Overtime in arrears

guyincognito_3

Hi there all!

I'm currently about to have pay review at work so was reviewing my contract and came across the following:

Hours of Work/Overtime
You will be required to work a 35 hour week, with 1 hour for lunch. Any travelling time and lunch breaks will not be paid by the company.
You may be required to work overtime in order to ensure the continuity of the function for which you are employed. This may include additional hours or days and you will be expected to agree to these. Every effort will be made to give you reasonable notice but this cannot be guaranteed.
Premium rates apply after normal full hours are worked at the rate of time and a half.

I work in IT support for a national retail company and I have to provide out of hours support one weekend every 3 (used to be one weekend every 4) which involves carrying around a mobile phone and laptop for any urgent issues. An average weekend and weeknight on support usually involves between 5 and 15 calls. Sometimes the entire system can go down and I get 50-100 calls which ties me down for almost a whole day. I also perform onsite installations and fixes outside normal hours and occassionally early and late starts too.

Basically I have worked in this department for 2 years and provided out of hours support for 20 months of it. My boss has very informally given me time off in lieu for this but that barely covers a couple of full days and in no way matches the amount of extra work I do. I generally find it useless too as I usually have 5-7 days holidays left over at the end of the financial year which I have to use up or carry over.

I had my first pay review 15 months ago and it didnt go well as I felt my wages werent representative of the role i was doing and this is especially the case now. My boss agreed I deserve a pay review now and I really want to stay here and negotiate a decent deal. However I feel I should be claiming for all this overtime I have done (i was unaware of my contract before).

What rights do I have and how should I approach this matter?

Any help would be greatfully appreciated!

Guy Incognito

ohreally

You need to establish if you are providing on-call cover or working overtime? If your on-call then you should get an allowance plus minimum call out payments, any travelling allowances (if appropriate), home phone rental should bve paid etc etc.Then there are issues with the european working time directive and minimum daily rest breaks. You need more info and to do a little homework.