Sleep in Allowance is so unfair!

Bigbobby

I posted a similar post a few months ago regarding sleep in allowance. I work in supported accommodation and receive the minimum wage during the day. Some nights I am expected to do a sleep in between the hours of 11 and 8. I receive a £32 allowance for this period.
I decided to speak to my manager stating whether this was fair being paid an allowance of £32 for a 9 hour period. This equates to £3.56/hour. Yes people might argue that I am asleep but in my opinion this is not relevant. I am still at a place of work. It is not as if I can just nip off site for a late night film and have fish and chips. If I did that I would get sacked.
I heard that something had been rumbling through the courts that the minimum wage should still apply whether a person is asleep or not. Has there been any further developments? Also is it likely in the near future that minimum wage will come into affect for sleep ins? It just seems that this has being rumbling through court for years now!

dandelionclock30

Thats care for you, if you want decent pay and conditions then dont go into that job. Its been bad for years and its doubtfull it will get any better.
I would encourage you to do something elce because I cant see it getting any better.The contracts all go to the cheapest provider.

C_Mababejive

I believe that if you are required to be at a designated place and at the disposal of your employer then you are working and should claim and be paid at least minimum wage. I believe your company would be found in breach of the law if you took advice. There is already case law to support this.

If they are saying you are not at work but on call then go home and they can call you if they need you. In which case you wouldnt be entitled to an hourly rate whilst not attending.

ohreally

Recent legal judgements mean that an employer who requires workers to a sleep in at their workplace must include that time in calculations for the national minimum wage.

https://www.unison.org.uk/for-activists/sleeping-in-and-the-minimum-wage

Since this has been on-going for so long, you have joined a union.

elsien

In reality, that's not a bad sleep-in rate rate. My last company paid £27. As far as the minimum wage thing goes, it still all appears to be "it may be illegal", http://www.unitetheunion.org/uploaded/documents/jan%2014%20sleep%20in%20briefing11-18599.pdf
so I'm guessing the test cases are still working their way through.

Edit - here's a more recent summary.
http://www.ellisjones.co.uk/site/blog/employment_law_blog/sleep-in-workers

mumofjusttwo

What about the teachers and teaching assistants that go on trips with children. They do not receive any extra pay?

adouglasmhor

Other cases in the pipeline suggest such allowances should also be counted in to holiday pay.

Nebulous2

I've always thought sleep-ins worked for everyone, including the employee.

The funding for social care is a pack of cards and making employers pay an hourly rate for overnight hours could bring it down altogether.

Several organisations I knew had plans to stop sleepovers and replace them with waking night staff if sleepovers had to be paid at the normal hourly rate.

That would affect people's rotas and time-off as well as payment.

We used to let people swap them fairly readily though, so staff that stayed a long way away and / or wanted extra money did most of them. Those close by who didn't need / like them did very few.

adouglasmhor

Nebulous2 wrote: »

I've always thought sleep-ins worked for everyone, including the employee.

The funding for social care is a pack of cards and making employers pay an hourly rate for overnight hours could bring it down altogether.

Several organisations I knew had plans to stop sleepovers and replace them with waking night staff if sleepovers had to be paid at the normal hourly rate.

That would affect people's rotas and time-off as well as payment.

We used to let people swap them fairly readily though, so staff that stayed a long way away and / or wanted extra money did most of them. Those close by who didn't need / like them did very few.

It does not have to be paid at normal hourly rate only at NMW. So those plans would cost service users even more, what point is there in that?

cazz2013

This is probably a silly question - but - if you were to only work these shifts and claim tax credits -- you would declare how many hours legitimately worked, but surely it would then raise the query of not enough pay for the hours declared, based on the NMW that tax credits work on?

Nebulous2

adouglasmhor wrote: »

It does not have to be paid at normal hourly rate only at NMW. So those plans would cost service users even more, what point is there in that?

This section from the Unison leaflet is relevant:- "However, some employers may not be able to afford a straight pay rise and this could lead to detrimental implications for other terms and conditions."

It looks like things have moved on since I was involved, but at that point they were confident that averaging out sleepovers and waking hours to reach at least NMW would work legally. We reduced the sleepovers that people could do to 3 a month to make sure this applied.

Funding didn't come from service users, it came from council contracts. The plan would have been to cut the hourly rate and increase the night time rate, basically using the same money but dividing it up differently. Unfortunately there wasn't any more money to pay what the unions wanted.

A waking person can clean, cook, write care plans, do laundry etc. So replacing the sleepover with a waking night made sense in respect of making sure all these tasks were done.