If a member of reserve staff works more than their contracted hours over a 12-week period, s/he is paid for the extra hours at overtime rate. At June's Stations & Revenue Council, RMT proposed that if the individual staff member wanted to, s/he should be able to take time off in lieu instead.

This would mean that if, for example, you worked 7½ hours over your hours, you could have a day off. If you worked two hours over, you might choose to leave work two hours early or start two hours late one day. We stressed that this would be at a time that was mutually convenient for both the staff member and for the local management. We recognise that for some staff, time away from the job is more important than money, and we feel that our suggestion would give more choice for staff. In any case, we can not accept what amounts to compulsory overtime.

Management's response? No. Even though it would cost them nothing, and could actually save them money, they insisted that it was 'too complicated' for local GSMs' offices to administer. On the contrary, it seems pretty straightforward to us, so we can only conclude that management were exercising sheer bloody-mindedness, saying 'no' because they don't want to be too nice to the workers.

And people wonder why RMT won't limit ourselves to negotiating but never taking action!