CWU and EP LTB 393/24 – ROYAL MAIL GROUP TAKEOVER BID

[Barnacle]

Alex Brummer, Daily Mail, 17th Dec:

These deals aren’t worth the paper they’re written on
I’ve news for the naive ministers who’ve sold off the Royal Mail to a shadowy foreign predator known as the Czech Sphinx...

Daily Mail17 Dec 2024 by Alex Brummer City Editor

TIS the season to be jolly but the Royal Mail doesn’t half make it difficult to bring a smile to one’s lips at this time of year.

The never-ending queues at Post Offices to send parcels to kith and kin, the exorbitant price of a first-class stamp – £1.65! – and the nervous waits at home for online gift deliveries that probably won’t arrive on time are calculated to send anyone’s blood pressure soaring.

And so you could be forgiven for assuming that I would be all in favour of the nation’s privatised postal delivery service being sold to a foreign billionaire.

But the news that the Government has given the green light to a £3.6billion bid for Royal Mail by a ruthless Czech tycoon called Daniel Kretinsky fills me with dread.

It is ludicrous to suggest that lower prices and better services will be the result of handing the command of this great British institution – established during the reign of Henry VIII – to a man so shadowy he is known as ‘the Czech Sphinx’.

Debt

The reverse will be the case because, in order to buy International Distribution Services (IDS) – the publicly listed owner of the Royal Mail – Kretinsky, his backers and a consortium of foreign banks will overload the company with a debt mountain.

And we don’t have to look very far to see how disastrous such loan-fuelled takeovers of public services have proved for British consumers.

Thames Water, which pours sewage into the nation’s most famous river on a daily basis, has been all but destroyed by rapacious foreign investors who loaded it up with £16billion of debt as they simultaneously creamed off tens of millions of pounds in dividends and directors’ fees.

In the same way, overseas ownership of many of the rail franchises is among the reasons why Keir Starmer’s deeply underwhelming Government has decided to take train services back into public ownership as their companies’ contracts expire, with a Bill to create Great British Railways.

I am all the more disappointed because I have long campaigned against the government selling off our public utilities and very best technology companies to foreign owners. And I had hoped that the National Security & Investments Act, which became law in 2021, would finally end the scandal of Britain auctioning its commercial crown jewels to the highest overseas bidder.

The new Act, modelled on the US’s robust Committee on Foreign Investment, offered the promise of a new era in which public services would be prioritised over unsuitable ownership, vital strategic interests preserved and cutting-edge technologies and patents, often the product of our tremendous research universities, saved for the nation.

After all, in America, an effort by Japan’s Nippon Steel to buy Pittsburgh-based US Steel, is currently marooned due to strategic and political concerns about the takeover, even though Tokyo is among Washington’s staunchest allies.

No such luck on this side of the pond. Yesterday, we learned that Labour’s Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds is allowing the £3.6billion (£5.3billion including existing debt) Czech bid for Royal Mail to go ahead after Kretinsky’s consortium offered a wide range of undertakings.

These include pledges not to make cuts to the highly unionised workforce, to abide by the Universal Service Obligation (primarily next-day, first-class deliveries) and maintain a UK headquarters for five years – the blink of an eye in the Royal Mail’s 500-year history.

I have news for Reynolds. Such deals are not worth the paper they are written on. Over the past several decades we have seen foreign private equity and overseas buyers run roughshod over similar agreements.

In some cases, assets have been sold off to third parties within weeks of deals being completed, with the guts of the enterprise together with all its decision-making functions moved overseas, leaving only ‘brass plate’ headquarters in the country of origin.

The Government is trumpeting that it is retaining a ‘golden share’ which will give it control over any major governance changes. That, too, is a charade. When economic and commercial conditions change, as they do after shocks such as the pandemic, all bets are off and business owners abrogate promises made in the heat of a takeover.

Bad industrial relations are likely to be a problem too. Ever since the privatisation of Royal Mail, conducted by then Lib Dem Business Secretary Vince Cable and the Coalition government in 2012, relations between management and the principal employee group, the Communication Workers Union (CWU), have been fraught.

Postal volumes had plunged following the introduction of email and text messaging but the CWU staunchly resisted job cuts and any form of modernisation, such as mechanical sorting, that might have an impact on workforce numbers.

Paymasters

And it looks like Labour insisted on maintaining that deeply inefficient status quo for the workers in return for giving the deal the go-ahead.

We have seen from almost the first days of Labour’s return to Downing Street how susceptible the Government is to demands from its union paymasters.

