Banked hours

crag123

My company has sent a letter asking us to reduce our contracted working week to 40 to 32 hours per week and they want to bank the 8 hours per week for us to work off once the lockdown permits. Is this legal?

Comms69

Not 100% clear.

There's no reason to reduce the hours if they will be banked. I'm assuming they will pay you for 40, expect you to do 32, with 8hrs/week banked over to be used against potentially annual leave cover?

at the minute it looks like 2 bites of the cherry, but probably not what it actually means. 

crag123

Yes they will  pay the 40 hours but as it is a social housing contract when we have full access to people's properties again they want us to do evening and weekend work to repay the hours accumulated. Our contracted hours are 8am to 5pm. They want us to sign this document immediately and do not want to just pay reduced hours as we have asked.

Comms69

Sounds sensible, the alternative would be in effect furlough, or redundancies. I'd sign it. 

crag123

Thanks, problem is we do not want to be owing 40+ hours and are uncomfortable how they would use this

Comms69

crag123 said:

Thanks, problem is we do not want to be owing 40+ hours and are uncomfortable how they would use this

That's fine. refuse to sign it, resign and take them to an ET. 

General_Grant

crag123 said:

Thanks, problem is we do not want to be owing 40+ hours and are uncomfortable how they would use this

Unless you have signed an opt-out from the 48-hour week, they wouldn't be able to make you work over that.  If you have signed, you can withdraw your agreement now if that is what concerns you.

Are you actually working those 32 hours?

crag123

No, are on emergency only and have our pda's switched on during the day for jobs to be sent. Thanks, at least we would be limited to 48hours

TELLIT01

There was a news report about a major engineering company doing something similar, so the assumption is that this is legal.  The 48 hour working time directive may be something of a red herring as that controls average hours over a period, not single weeks.

General_Grant

crag123 said:

No, are on emergency only and have our pda's switched on during the day for jobs to be sent. Thanks, at least we would be limited to 48hours

Sounds like a decent employer who are quite understandably looking for some give as well as receive from their workforce.  For many people (I don't know how many the "we" might have been earlier in the thread) being able to continue to receive their full pay rather than receiving erratic amounts depending on what hours had been worked would be very welcome indeed.

RichardD1970

We have a similar system at work, been in place for years. Stand down and catch back (within specific rules) subject to business needs.