Forced unpaid break while on standby
HermanMunster
Posts: 38 Forumite
Have recently taken an agency shift to be on standby over a weekend. The agreement is to be paid the same hourly rate during a 12 hour shift whether required to work during those hours or not, but i have to be on standby and available the whole time, and as it's a weekend there is no-one else to be available instead during that shift.
Now they are trying to pay for only 11 hours saying 1 hour is an unpaid break. There was no mention of this prior to taking the shift. Since the payment is for being available, not necessarily actually working, and I had to be available for the whole 12 hours because there's only ever the one person on standby over a weekend, is there a legal basis for them to do this? Thanks
Now they are trying to pay for only 11 hours saying 1 hour is an unpaid break. There was no mention of this prior to taking the shift. Since the payment is for being available, not necessarily actually working, and I had to be available for the whole 12 hours because there's only ever the one person on standby over a weekend, is there a legal basis for them to do this? Thanks
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Comments
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Actually yes. In many roles a standby post doesn’t attract a full wage anyway.0
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It's not the full wage, it's the standby wage, which in this specific case during the standby shift is paid whether working or not. So if you have to do work they get a bargain, and if not it's easy money. No-one minds that. But they have to provide the cover for 24 hours a day and it seems a bit wrong that they can do that while only paying for 22. Especially when that was never agreed beforehand.0
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Ask them which hour they want you to be unavailable.
You could raise it with the real employer, but expect the contact to get terminated.
you could also renegotiate for proper pay if the work required goes over a threshold.0 -
They are basically trying it on. I would tell them you don't want the shift if they aren't going to pay you for all of it.The comments I post are my personal opinion. While I try to check everything is correct before posting, I can and do make mistakes, so always try to check official information sources before relying on my posts.0
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getmore4less wrote: »Ask them which hour they want you to be unavailable.
This, and if they subsequently interrupted your break, the clock resets.Don’t be a can’t, be a can.0 -
is this an on-call on site or from home?0
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getmore4less wrote: »Ask them which hour they want you to be unavailable.
You could raise it with the real employer, but expect the contact to get terminated.
you could also renegotiate for proper pay if the work required goes over a threshold.
Asked them which hour they expected me to be unavailable, and who was covering it during that hour (knowing full well that out of normal hours there's only ever one person covering it). No response as yet. Will give them a little longer then take it up with the employer.0 -
Just curious - have you worked there long?0
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They are basically trying it on. I would tell them you don't want the shift if they aren't going to pay you for all of it.
If it doesn't get resolved I won't do any more, just as a matter of principle if nothing else. Problem is I've done a few over the last few weekends and the way the timesheets are processed they've all come to light at the same time now, so it's actually a few hours already.
Have done them before, but not for about a year, and it's never previously been an issue, so came as a bit of a surprise.0 -
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