Unpaid work - Is this allowed?

[iraiguana]

Check the contract. See if overtime is stated. If not then either add it on to the time sheet, or do not work it and state your contracted hours are completed.

I understand that normally this company will only offer additional hours work to favoured staff, depending on the branch so be careful if your friend is planing to stay on over holidays and expecting additional work.

You would not catch me being threatened over things like this, as tidying up after a days work should be inclusive of the time allotted to undertake the work.

 

[riddler]

I probably work for the same employer is it Gamestation by any chance? We have to work an extra 30min or so to tidy up, it got to a point in which we sometimes worked upto an hour. After a works meeting I brought up how unhappy I was at the situation so we decided to create an "End of Day" list in which upon completion I can leave hassle free.

Maybe he should try and talk the situation over.

 

["andy"]

i quit a job some years ago because of this. hated it anyway though... not only did they make us do 30mins work for free but most days they even had the cheek to search you on your way out :/ daft shop

 

[Greebo]

It's annoying when employers abuse staff like this. At our place you start work at 7 but you must be on site by 6.50 at the lastest or your first 15 minutes are docked.

If you are a key holder you have to be here by 6.40am to unlock the vast amount of locks and shutters so the staff can get in.

In both cases you are not paid until 7am.

My bosses excuse is that on the supermarket checkout you can't just walk in 7am and sit down, you need to be earlier than that to get into uniform, sort your till out and be sat there ready to work at 7am.

 

[GTanny]

even if his contract states he may be required to work overtime, it may say 'a reasonable ammount of overtime' one of my workmates went through this and it came back a 'reasonable' ammount was not more then 10% of your average hours which would obviously depend on what hours hes working as if hes doing 4x4hour shifts then if he has to stay every time he may be able to get out of it, although if its only 2x8hour shifts he may not be able to avoid it as its only an extra couple of hours a week.

this may need checking though before he argues it as this is based on my workplace where we work a 200 hour month covering both days, nights and weekends.

 

[Gaidin109]

It's annoying when employers abuse staff like this. At our place you start work at 7 but you must be on site by 6.50 at the lastest or your first 15 minutes are docked.

If you are a key holder you have to be here by 6.40am to unlock the vast amount of locks and shutters so the staff can get in.

In both cases you are not paid until 7am.

My bosses excuse is that on the supermarket checkout you can't just walk in 7am and sit down, you need to be earlier than that to get into uniform, sort your till out and be sat there ready to work at 7am.

Get another job, they are taking advantage. A long time ago I worked for two large supermarkets part time (I was a student), I was paid from the moment I clocked on to the moment I clocked off. We were given 15 minutes before and after to prepare and shut down. If you are unlocking, seting up tills etc, you are working. I wouldn't work for free, full stop.

 

[Kutter]

tell them slavery was banned a few hundred years ago.

Do they make him clock out then work ? or do they just not pay the overtime ?

 

[Johnny Girth]

Try working double or even triple your contracted hours a week without getting paid overtime...

 

[Fuzz]

MUG

 

[JBuk]

MUG

Quite

 

[Angilion]

The relevant question is not whether or not it is legal but whether or not you can do anything about it. Certain aspects of my employment are illegal. I know this. My employer knows this. We also both know that I will suffer more than they will if I try to have the law enforced, so the law is irrelevant.

 

[_TubbZ_]

The relevant question is not whether or not it is legal but whether or not you can do anything about it. Certain aspects of my employment are illegal. I know this. My employer knows this. We also both know that I will suffer more than they will if I try to have the law enforced, so the law is irrelevant.

Surely if its taking liberties of you then it would be worth bringing it up to some extent? Especially if its a silly amount of hours?

Where i work we are sort of expected to do extra 30 minutes to an hour for important tasks but people have a habit of forcing themselves into making it the norm for themselves. They also are likely to start working through their lunch break and what not. I personally try not to as i know it will mean I am doing it to myself.

But to the OP surely your mate would be better off discussing this with his co workers and seeing if they too are are unhappy then they can all say it sucks in a mutinous attempt to sort out their issue

 

[rG-tom]

how about anyone here who has to ocassionally travel for work? I work from an office but quite often (can be 3/5 days of the week sometimes, but not always) I have to visits clients that are, at rush hour an hour and a half away, rather than the 15 minutes to the office I have chosen to live.

