Working time directive

Diddums · 21 Apr 2017 at 15:31

I love overtime. I make some decent money from it which allows me to go on ridiculous holidays. Last month I did 104 hours OT, on top of my 40 hour week (it was a 5 week month however). I do this whilst I'm still young and have zero issues doing it, because I want the money and most of the time the OT is a doddle.

Now we have a new regional manager who flipped his lid and said this is unacceptable and we are to be limited to 48 hours a month.

Is there a way to opt out of this? I could hypothetically mange with less, but the way I do it is to go hardcore for a few weeks, then chill out for a few weeks for family time and whatnot. I would like to keep it this way.

Anyone in the know about this?

Diddums · 21 Apr 2017 at 15:37

Cheers. We get 1.5x for Saturdays and call outs, 2.0x Sundays and bank holidays, and when we're on call on bank holidays we also get a day in lieu. So whilst it seems like ridiculous amounts of work, the perks make it worthwhile and the pay is good.

Diddums · 21 Apr 2017 at 17:16

It's not cost cutting, as the work we do can only be done out of hours and has to be done regardless. It's in the contracts.

dl8860 said:
What sort of work do you do?

Building services supervisor. Well, engineer on weekends.

Diddums · 21 Apr 2017 at 20:19

Caged said:
104 hours overtime sounds like a company that hasn't hired enough staff.

Nah, it's out of hours work. We can choose to take on agency staff for the work but we prefer to collect the cash ourselves.

Diddums · 22 Apr 2017 at 11:34

Worthy said:
It's quite common for the easy overtime to be taken away, especially in management changes. Sounds like he knows you're fleecing them and doesn't like it. Even if you opt out he'll just refuse to authorise your OT. Can't say I disagree to be honest, it's rife at our place. This "has to be done OOH, it will take a full day". When in most cases it can be done during the day and will take two hours max.

As much as I wish this was the case, it really isn't. Our OOH work involves putting an entire building in darkness, working over desks, shutting down critical plant, etc. I don't think a company which pays £1m a year per floor would appreciate us working on a tower above them on a weekday.

The fact is that the client pay for this work, it's part of their contract. They acknowledge that this work can only be done OOH and they pay OT rates for it. It's got to get done, one way or another. The only question is who does it: us or agency staff.

This isn't cost cutting at all.