One of its first acts was to dish out £9.4billion of above-inflation pay settlements to public sector unions and the railway workers without being given any assurances on productivity improvements. In the course of the acquisition process, Kretinsky has had talks with the CWU and bought their support with promises of no redundancies, no watering down of union rights and regular above inflation pay increases. It is the kind of ‘peace’ deal which Reynolds and Labour couldn’t fail to find attractive.

However, such extravagant promises will come at the cost of future investment. To buy the Royal Mail, the Kretinsky consortium is to take on £3billion of extra debt, largely from overseas banks such as France’s BNP Paribas.

That will lift the company’s overall debt burden to more than £5billion. This means that large amounts of cash paid by ordinary Britons for postage stamps and delivery services will leave the Royal Mail by the back door to feed its voracious creditors instead of being invested in improved services.

Barriers

Highly indebted takeovers of supermarket groups, such as Morrisons and Asda, have seen them struggling ever since because of colossal interest rate bills. This has allowed rivals such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s and the German-owned Lidl and Aldi to advance at their expense.

An infinitely better solution in the case of Royal Mail would surely be for the board of its parent company IDS to deal with its underlying problems by bringing in fresh, more able executives, harness the benefits offered by AI and new technology and tackle the union barriers to reform.

Instead, the government has opted for the easy option of letting it fall into overseas hands.

There can be no greater betrayal of a totemic British company, one that is the custodian of postage stamps bearing the King’s head and of bright red pillar boxes adorned with the royal ciphers, and the employer of indefatigable posties who can be relied upon to pound the streets and trudge up our garden paths whatever the weather.

The deal isn’t actually finalised, despite media reports to the contrary.

EP Group/Kretinsky, still has to pass security clearances and also the EU. The deal is under scrutiny from the EU because of EP Group already owning Netherlands Post (don’t know its correct moniker). So it isn’t over yet.

As worst the EU will tell EP they have to sell off parts of the business, although I doubt there's much cross over between the UK and Holland operations it's not like when the petrol station company bought Asda and had to sell off some of the petrol stations.

Might be being scrutinised because of the parcel company RM operate in the EU. Is it called GLS or something?

[Barnacle]

That was the plan, yes. But I don’t think it will ever happen. Not least just for purely practical reasons, such as RM’s core network not being equipped for moving or handling XL consignments. PFW will be sold off at the earliest possible opportunity as a loss-making subsidiary to some venture capitalists who will rebrand it as a large and heavy niche provider. “RM Letters” has no choice but to concentrate on next-day/overnight parcels for itself alone if it wants to continue to exist.

The business has always wanted a single optimised parcel network. Obviously, having both RM and Parcelforce cover the same ground adds both cost and inefficiency as an overall business as well as increasing our carbon footprint. Rico Back wanted to create a new legal trading entity for Parcelforce and invoke TUPE and I have a feeling that PWF may be sold off in the long term. We seem to be taking on board many of the larger parcels and PWF appears to be deliberately run very inefficiently.

None of the above comments about Parcelforce make any sense ,
They have been trialing taking royal mail parcels for the last 6 months and the trials are going well ,
also they have recently bought brand new vans , Why would you do that if you are running the company down ready to sell ?
They also have 25% owner drivers that can deliver the parcels cheaper , and last time it was mentioned Parcel force was not losing money it was breaking even , How much money are the inefficient DPR routes losing ? .

You don’t run a company down to sell it. To use a corner shop analogy, the shopkeeper invariably refurbishes and refits his shop prior to putting it on the market and selling it so that he gains the best achievable sale price. RM will be similarly tarting up PFW. All those RM parcels will artificially increase the traffic volumes passing through the PFW ecosystem, and that will translate into the balance sheet and the company’s financials, thus presenting PFW in a rosey light to prospective purchasers. Vans are assets, albeit depreciating ones, and are also an essential tool for last-mile delivery, so you can’t read anything into that.

EP Group have no plans to break up RM. That means that the activity to reintegrate PFW will march on.

Does PFW fall under "RM" or could EP say later they were referring to just "RM" and not other parts of the business?

PFW falls under RM. It has never been fully separated off as a stand alone entity. Its accounts are part of RM’s accounts.

[cheekymonkey91]

I'd like to know more about the leveling up of the new contracts.
Are they simply improving those contracts OR are they dragging the legacy contracts down into some sort of universal contract?

Apart from paid breaks and the delivery supplement, what is the difference between a legacy contract and a post October 2022 contract?