In my previous job if I had to make long trips like this, it was either accounted for so that I'd set off at my usual time (ie I usually set off at 8 to get into the office for 8.30 and thus get to the site for ~10am ish then leave site at 4.30 to get home for ~6ish), or if it was critical to be on site for 8.30 and be there til 5.30, I'd be paid overtime for the extra hour or so I've lost from each end of my day.

Here, the reaction from my line manager was almost laughing at that idea when I brought it up, and said you're paid to work from 8.30 - 5.30, regardless of where you're working, we don't pay for your commute time.....is that legal? Saying they're not paying for my commute time makes sense if I decided to move 1.5 hours from the office and then asked them to include that in my wages, but when I actually chose a job 15 minutes away and they're making my commute 1.5hours each way, it seems unfair....2.5 hours a day extra is more than a quarter of my actual working time on top!

Cheers

Tom.

 

[singist]

This is one of the reasons trade unions formed: some management styles belong back with 18th century mill owners.

 

[starfighter]

Interesting, at a place I have worked which was part call centre the people on the phones were expected the be at their desk ready to take a call at 8am. so in reality you had to be there at 7:55 for your PC to boot up and you were also expected the be able to take a call right up till 20:00. If the phone rang at 19:59 you had to stay until it was over, some people that weren't good at getting rid of customers would stay for around an extra hour occasionally and a few people for 10 mins or so every day.

It seems unfair to me but they said it was in the contract.

It just seems harsh to get told off for being 5 minutes late but then be expected to stay at the end for half an hour.

 

[PMKeates]

Here, the reaction from my line manager was almost laughing at that idea when I brought it up, and said you're paid to work from 8.30 - 5.30, regardless of where you're working, we don't pay for your commute time.....is that legal?

It's a difficult situation. If in your contract it doesn't state that you will be frequently expected to travel to X places, then you could argue that the terms of your employment have changed and you expect appropriate compensation. If they are paying your extra travelling expenses then they have already appreciated that this is not your commute to your place of work.

However, it's tough to enforce anything like this. From everything I've heard about where you work so far... leave!

 

[PMKeates]

It seems unfair to me but they said it was in the contract.

It just seems harsh to get told off for being 5 minutes late but then be expected to stay at the end for half an hour.

I don't think that's necessarily unfair. The company are required to provide a telephone support service from 08:00 to 20:00 and thus need people manning the phones during those hours. It would also be unreasonable to expect that you can simply hang up on a customer once your hours are up.

I would imagine that your compensation should reflect the fact that you need to offer your employer this flexibility.

 

[starfighter]

I agree it makes running the support a lot easier for the company as they can grantees someone will be there but there should be some cut off or reward in return. If you spend 30 mins of your time you get 30 mins extra off at some point chosen by a manager probably when it is quiet

 

[Yamahahahahaha]

It's at employer discretion to pay for 'off-site' travelling hours. We do at normal hourly rate. If they stay overnight, we pay for B&B but not the travelling time on both days.

If an employee has issue with working a little extra for no pay occasionally then they're still within their rights - I think the manager would be justified in being a bit annoyed though.
On the other hand, if the employee is regularly asked to stay 30 minutes after their shift ends to tidy up or whatever, then that is not acceptable at all. I've seen this happen a lot in retail.

 

[Bry]

Interesting, at a place I have worked which was part call centre the people on the phones were expected the be at their desk ready to take a call at 8am. so in reality you had to be there at 7:55 for your PC to boot up and you were also expected the be able to take a call right up till 20:00. If the phone rang at 19:59 you had to stay until it was over, some people that weren't good at getting rid of customers would stay for around an extra hour occasionally and a few people for 10 mins or so every day.

It seems unfair to me but they said it was in the contract.

It just seems harsh to get told off for being 5 minutes late but then be expected to stay at the end for half an hour.

sounds a lot like toshiba technical support. worst 2.5 months of my life but this was from 8am-10pm. I always fobbed customers off if they phoned up at 21.59 with an issue that would take 30 minutes to resolve i.e. phone back tomorrow. Think the most I ever stayed behind was one minute and that was quite rare.
Quite rude to phone up 1 minute before closing and expect to be served for up to an hour.
You wouldn't walk into a shop at 16:59 and expect to be able to stay there in some cases up to 1.5 hours when it shuts at 17:00