Employment issues

emma99909

Hi, Myself and 5 of my colleagues have been working 20 minutes above our contract every week that we have not been getting paid for, this has been going on since the 1st of July 2010. This was first brought up at a meeting in September 2010, my employer had been aware of this for over 2 years now, we have brought it up at numerous staff meetings are well as in the workplace.

It has been raised with 2 team leaders and 2 service managers. Other staff members based in other places have had the same problem but had it fixed quickly. As of this week we are due 40 hours, my employer has finally agreed that we are entitled to get this backdated, however we are not getting paid for it, even although we have worked it. They are proposing that we get away 10 or 15 minutes early at the end of some shifts until the 40 hours is cleared. can we demand to be paid or is this legal?
Thanks

podperson

What does it say in your contract? Does it state that any overtime is payable or does it say that it can simply be claimed back in lieu.

emma99909

My contract doesn't mention overtime but I have a staff handbook, this says that overtime is paid and mentions nothing about getting time back in lieu.

emma99909

We are now not getting it back dated at all as we have sometimes been allowed to leave our shift early if all the work is done. Is this legal as it was an informal agreement with out manager?
We have also worked numerous extra hours, staying on here and there, going away and working for a week solid and only getting paid for 8 hours.
The way management are dealing with this is horrendous, I'd really like to win, but I'm not sure if I can.. ?

geordie_joe

I think you need to go back to the beginning and explain a lot more about what happened.

emma99909 wrote: »

Hi, Myself and 5 of my colleagues have been working 20 minutes above our contract every week that we have not been getting paid for, this has been going on since the 1st of July 2010.

Why did you start working an extra 20 minutes? Where you asked, or told to do it, or did you just decided to do it yourselves?

If you were asked, or told, what was the deal?

emma99909 wrote: »

This was first brought up at a meeting in September 2010, my employer had been aware of this for over 2 years now, we have brought it up at numerous staff meetings are well as in the workplace.

Why didn't you bring it up at the time on 1st July? And what exactly did you bring up in September?

By "employer" do you mean the company you work for, or the manager of the store you work in?

emma99909 wrote: »

It has been raised with 2 team leaders and 2 service managers.

What exactly has been raised? The fact that you are working 20 minutes more, that you want paying for it, that you want time off for it?

emma99909 wrote: »

Other staff members based in other places have had the same problem but had it fixed quickly.

How was it fixed?

emma99909 wrote: »

As of this week we are due 40 hours, my employer has finally agreed that we are entitled to get this backdated, however we are not getting paid for it, even although we have worked it.

Were you expecting to get paid for it when you started working the extra 20 minutes? Were you told you would get paid for it?

emma99909 wrote: »

They are proposing that we get away 10 or 15 minutes early at the end of some shifts until the 40 hours is cleared. can we demand to be paid or is this legal?
Thanks

No body can say if it is legal because we don't know the full facts.

It is not illegal to ask someone to work for nothing, but it is to force them to.

It's not illegal to ask someone to work extra at certain times and offer time off in lieu.

It's also not illegal to stop work when you stop getting paid, so the big question is why did you continue to work for 20 minutes when you were not getting paid for it?

emma99909

Lot of questions..
Our hours got reduced from 39 to 36 in July 2010, however the managers doing the rotas messed them up and had us working an extra hour every 3 weeks.
By employer I mean manager, several managers and team leaders were aware and we made them aware that we were working extra, unpaid and asked for the rota to be fixed so we weren't working extra or to be paid.
Other projects have had their rotas fixed so that they are not working the extra hour.
We have been told so many different thing, they have tried denying we're working any extra, we've been told we will be paid for it, we've been told we'll get time back. They are so inconsistent it's unreal. So many empty promises and threats to keep up quiet.
I work in care so I can't just leave once I'm not getting paid, can't leave vulnerable people by themselves. It's not the kind of job where you can just walk out.
My main question now is, is it up to them to decide if we should get time back or paid or is that our decision?

Anyway thanks for the big reply Anything you've got helps.. It's become more of a point now than anything, if they had handled it better we wouldn't be in this situation.