Don't have to work Sundays.
New contracts can be thrown to other offices if needed.
Monthly pay on new contracts. Not everyone is a fan of that.
Some legacy contracts have old allowances which be near £800 a year.
Full time on new contracts are 40 hours not 37.

Isn't there a difference in sick pay too?

Afaik only in that you don't qualify for proper sick pay for the first year, only SSP but I think that became the case before the new contracts were introduced.

There isn’t an awful lot of difference then between legacy and new contract.

For example, the new sick policy applies to everyone.
40hr contracts are a regional thing. New contract is no more than 30hrs at our place.
Sunday working is also not universal because not all offices have a Sunday operation.
Anyone can be sent to a different office if operational needs require it. It’s just that it is usually reserves that are sent out.
Monthly pay is fine because most bills are monthly so it makes no difference.

So the only real difference is in area of legacy supplements.

You're joking

I left in the summer, after 25 years, but came back a couple of months later. Lower hourly rate, delivery supplement and rris gone means I'm £400 take home down a month. I earn less doing a six day week over 5 on the legacy contract

[Londonsburning]

I'd like to know more about the leveling up of the new contracts.
Are they simply improving those contracts OR are they dragging the legacy contracts down into some sort of universal contract?

Apart from paid breaks and the delivery supplement, what is the difference between a legacy contract and a post October 2022 contract?

Don't have to work Sundays.
New contracts can be thrown to other offices if needed.
Monthly pay on new contracts. Not everyone is a fan of that.
Some legacy contracts have old allowances which be near £800 a year.
Full time on new contracts are 40 hours not 37.

Isn't there a difference in sick pay too?

Afaik only in that you don't qualify for proper sick pay for the first year, only SSP but I think that became the case before the new contracts were introduced.

There isn’t an awful lot of difference then between legacy and new contract.

For example, the new sick policy applies to everyone.
40hr contracts are a regional thing. New contract is no more than 30hrs at our place.
Sunday working is also not universal because not all offices have a Sunday operation.
Anyone can be sent to a different office if operational needs require it. It’s just that it is usually reserves that are sent out.
Monthly pay is fine because most bills are monthly so it makes no difference.

So the only real difference is in area of legacy supplements.

You're joking

I left in the summer, after 25 years, but came back a couple of months later. Lower hourly rate, delivery supplement and rris gone means I'm £400 take home down a month. I earn less doing a six day week over 5 on the legacy contract

Just do 10+ hours a day minus your 1 hour unpaid break, so 11+ hours daily 6 days a week and you'll earn 1000 bucks a week pal. Piece of f***ing piss. Best job in the world

[cheekymonkey91]

I'd like to know more about the leveling up of the new contracts.
Are they simply improving those contracts OR are they dragging the legacy contracts down into some sort of universal contract?

Apart from paid breaks and the delivery supplement, what is the difference between a legacy contract and a post October 2022 contract?

Don't have to work Sundays.
New contracts can be thrown to other offices if needed.
Monthly pay on new contracts. Not everyone is a fan of that.
Some legacy contracts have old allowances which be near £800 a year.
Full time on new contracts are 40 hours not 37.

Isn't there a difference in sick pay too?

Afaik only in that you don't qualify for proper sick pay for the first year, only SSP but I think that became the case before the new contracts were introduced.

There isn’t an awful lot of difference then between legacy and new contract.

For example, the new sick policy applies to everyone.
40hr contracts are a regional thing. New contract is no more than 30hrs at our place.
Sunday working is also not universal because not all offices have a Sunday operation.
Anyone can be sent to a different office if operational needs require it. It’s just that it is usually reserves that are sent out.
Monthly pay is fine because most bills are monthly so it makes no difference.

So the only real difference is in area of legacy supplements.

You're joking

I left in the summer, after 25 years, but came back a couple of months later. Lower hourly rate, delivery supplement and rris gone means I'm £400 take home down a month. I earn less doing a six day week over 5 on the legacy contract

Just do 10+ hours a day minus your 1 hour unpaid break, so 11+ hours daily 6 days a week and you'll earn 1000 bucks a week pal. Piece of f***ing piss. Best job in the world

[Newandscared]

You are forgetting the hourly rate. Post Oct 22 contracts are paid £12.24 an hour

That, to me, is the difference that really matters.

Also no paid breaks, super flexibility in working hours (can be asked to work any time between 08:00 and 20:00), and no delivery supplement.

