It has been brought to this Local’s attention that there is an inconsistency in the Arapawa Best Practice manual regarding appointed relievers and what is actually happening in the districts.

Policy states that:
“ To manage the operational roster in the most cost-effective manner, selected staff will be appointed as relievers.

Relievers will be assigned to the district headquarters station and when travelling away from that station as part of their duties, are to be reimbursed for extra costs incurred.”

It appears that district managers have appointed and stationed relievers away from the headquarters station, obviously contrary to the policy.

For instance, WGTN north relievers should be all stationed at Porirua but relievers have been appointed and stationed elsewhere to cover Thorndon and Karori stations.

In effect, the Local can only assume that those members that are appointed relievers and that are not stationed at district headquarters are (as the policy directs) to be reimbursed for all relieving that they do away from headquarters station, which is this Local sees as, all the time.

This will obviously cause mayhem for the managers of these districts and the region and we suggest that they will move fairly quickly to correct their problem.
This Local will have an issue regarding when to start member’s claims for all the extra travel that appears to be owed.

This whole situation is unsatisfactory and the Local will be discussing with management an alteration to this policy that includes that appointed relievers have their home station the closest to where they live. This way if they travel past this station, they will get reimbursed. The problem with the current policy given the WGTN north example above is that the relievers for Thorndon and Karori will have to live north of Porirua station to get any reimbursement, i.e. if they don’t live north of the station then they don’t go past their home station (Porirua) and
are not entitled to reimbursement. (because they live closer to the stations they relieve at.)

The Local is writing to take this matter up with management and will report back to members with the outcome.

In the meantime, we suggest that travel claims should be submitted for all relievers that are relieving, who are not stationed at their headquarters station and travel past that headquarters station. Any affected staff should contact the Local Secretary giving their start date as appointed relievers, their home station, stations they relieve at and the suburb in which they live.