employers closing office for world cup, and making us work time back?

fluffystarbopz

hi everyone, if anyone could help me here, i will be ever so grateful.

my employer, as giving as they are, have decided to close the whole office early on the england games during the world cup. nice you may think. untill you find out that we have to take the time unpaid or work it back in our free time.

im not one for being a kiljoy-if people want to go and watch the football, fine. but the majority of employees are women and have no intrest in it.

they claim it is because we working in a call centre and that we will have very little customer contact while the games are on.

my problem is that i have recently returned to work after having a baby. im working part time hours and share the childcare with my husband. when he is work, i look after the child, and when im in work, he does.

i cannot work the time back another time, as i wont have childcare. i do not have a family member (parents died when i was young) i can leave him with, and my husband cannot take time off work during these weeks.

i cant afford to take unpaid leave as things are tight as they are, and my work have advised us that we cannot use holiday as it is only a few hours we are loosing.

does anyone know if i, and my colleagues, have any legal right to refuse to do this?

surely if a company chooses to close a place of work and there is nothing in your contract to state they might do this, then they have no right to demand we take it unpaid or work it back?

any comments would be a great help.

Caz.

Savvy_Sue

I'd contact ACAS. On the face of it, it seems unfair to require everyone to take that time off, surely it would be better to see whether a few people want to work those shifts. But ACAS will know better than me.

Fluffi

Depends - are you on a guaranteed minimum of contracted number of hours a week, on set days/times or do they just adjust the call centre shifts according to expected (lower) workload during the matches? It makes sense that the call centres will be quieter during the football and busier before/a few hours after and that is when they would want people to work?

BLT_2

Anyway you could find an England footballer and kick him in the nuts? It won't resolve your problem but will make you feel much better.

I wouldn't get too upset, hopefully our bunch of overpaid and underperforming prima donnas won't be in the competition for too long. I doubt they will make it past the quarter finals, once the strain of actually doing what they are paid to do sets in and it impacts on their hairdressing appointments they will bail out.

Why the hell do we have to put up with this turgid crap every 4 years anyway?

brightonman123

44 years of hurt..

closing down seems extreme. clearly great morale there..

ceridwen

Hope this works out for you O.P.

I'd be pretty darn unhappy at having my workhours changed because of some outside event like this. It may well be the case that fewer people will require your services during that time - but the employer still shouldnt change your workhours like that.

I hope the law backs you up on this.

SailorSam

I wouldn't be happy if i had to change my working hours for something as petty as a football match. I say that as a staunch Liverpudlian.
Do you have a contract of employment, what does it say in there.
It seems to me that you're being asked to do 'flexible hours' which is fine but if you wanted to work flexible hours your employer would need to agree. Therefore it seems only right that if he wants his staff to change to flexible hours they must first agree.
As has already been said try to get others in your workplace to back you, if you are to be sent home i don't think you should be expected to come back later.

getmore4less

Without a layoff clause this is probably unfare deduction of wages ifthey don't pay you.

Any other flexability clauses?

Emmzi

1. what does your contract say about work hours?
2. they CAN tell you when to take holiday - but IMHO that should at least be a whole day, not just 2 hours during the footie

Savvy_Sue

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I'd contact ACAS. On the face of it, it seems unfair to require everyone to take that time off, surely it would be better to see whether a few people want to work those shifts. But ACAS will know better than me.

And as an afterthought, as a non-football person, I'd be darned miffed to phone a call centre during a match and find no-one there!

Emmzi wrote: »

2. they CAN tell you when to take holiday - but IMHO that should at least be a whole day, not just 2 hours during the footie

But the point is they are saying they CANNOT take holiday, they are reducing a shift by a few hours at a time but expecting the time to be made up at other times.

Now this would be fair enough for staff who WANTED time off to watch a match, but imposing it on everyone seems unfair.

Mind you at least they have thought about it in advance ...

paulwf

OP what shifts do you work? The first England match is on a Saturday evening, then a Friday evening then a Wednesday afternoon.

Perhaps you'll be affected by 1 or 2 games (if we assume England go to 1/4 finals but no further)? So perhaps losing 2-4 hours pay in total?

Although it isn't ideal if you are only losing a few hours I would push again to let them allocate it as holiday otherwise let it go. Save your battles for larger issues, after all they have offered the chance to make up the time which most staff probably can.

Companies have been warned that if they make their staff work the sickness rate will shoot up during the world cup, and combined with a lack of demand from customers I can understand why they have done it. It's a shame you can't make up the hours though.