Working hours, paid breaks and overtime

Giblets

Asking for brother in law who is a plumber. He is salaried with overtime, his contract states he works 40hrs per week, with paid breaks, but also states his hours of work are 8-5 mon-fri.
Problem is that he effectively was not given any breaks (which is illegal I know). As soon as he clocked off a job on their system, he was assigned another job (and would have to drive to that job, boss has commented that this counts as a break!!). On the occasion he explicitly asked for a break it was denied (as expected on the next job).
question… is his hourly break based on the 40hrs/ week or the 45hrs (which is  the 8-5)?
as he was not given any paid break he was claiming for any hours over 40hrs (so the hourly rate is important). The boss has refused to pay for any hours within the core work hours, and saying his hourly rate is salary/ 45hrs per week. 

I also understand he was asked to do a job In Manchester (2hrs drive), went in company van but was not paid travel time. 

Undervalued

Giblets said:

Asking for brother in law who is a plumber. He is salaried with overtime, his contract states he works 40hrs per week, with paid breaks, but also states his hours of work are 8-5 mon-fri.
Problem is that he effectively was not given any breaks (which is illegal I know). As soon as he clocked off a job on their system, he was assigned another job (and would have to drive to that job, boss has commented that this counts as a break!!). On the occasion he explicitly asked for a break it was denied (as expected on the next job).
question… is his hourly break based on the 40hrs/ week or the 45hrs (which is  the 8-5)?
as he was not given any paid break he was claiming for any hours over 40hrs (so the hourly rate is important). The boss has refused to pay for any hours within the core work hours, and saying his hourly rate is salary/ 45hrs per week. 

I also understand he was asked to do a job In Manchester (2hrs drive), went in company van but was not paid travel time. 

The legal entitlement is to an unpaid 20 min break if he works for 6 hours or more. Such a break should be taken somewhere near the middle of the shift (as far as possible) but certainly not right at the beginning or end of the shift.

Anything beyond this is a contractual matter. The normal interpretation of a 40 hour week with paid breaks might be 8 - 5 (nine hours) but with say 40 mins for lunch and two 10 min tea breaks. If he is routinely actually working for more 40 hours and his lunch / tea breaks are getting squeezed or non existent then that is clearly not right.

Obviously in the real world he needs to balance this with how well (or otherwise) he gets paid and how easy (or otherwise) it would be to find something better. Ideally best resolved by a friendly discussion if at all possible.

lisyloo

He should be working 40 hours with 5 hours of breaks.
normally you’re paid for 40 and unpaid for 5.

clearly this is very bad if he’s driving.

if his boss is not reasonable then he needs to decide if he wants to stay there.
In his position I’d look for another job

B0bbyEwing

Looking for another job is always the knee-jerk answer, because it's an obvious solution.

But that could take 1 day, 1 year, whatever. So in the meantime, if this boss is being illegal, preventing the guy from having breaks then what can the individual do?

I'm sure if the guy ploughed through a kiddie because he's 'tired' as he's not had his break, the employer would say it's the individuals responsibility to manage their time/breaks & they get ample opportunity for one and the boss would never in a million years step in between an employee and their break.

Where I work our contract says the first 40 hours are at a basic rate and anything beyond this is an overtime rate. So if you're sick Mon-Fri and Sat is your first and only day that week, it'll be at basic rate. Forget that it's a weekend day. We get 2x 15mins & 1x 30min break in a day (so beyond the minimum) and we're expected to work 7am-5:30pm as a total minimum. 

Partners contract elsewhere stipulates 8:30am-5:00pm hours with 30min for dinner at 12:30. Their contract states 37 (i think) hours. So every x-weeks due to working beyond their hours, they build up an extra day to take off on an agreed day with management (who have been very fair).

In short, our contracts state our break times & we get our breaks.

If my employer said to me I'm to work through my break I'd say hang on, let me just have that recorded please. Same with if they said I'm basically to work and not get paid for it.

I don't go to work because I love work. I don't love work at all. I go to work because I need money to live. There's a difference.

lisyloo

Use whatever emotive words you like but if I was being put in a position where I was a danger to the public and the boss wasn’t for turning then I would “jerk”.

The boss has refused overtime so doesn’t seem amenable to reason.

Undervalued

Rightly or wrongly, in the real world there are many situation where people actually work far longer than their contracted hours.

Try being a young doctor, solicitor, accountant etc etc. Any of them would be delighted "only" to work a few hours over their contract!

So, you have to look at the bigger picture. If this plumber got paid say 10% less but got his lunch and tea breaks every day would that be preferable?

Obviously if he is paid rock bottom, everywhere else if far better, gets full breaks and a nice hamper at Christmas then the obvious solution is to change job.

Ultimately it is all a balance. In a small business getting "legal" is unlikely to end well.

Equally, weren't British Gas sacking and rehiring "engineers" (i.e plumbers), on less favourable contracts recently?

B0bbyEwing

Undervalued said:

Try being a young doctor, solicitor, accountant etc etc. Any of them would be delighted "only" to work a few hours over their contract!

I'm always puzzled when this viewpoint is put forward.

Because the person in question is not a young doctor, solicitor, accountant etc etc. They're a plumber. 

There's always someone worse off that we can use to say shut up to someone complaining. I have a broken leg. Well shut up because that man has 2 broken legs. Well he needs to shut up because the guy over there has 2 broken legs & a stubbed toe & that guy needs to stop whinging too because the other guy at the end of the line just dropped dead so beat that.

Bit like those with illegal window tints cry when the police pull them that the police should "catch some real criminals".

There's always something worse. Doesn't mean the thing being asked about isn't relevant though.

Dakta

Agreed, just because other people do work stupid hours doesn't mean the lack of breaks here isn't a problem.

I'd also vote with look to leave because you can sort of sum up the gist of the boss - it's going to be a fight all the way and whilst you can generally fix things that are wrong in the workplace you can't adjust management attitude