Employment Law Question

Sambucus_Nigra

thebottomline wrote: »

Hello to all you helpful money saving genii,

My wife works for a large retail corporation, who have basically told her that for an upcoming sale, she has to work the evening shift the night before until everything is ready, and that she HAS to be at work the next day for 4:45am. What I'm wondering is (as a brief Googling couldn't help me) is legally, is there a minimum amount of hours she would have to be given between shifts? Because at the moment everyone is talking about a very real possibility that they work 10+ hour shifts, only to return to work 3.5 hrs (or less) later. This just seemed unfathomable to me, so I thought I'd ask the people in the know!

Any help is much appreciated, thanks.

What I would ask is if I would be insured to work on only 2.5 hours sleep. As the legal minimum is 11 hours, and as such I would be quite exhausted and don't want to risk either an accident on the way to work, during work or on the way home afterwards. And I'd ask for confirmation that I was insured for this.

dickydonkin

If as already suggested this company is NEXT, it is well established that their sales usually start an an ungodly hour and I am surprised the OP's wife was not aware of this before she started working for them.

There was another recent thread about the very same subject where I also mentioned that why a shop had to open at 5.00 am.

Extend the sale by a day or stay open later at night but why should staff have to work this shift starting before 5.00am is beyond me.

Seeing the frenzy in one of those sales never ceases to amaze me where people virtually fight with each other to obtain over rated products from an over rated brand - many of which have been specifically 'made' for the 'sale'.

Good for them who wish to work those hours - others who don't (as highlighted in this thread) seemingly may not have a choice.

Because it costs a lot more money and you've got people you do not know with free access to the place with no permanent staff other than one manager. The opportunity for theft is rife.

But doesn't that potentially apply to all organisations employing temps?