[Anonymouse]

Originally Posted by NEONKNIGHT

And does the "management" realise that there will be productivity loss because of un-happy workers because they can't have the occasional cigarette? No? Thought not.

Of course not. Certainly not at our place. They don't give a toss about the staff as long as the work gets done. For instance:

On each loading bay, there's a sort of traffic light setup, just red and green. The idea is that the light's supposed to be on green when the bay is clear, so a van, trailer or whatever can be backed onto it, or when a van or trailer is ready to go. It's supposed to be on red while a van is being loaded, or a trailer unloaded. The light is there to advise the shunter driver that it either is, or is not, safe to move the vehicle. If the light's on red, i.e. someone's working on the vehicle, it is not to be moved - obviously. Only when the loading/unloading crew change the light to green should the vehicle be moved.

All well and good so far. Except that you need a key to change the light over, and the problem there is that a) all the keys have gone missing, and b) the fittings are obsolete anyway so we can't even obtain new keys. As a result, the shunter has to check with the loading/unloading team that it's safe to move the vehicle.

This is, by definition, a violation of the Health & Safety Act (1974). Do management care? Do they buggery. We're expected to use the bays whether you can change the lights over or not.

One of the lifts, the type with concertina doors, has a section on the inner door which is, not to put too fine a point on it, falling apart. As a result, the door isn't under the proper amount of tension when closed, so it won't stay closed and so the lift won't go up or down...the liftman has to hold it shut. It's been like that for a few weeks now.

Do management care? See above. We're essentially working in a 19th Century workplace, not a 21st Century one. They don't even care about health & safety as long as the work is done without interruption.

One of our lads was off for two months once. When he returned to work, he got grief over attendance issues.

He'd had a broken leg.

I had an accident and injured my hand; when I reported this to a manager and told him I was off to A & E because I suspected I'd broken something, all he was bothered about was whether or not I'd finished the job I was doing at the time.

Once, one of our lads had an epileptic fit - full grand mal attack. While we were waiting for paramedics, one of the managers wanted to move him because he was in the way.

Get the picture?