Drinks at workstations, are there legal requirements

angeleyes

Having a dispute with employer at the moment and hoping someone can point me in the right direction,

My friend works in a call centre (small business) has approx 15 employees in at anyone time 24 hrs 7 days a week.

recently they have been funny about having drinks at workstation and all provided with a small sports bottle which they have to bring in full at start of their 8 hour shift and can only re fill on break which is at 4 hrs into the shift.(on their 30min break )

they cannot have any other liquids .. now this lasts my friends 2 hrs into the shift and needs a refill, gets up to fill it and gone about 30 secs, gets reported to manager who pulls them in after this and states they have phoned to check and they state that they do not have to allow water at all at the workstation and it is not a legal requirement even if on the phone

My friend and I cannot believe in this day and age an employer can restrict your access to drinking water.:mad:

My friend mentioned about their legs swelling if they do not have enough liquid,, they have told them to get a medical note before they will allow them to get refills

and they wont let them have a bigger bottle on their desk:mad:

anyone help

littlestar1981

I'm fairly certain that that is unacceptable practice... for starters, in an 8 hour shift an employee should also get 2 15 minute breaks, and who can forbid someone from getting a drink in that time?!?

LilacPixie

dunno about legalities but in my office we have free access to drinking water but tea/coffee and soft drinks are banned from around the workstations.

Have a google for the healthe and saftey government site and see what that says.

grey_lady

Sounds like the employer is trying to bend the rules. According to Regulation 22 from the The Workplace Health, Safety and Welfare Regulations (1992)

1. An adequate supply of wholesome drinking water shall be provided for all persons at work in the workplace.
2. Every supply of drinking water required by paragraph (1) shall -
   (a) be readily accessible at suitable places; and
   (b) be conspicuously marked by an appropriate sign where necessary for reasons of health or safety.
3. Where a supply of drinking water is required by paragraph (1), there shall also be provided a sufficient number of suitable cups or other drinking vessels unless the supply of drinking water is in a jet from which persons can drink easily

Personally i would take further legal advice on this.

DKLS

Not sure what the legalities are, but that sounds most miserable, I drink a lot of coffee at work, usually one an hour, and we can drink it wherever we like.

surreysaver

grey_lady wrote: »

Sounds like the employer is trying to bend the rules. According to Regulation 22 from the The Workplace Health, Safety and Welfare Regulations (1992)

1. An adequate supply of wholesome drinking water shall be provided for all persons at work in the workplace.
2. Every supply of drinking water required by paragraph (1) shall -
   (a) be readily accessible at suitable places; and
   (b) be conspicuously marked by an appropriate sign where necessary for reasons of health or safety.
3. Where a supply of drinking water is required by paragraph (1), there shall also be provided a sufficient number of suitable cups or other drinking vessels unless the supply of drinking water is in a jet from which persons can drink easily

Personally i would take further legal advice on this.

I would say the employer is in contravention of item 1 above - they are not supplying adequate drinking water is they do not allow access to it!

tinkerbell84

surreysaver wrote: »

I would say the employer is in contravention of item 1 above - they are not supplying adequate drinking water is they do not allow access to it!

Indeed. An adequate amount of water will vary from person to person, so giving everyone the same amount won't work!

Js_Other_Half

When I was pregnant I was drinking litres of water a day at work - it strikes me that they're leaving themselves open for various lawsuits...

C_Ronaldo

Water should be fine round keyboards as its easy to sort out as opposed to soft drinks can get sticky although i dont know the legalties or what the companys allow

lemontart

at my last job in call centre you could only get drinks at break but we were aloud them at the desk regardless of type .

dobbie82

drinks were banned at the desk after a colleague spilt juice over a wireless keyboard, (worth about £25)

But I do tend to still have a bottle of water (as it wont spill if knocked over) and the manager says nothing.

We are supposed to clock out to get a coffee and drink it away from the desk.