Sunday working - can it be imposed on employees

Saeed

Hi,

I work for the NHS and we currently we work in the dept monday to fridays. Saturdays is by "volunteer" roster but everyone does it. Now the management want to introduce sunday opening.

They did voluntary sunday opening for 3 months and payed 3 times peoples hourly rate and some of the people were silly enough to volunteer for short term gain. Now they want to pay 1.3 times our normal rate and make it a part of everyones contract and get us to sign change forms. Also

What I want to know if can I be forced to work on sundays and if I refuse these changes my terms and conditions, can I ask to be made redundant instead which I'd quite like.

dmg24

Did you do any research for yourself before posting?

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/WorkingHoursAndTimeOff/DG_10028516

corgiman

I woud say this is a change to your employment contract . Are you in a union most nhs workers are in either unison / gmb are they involved in the discussions for this change of your contract if not i would sugest that contact is made with them at once.

adg1

Companies will make changes to hours and working times depending on what suits the company/employer. If they will gain from being open on Sundays, then why not do it?

Unfortunately you work for the company and they will put pressure on you to conform. For example, many companies in service industries get employees to sign a Working Hours Directive waiver when they start, so they can't complain about working too many hours a week.

If you don't want to do it, then get a good reason and apply to them in writing. Bear in mind that there will be others happy to work the Sunday. Its all give and take.

midnight_ninja

In the company i work for you can opt out of working Sundays , however this can take up to 4 weeks to go through , they also dont allow fulltime employees to do this as they must be fully flexible.

Roobarb73

If they ultimately make the change to your contracts and you don't accept and are dismissed, it would not be a redundancy as the work still exists, it would be a dismissal for some other substantial reason ie business reorganisation so there wouldn't be any redundancy pay