Working time directive question

SarEl

buggy_boy wrote: »

.... our only hope is after recently making loads of redundancies the company is heavily dependant on volunteers on top of oncall persons.

If they bring in this ruling nobody will be willing to do the overtime so they could end up in trouble.

Also we are unionised so anything like that would have to be agreed by the union which I dont think it would go down well.

And therein lies your answer as to why they have done this - and their gounds for any tribunal defence (which would almost certainly succeed). They have been through a lot of redundancies already, they are struggling to maintain the company and jobs, changes have to happen or there will be more redundancies, they cannot afford to pay people for hours that they do not work.

If you then refuse to do the work, they have a number of choices - restructure the jobs, or make on-call / overtime contractual, both of which they could do, and both of which would be defended by the same argument - this needs to happen or their will be no jobs.

If you have a recognised union in the workplace then that should have been your first stopping point - but remember that the union are not some remote officials in another office. You are the union. What they can do about it depends on what you are willing to do about it.

buggy_boy wrote: »

Ive not seen anywhere that this has ever been challenged I have a feeling the company have been very good by bringing it up in these economic times as I think it is more likely that the law would side with them.

Quite certainly - but it is also more likely that the employees will agree to it as well. If you could afford to tell them to shove it and walk out, knowing that no matter what happened you would be in another job by the end of the week, then employers are more loathe to touch conditions. They know you can't and you know you can't - and that is actually the strionger explanation for their actions. No employer is looking to go to law - they are betting on the fact that the majority will agree to the change because their jobs are more to them than a few hours pay. More often than not, it is a bet that will pay off.

planning303

Ok, so reading the thread. I understand that you would if called out at 23:00 and needing to work till 02:00 you would currently get 11 hours break then return at 15:00 and get paid for the full day.

Clearly your employer is struggerling with this due to the redundencies that they putting into place.

I understand that any change to T&C of employment are annoying and grate on employees but surely it's better this than the employer going under and you all losing your jobs. A job with slightly worse terms s certainly better than no job at all.

Is it essential that you have your 11 hours break between shifts?

I quite often go out the night before work and go to be at 1am / 2am and still manage to get up for work the next morning. This way you would still be receiving your dollar and the employee would still be in business.

C_Mababejive

This is yet another example of a bullying employer using the current economic climate to erode the terms and conditions of employment of the working man. Are you and/or your colleagues in a union? If so,you could get free legal advice and support..

System

liggins wrote: »

Is it essential that you have your 11 hours break between shifts?

As this is a worker's entitlement within the WTD, the employer is well within their rights to insist that the 11 hour break is taken otherwise they may be seen as in breach of the regulations.

buggy_boy

Just to reply about the redundancies, that had nothing to do with the profitability of our side of the business. It has always been vastly profitable, they charge us out at £365 an hour and pay us £15 an hour, they make about 40% profit on turn over which is in business terms pretty big.

The reason they are constantly squeezing us is because the management get massive bonuses if they find a way to save the company a lot of money like this.

I was against unions but we didnt get any pay rises for 10yrs, we shafted by being sent to a wholly owned but separate legal subsidiary company aka tuped. In this we lost the final salary pension and other perks which we accepted.

However working during the night for affectively no extra pay totally not worth it. The union is involved but they were trying to find out our legal stance so I just thought I would ask on here see if anyone had any idea but it seems a little grey.

DVardysShadow

buggy_boy wrote: »

However working during the night for affectively no extra pay totally not worth it. The union is involved but they were trying to find out our legal stance so I just thought I would ask on here see if anyone had any idea but it seems a little grey.

It is grey. It is what you are able to fight for as a union. As you have discovered, for all their faults, unions are long term protectors of rights

scheming_gypsy

I had a google for 'daily rest on call' and came up with http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/areas/industrialrelations/dictionary/definitions/workingtime.htm

but i've got the attention span of a napkin at the minute so it just confused me, but from skimming through it sort of seems that nobody has any idea where it fits in.

SarEl

buggy_boy wrote: »

Just to reply about the redundancies, that had nothing to do with the profitability of our side of the business. It has always been vastly profitable, they charge us out at £365 an hour and pay us £15 an hour, they make about 40% profit on turn over which is in business terms pretty big.
.

And I am afraid that you don't have any idea how the law works in these matters, unfortunately. It doesn't matter how profitable your side of the business is - that in no undermines an employers legal argument that changes to the business are required to avoid redundancies. A tribunal does not examine whether a business justification stacks up or not - they have no power to do so. It is not their business, and if the employer says that for business reasons they must make changes, and those changes will help to maintain profitability and avoid redundancies - well that statement has to be accepted on face value.

In the end you stand a far better chance of stopping this yourselves than you do in going to law - that is why the union are important to you, because it gives you greater collective strength to do so. But whether you are prerared to exercise that strangth is down to the union members.

zagfles

We've had many similar situations over the years - basically you need to stick together with your colleagues (union or no union) and agree what your response is. If being on-call is voluntary, then if you all decline to do on-call under these conditions, what are they going to do? Are there others they could get to do it?

We get (comparitively) excellent conditions for being on-call and working unsocial hours, and there's no question of any pay being docked because we're late in due to overnight callout. But we don't adhere to the WTD pedantically, eg if we got a callout at 2300 till 2400 we'd probably be in work the next day usual time, maybe an hour late, we wouldn't come in at 1100 just cos the WTD says we can.

Over the years every time the management above us is reshuffled and we get new management, the new management has tried to cut our out of hours payments, and every time they've failed because we've stuck together. Whereas other departments in the same company have caved in (possibly because some were geographically separated) and they get far worse terms.

Also being stroppy has actually saved us from being hit hard by redundancy - because they know we won't simply work harder/do unpaid overtime/do more on-call for no more pay to cover the work with less people (after all if a job is redundant it doesn't need "covering" does it?). Whereas another department, where there was a culture of unpaid overtime etc, was hit much harder despite having a heavier workload per person, since the company knew the remaining mugs would work even more hours (unpaid) to get the job done!

chainsaw

There is a lot of rubbish talked about the WTD / WTR and what employers can and cannot do. I have looked into it in some depth.

What are you allowed to do when you are on call but not actually working? Do you have to stay at home waiting for a call? Do you have to respond immediately you receive a call? Can you go to the cinema / football match / shopping / visit family 10 miles away?

If you have to stay in a place designated by your employer ready to respond immediately then all the hours you are on call are worked hours even if you are asleep in bed in which case by 20.30hr you would not be able to work any more and be able to have a 11 hr break before you start work the next day.

The WTR's say you have to have 11hr continuous rest between shifts, its not really a choice for you or your employer to ignore this although many, most even do ignore it.

Your employer should have a Risk Assessment procedure in place if you work long hours, do they? I bet they do but they have not made the workforce aware of it.

I don't think you have given us enough information about how you work, what your job is and how you are paid for anyone to answer your question properly.