Being made to travel 2.5/3 hours away from normal place of work for 8 weeks

bell123321

Just a quick question, I work for a retail store and they are saying I have to work away from my contracted place of work for 8 weeks. Unfortuntly this place is a 2.5/3 hours hour train journey each direction so that means an extra 5/6 hours to my day. They have said they will pay my train fare, but am I entilted for my travelling time to be paid working or to say finish early or start later? This will result in leaving at 6am in the morning and not arriving home till around 20:30 five days a week. My normal place of work takes 30mins to get too in comparison.

paddedjohn

What does it say in your contract, does it mention anything about working at other sites?

Takeaway_Addict

Ask to compromise. I would say reasonably 1 hour each way unpaid and then paid for the other time.

But yes it comes down to the contract I guess.

bell123321

The contract just mentions if I need to work elsewhere on the odd occasion they will pay travel costs. I am guessing I probably am not entilted to anything else but thought it was worth an ask as I am going to be away for around 14/14.5 hours for an 8 hour shift per day and will need to arrange extra childcare.

Hmm71

Have you had a chat with your manager? Whoever made the decision to send you might not have realised you have childcare issues. They might not know that you would have to get the train either. A few years ago I volunteered to help out at another office and it took me three hours by train to get there but would have only been an hour by car.

Try to have an informal chat with your manager, say that you are more than happy to help out but that you have these issues, is there anything they can do to help you to help them?

ValHaller

bell123321 wrote: »

Just a quick question, I work for a retail store and they are saying I have to work away from my contracted place of work for 8 weeks. Unfortuntly this place is a 2.5/3 hours hour train journey each direction so that means an extra 5/6 hours to my day. They have said they will pay my train fare, but am I entilted for my travelling time to be paid working or to say finish early or start later? This will result in leaving at 6am in the morning and not arriving home till around 20:30 five days a week. My normal place of work takes 30mins to get too in comparison.

I would say that leaving for work 9.5 hours after coming home is totally unreasonable.

hcb42

This would seem unreasonable, what is your role?

getmore4less

Tell them you will need overnight accomodation as the travel time is too much

TTC40

What's the reason for the request.

Has there been any discussion about it or did they just tell you this was happening?

Has this happened before to anyone else?

What's your role?

Sambucus_Nigra

bell123321 wrote: »

The contract just mentions if I need to work elsewhere on the odd occasion they will pay travel costs. I am guessing I probably am not entilted to anything else but thought it was worth an ask as I am going to be away for around 14/14.5 hours for an 8 hour shift per day and will need to arrange extra childcare.

8 weeks isn't the odd occasion.

If they say they will pay your travel costs from your current workplace to the 'elsewhere' one, then they are saying that this is business miles. And as such, business time to get there. So yes, by default, they should pay you for the extra time away from home.

However, there are only 24 hours in a day and you are entitled to 11 hours rest in between. Any delays in getting home means you would slip under this, so unless you particularly want to do it, perhaps try and negotiate a couple of trips to help out/ teach someone what to do and then support from a distance? Or a reduced day to take the extra travel into consideration, so you leave and get home the same time, and get there later and leave there earlier.

bell123321

I have just received a supervisor position and they want to train me. Apprantly there is no store closer who can train me and have told me that I need to do 8 weeks at this store that is a long distance for the training. I just wondered if I was entilted to do a reduced day for example if I am suppose to work 9 - 6 if I could finish at 4/5 so including the travel time I would still get back at a reasonable time. I will enquire but I do not think they would allow me to finish earlier or start later, but I wondered if there was anything on the legal side that would allow it.