I think it's a big win for the union to get these contracts levelled up.

They did say though that there's a "pathway", and how long that'll take, we don't know yet. I am guessing about three years.

Possibly new entrants will get the same contract as they get offered currently but if they stay 2-3 years they will get put on a better contract more closely alligned to the legacy contract

Do you have any idea how I can find out the pay rates (ie what we're paid per hour) and rates of pay for delivery supplements etc?? I have asked other people but keep getting a policy document that just says you are paid per....and get 1.25 over time etc....there's no actual monetary figure so it's hard to determine if you are being fleeced in your wages.

[Acca Dacca]

You are forgetting the hourly rate. Post Oct 22 contracts are paid £12.24 an hour

That, to me, is the difference that really matters.

Also no paid breaks, super flexibility in working hours (can be asked to work any time between 08:00 and 20:00), and no delivery supplement.

I think it's a big win for the union to get these contracts levelled up.

They did say though that there's a "pathway", and how long that'll take, we don't know yet. I am guessing about three years.

Possibly new entrants will get the same contract as they get offered currently but if they stay 2-3 years they will get put on a better contract more closely alligned to the legacy contract

Do you have any idea how I can find out the pay rates (ie what we're paid per hour) and rates of pay for delivery supplements etc?? I have asked other people but keep getting a policy document that just says you are paid per....and get 1.25 over time etc....there's no actual monetary figure so it's hard to determine if you are being fleeced in your wages.

If you are on the new contract you dont get a delivery supplement and the rate will be £12.54p/hr ( bit more if in London I think )

Can find it if you look for job advertisements on RM website

[Barnacle]

You are forgetting the hourly rate. Post Oct 22 contracts are paid £12.24 an hour

That, to me, is the difference that really matters.

Also no paid breaks, super flexibility in working hours (can be asked to work any time between 08:00 and 20:00), and no delivery supplement.

I think it's a big win for the union to get these contracts levelled up.

They did say though that there's a "pathway", and how long that'll take, we don't know yet. I am guessing about three years.

Possibly new entrants will get the same contract as they get offered currently but if they stay 2-3 years they will get put on a better contract more closely alligned to the legacy contract

Do you have any idea how I can find out the pay rates (ie what we're paid per hour) and rates of pay for delivery supplements etc?? I have asked other people but keep getting a policy document that just says you are paid per....and get 1.25 over time etc....there's no actual monetary figure so it's hard to determine if you are being fleeced in your wages.

If you are on the new contract you dont get a delivery supplement and the rate will be £12.54p/hr ( bit more if in London I think )

Can find it if you look for job advertisements on RM website

Also you can check your hourly rate by dividing your basic by your contract hours.

[Acca Dacca]

You are forgetting the hourly rate. Post Oct 22 contracts are paid £12.24 an hour

That, to me, is the difference that really matters.

Also no paid breaks, super flexibility in working hours (can be asked to work any time between 08:00 and 20:00), and no delivery supplement.

I think it's a big win for the union to get these contracts levelled up.

They did say though that there's a "pathway", and how long that'll take, we don't know yet. I am guessing about three years.

Possibly new entrants will get the same contract as they get offered currently but if they stay 2-3 years they will get put on a better contract more closely alligned to the legacy contract

Do you have any idea how I can find out the pay rates (ie what we're paid per hour) and rates of pay for delivery supplements etc?? I have asked other people but keep getting a policy document that just says you are paid per....and get 1.25 over time etc....there's no actual monetary figure so it's hard to determine if you are being fleeced in your wages.

If you are on the new contract you dont get a delivery supplement and the rate will be £12.54p/hr ( bit more if in London I think )

Can find it if you look for job advertisements on RM website

Also you can check your hourly rate by dividing your basic by your contract hours.

Yeah but I assumed the question asked was what the rate should be - not what they are getting

[Newandscared]

You are forgetting the hourly rate. Post Oct 22 contracts are paid £12.24 an hour

That, to me, is the difference that really matters.

Also no paid breaks, super flexibility in working hours (can be asked to work any time between 08:00 and 20:00), and no delivery supplement.

I think it's a big win for the union to get these contracts levelled up.

They did say though that there's a "pathway", and how long that'll take, we don't know yet. I am guessing about three years.

Possibly new entrants will get the same contract as they get offered currently but if they stay 2-3 years they will get put on a better contract more closely alligned to the legacy contract

Do you have any idea how I can find out the pay rates (ie what we're paid per hour) and rates of pay for delivery supplements etc?? I have asked other people but keep getting a policy document that just says you are paid per....and get 1.25 over time etc....there's no actual monetary figure so it's hard to determine if you are being fleeced in your wages.

