “law”? 
We’re talking shift patterns like 19:30-09:10 or 20:20-07:45 here.
I hate any shift that finishes after about 6:30am, 'cos that’s when my sugar level drops to dangerously low levels regardless of how much sleep I’ve had prior to going in. Just because I worked nights so many years, doesn’t mean I’m in any way “used to going without sleep”. It’s not healthy to drive with the “nodding dog” for anyone at any time. The exact time of day one reaches their lowest ebb, varies from person to person of course. 
I think we should all be allowed to kip in our cabs when made to wait 3+ hours tipping at RDC’s, instead of trying to sprawl around on the “chairs” in the RDC waiting room. H&S is NEGATIVELY effected by sending drivers out tired when they leave the RDC at some time like 6:30am in my case…
Wouldn’t we all like to have had a bit of kip on the POA/Break section of our jobs? Wouldn’t we all like to still be alive to work again next week?
“We’re afraid of drive-offs” fear should have gone out of fashion with notions like “She gets the blokes because she smokes”… 
