Employment rights

quantic

Hi everyone, I am trying to get some advice on a situation. My fiancee works in a hotel, she is not part of the operational staff and is only contracted to work 9-5. She is always at work before 9 and has never left before 5 since she started. Quite often her boss will come into her office at about 5 mins to 5 and ask her to do something, she will be stuck in the office until 7 sometimes 8 even if she asks to go home.

Yesterday for the first time, she just left at 5 without saying anything to her boss, and he called her at about 5.15 saying he has just went to see her but she has gone. Then today she has been pulled into a meeting with the general manager and the HR manager as her direct line manager (the one who keeps making her work late) has made a complaint that she is not working enough hours.

In addition to this, she has worked countless weekends (she is not paid or contracted to do so) and has not received as much as a thank you. Her boss keeps calling her on a night time, sometimes as late as 10, and once at 8am on a sunday.

As you can imagine this is really starting to get on my nerves, is there anything she can do about this? Her line manager has no friends, no wife, nothing - he works 12-14 hour days and seemingly expects her to do the same, quite clearly (even tho she is paid 1/2 what he is.)

Help?

Hammyman

She only has to work what is contracted. If they take disciplinary action against her for working what she's supposed to, she can take them to tribuneral if it gets serious.

Her boss has absolutely no right to call her at home especially at those hours and if I were her, I think I would definitely be submitting a complaint in writing both about being told to work late with no notice and being called at home and file them as an official grievance.

KiKi

Hammyman wrote: »

She only has to work what is contracted. If they take disciplinary action against her for working what she's supposed to, she can take them to tribuneral if it gets serious.

Her boss has absolutely no right to call her at home especially at those hours and if I were her, I think I would definitely be submitting a complaint in writing both about being told to work late with no notice and being called at home and file them as an official grievance.

Agree with the above.

But, Hammyman...you know it's 'tribunal', right?!

KiKi

Sambucus_Nigra

quantic wrote: »

Yesterday for the first time, she just left at 5 without saying anything to her boss, and he called her at about 5.15 saying he has just went to see her but she has gone. Then today she has been pulled into a meeting with the general manager and the HR manager as her direct line manager (the one who keeps making her work late) has made a complaint that she is not working enough hours.

What did she say when they said that she wasn't working enough hours?

lucylucky

What was said at the meeting?

What hours was she accused of working and why was this considered not enough?

Is there anything in her contract about working extra hours " as required"?

I abhor companies taking the p!ss and expecting their pound of flesh from employees

lynzpower

How long has she worked for this company?

in any case "extra hours as " should not exceed the Working time directive, unless she has agreed to opt out of it.

Is she ins a trade union?

kingfisherblue

Do all the u8npaid additional hours take here under the minimum wage? just another area to consider.

paddedjohn

Hammyman wrote: »

She only has to work what is contracted. If they take disciplinary action against her for working what she's supposed to, she can take them to tribuneral if it gets serious.

Her boss has absolutely no right to call her at home especially at those hours and if I were her, I think I would definitely be submitting a complaint in writing both about being told to work late with no notice and being called at home and file them as an official grievance.

if they need a tribuneral (a cross between a tribunal and a funeral) it must be a dead end job:rotfl:

DVardysShadow

She should now log all of her overtime for a while and when she feels like going home on time, she should go. If there is a repeat, she should get her log and ask them to apologise.

Emmzi

1. ask for the overtime to be paid
2. find a new job
3. during the notice period work to the contract hours

quantic

Basically, she is being expected to work until whatever time her line manager deems adequate. She is also expected to travel even though this way not mentioned in the initial job description or her contract. For example; she has been to various hotels around the country and is expected to arrive at 9am and leave for 5.30pm, meaning she gets home sometimes as late as 11pm. Which she does not get paid for, not to mention the fact that she had to put all of these costs on our credit card (which was very near the limit at the time).

They do not pay her overtime as she is on a salary, when she mentioned about her always working her contracted hours or more they said it wasnt that she wasnt working her contracted hours it was basically that her line manager expected her to work 5.30 - 7/8 for free on top of that. Or as he put it "in these tough times its all about doing that bit extra", "its important to do that bit more to make sure we get all of our ducks in a row"..

I'm really beginning to get quite frustrated now...

Additionally to this, one of the directors of the company put his hand on her lag and squeezed it during a meeting - she didn't want to report this to HR as she was still within her 3 month probation, but has kept acting really sleezy, so she mentioned it to HR and they said that she was the 3rd person to report him for similar if not worse behavior. Her boss later said to her, "we will make sure your not alone with him anymore don't worry... we all know hes a sleeze"

Surely they can't get away with just accepting hes a sleez and not doing anything about it, he has not even received a warning of any kind? This morning I went back into the house because I had left my phone on the sofa, to find my fiancee scared to go to work and crying her eyes out (thinking I had left).

Feel pretty powerless. Tempted to tell her to just leave her job, we can manage without her salary.