If you are on the new contract you dont get a delivery supplement and the rate will be £12.54p/hr ( bit more if in London I think )

Can find it if you look for job advertisements on RM website

Also you can check your hourly rate by dividing your basic by your contract hours.

Yeah but I assumed the question asked was what the rate should be - not what they are getting

Yes, I'm asking for what I should have because when I divide my contract hours by what I pay I'm not getting what I see quoted by others. So a proper leaflet with the rates would be great.

[Dexydog]

What does your contract say?
That's all that matters in the end.

[ted_e_bear]

You are forgetting the hourly rate. Post Oct 22 contracts are paid £12.24 an hour

That, to me, is the difference that really matters.

Also no paid breaks, super flexibility in working hours (can be asked to work any time between 08:00 and 20:00), and no delivery supplement.

I think it's a big win for the union to get these contracts levelled up.

They did say though that there's a "pathway", and how long that'll take, we don't know yet. I am guessing about three years.

Possibly new entrants will get the same contract as they get offered currently but if they stay 2-3 years they will get put on a better contract more closely alligned to the legacy contract

Do you have any idea how I can find out the pay rates (ie what we're paid per hour) and rates of pay for delivery supplements etc?? I have asked other people but keep getting a policy document that just says you are paid per....and get 1.25 over time etc....there's no actual monetary figure so it's hard to determine if you are being fleeced in your wages.

If you are on the new contract you dont get a delivery supplement and the rate will be £12.54p/hr ( bit more if in London I think )

Can find it if you look for job advertisements on RM website

Also you can check your hourly rate by dividing your basic by your contract hours.

Yeah but I assumed the question asked was what the rate should be - not what they are getting

Yes, I'm asking for what I should have because when I divide my contract hours by what I pay I'm not getting what I see quoted by others. So a proper leaflet with the rates would be great.

What about posting on here the weekly contract hours you're on ie 30 and also what your base pay is before deductions per month, iirc someone on here said their monthly pay was based on a yearly total divided by 12 so it's the same each month but I don't know without asking.

If that's the case then for example £12.54 x 30 x 52 ÷ 12 would be your monthly rate, overtime is paid at £12.54 up to 40 hours worked per week then at 1.25 so £12.54 x 1.25 = £15.68.

Does that marry up with your pay ?

[Newandscared]

You are forgetting the hourly rate. Post Oct 22 contracts are paid £12.24 an hour

That, to me, is the difference that really matters.

Also no paid breaks, super flexibility in working hours (can be asked to work any time between 08:00 and 20:00), and no delivery supplement.

I think it's a big win for the union to get these contracts levelled up.

They did say though that there's a "pathway", and how long that'll take, we don't know yet. I am guessing about three years.

Possibly new entrants will get the same contract as they get offered currently but if they stay 2-3 years they will get put on a better contract more closely alligned to the legacy contract

Do you have any idea how I can find out the pay rates (ie what we're paid per hour) and rates of pay for delivery supplements etc?? I have asked other people but keep getting a policy document that just says you are paid per....and get 1.25 over time etc....there's no actual monetary figure so it's hard to determine if you are being fleeced in your wages.

If you are on the new contract you dont get a delivery supplement and the rate will be £12.54p/hr ( bit more if in London I think )

Can find it if you look for job advertisements on RM website

Also you can check your hourly rate by dividing your basic by your contract hours.

Yeah but I assumed the question asked was what the rate should be - not what they are getting

Yes, I'm asking for what I should have because when I divide my contract hours by what I pay I'm not getting what I see quoted by others. So a proper leaflet with the rates would be great.

What about posting on here the weekly contract hours you're on ie 30 and also what your base pay is before deductions per month, iirc someone on here said their monthly pay was based on a yearly total divided by 12 so it's the same each month but I don't know without asking.

If that's the case then for example £12.54 x 30 x 52 ÷ 12 would be your monthly rate, overtime is paid at £12.54 up to 40 hours worked per week then at 1.25 so £12.54 x 1.25 = £15.68.

Does that marry up with your pay ?

Hi, I'm deliberately not posting because I have a payrate of x and then my pay according to my contract hours and they don't marry up....theres a discrepancy that I want to try and figure out by getting hold of proper payscales. I don't want to mention it incase I am not the only one with this problem and it effects other peoples pay.

[Barnacle]

You are forgetting the hourly rate. Post Oct 22 contracts are paid £12.24 an hour

That, to me, is the difference that really matters.

Also no paid breaks, super flexibility in working hours (can be asked to work any time between 08:00 and 20:00), and no delivery supplement.

I think it's a big win for the union to get these contracts levelled up.

They did say though that there's a "pathway", and how long that'll take, we don't know yet. I am guessing about three years.

Possibly new entrants will get the same contract as they get offered currently but if they stay 2-3 years they will get put on a better contract more closely alligned to the legacy contract

Do you have any idea how I can find out the pay rates (ie what we're paid per hour) and rates of pay for delivery supplements etc?? I have asked other people but keep getting a policy document that just says you are paid per....and get 1.25 over time etc....there's no actual monetary figure so it's hard to determine if you are being fleeced in your wages.

If you are on the new contract you dont get a delivery supplement and the rate will be £12.54p/hr ( bit more if in London I think )

Can find it if you look for job advertisements on RM website

Also you can check your hourly rate by dividing your basic by your contract hours.

Yeah but I assumed the question asked was what the rate should be - not what they are getting

Yes, I'm asking for what I should have because when I divide my contract hours by what I pay I'm not getting what I see quoted by others. So a proper leaflet with the rates would be great.

What about posting on here the weekly contract hours you're on ie 30 and also what your base pay is before deductions per month, iirc someone on here said their monthly pay was based on a yearly total divided by 12 so it's the same each month but I don't know without asking.

If that's the case then for example £12.54 x 30 x 52 ÷ 12 would be your monthly rate, overtime is paid at £12.54 up to 40 hours worked per week then at 1.25 so £12.54 x 1.25 = £15.68.

Does that marry up with your pay ?

Hi, I'm deliberately not posting because I have a payrate of x and then my pay according to my contract hours and they don't marry up....theres a discrepancy that I want to try and figure out by getting hold of proper payscales. I don't want to mention it incase I am not the only one with this problem and it effects other peoples pay.

Understandable. On a side note, I would like to know if you are having your unpaid break deducted from your contract pay. If it is possible for you to decipher that it would be helpful.

[Smoothbackground]

You are forgetting the hourly rate. Post Oct 22 contracts are paid £12.24 an hour

That, to me, is the difference that really matters.

Also no paid breaks, super flexibility in working hours (can be asked to work any time between 08:00 and 20:00), and no delivery supplement.

I think it's a big win for the union to get these contracts levelled up.

They did say though that there's a "pathway", and how long that'll take, we don't know yet. I am guessing about three years.

Possibly new entrants will get the same contract as they get offered currently but if they stay 2-3 years they will get put on a better contract more closely alligned to the legacy contract

Do you have any idea how I can find out the pay rates (ie what we're paid per hour) and rates of pay for delivery supplements etc?? I have asked other people but keep getting a policy document that just says you are paid per....and get 1.25 over time etc....there's no actual monetary figure so it's hard to determine if you are being fleeced in your wages.

If you are on the new contract you dont get a delivery supplement and the rate will be £12.54p/hr ( bit more if in London I think )

Can find it if you look for job advertisements on RM website

Also you can check your hourly rate by dividing your basic by your contract hours.

Yeah but I assumed the question asked was what the rate should be - not what they are getting

Yes, I'm asking for what I should have because when I divide my contract hours by what I pay I'm not getting what I see quoted by others. So a proper leaflet with the rates would be great.

What about posting on here the weekly contract hours you're on ie 30 and also what your base pay is before deductions per month, iirc someone on here said their monthly pay was based on a yearly total divided by 12 so it's the same each month but I don't know without asking.

If that's the case then for example £12.54 x 30 x 52 ÷ 12 would be your monthly rate, overtime is paid at £12.54 up to 40 hours worked per week then at 1.25 so £12.54 x 1.25 = £15.68.

Does that marry up with your pay ?

Hi, I'm deliberately not posting because I have a payrate of x and then my pay according to my contract hours and they don't marry up....theres a discrepancy that I want to try and figure out by getting hold of proper payscales. I don't want to mention it incase I am not the only one with this problem and it effects other peoples pay.

If you are on a 30-hr contract, your contract should refer to your annualised hours being 1560 (30x52=1560) and your annual salary as being £19,562.40. Your regular monthly gross according to your payslip ought to be £1,630.20 or thereabouts - exc OT, xmas bonus, etc. (If you are in London or another high-cost area these figures will be higher…)