Unsociable hours working

[I Know Nothing]

I seems to always have had jobs which involved unsociable hours. Started of as a van driver, owned a courier business, worked as a truck driver, worked in transport offices and then IT. Now I am back truck driving.

I used to get time and a half for working nights, Saturdays, overtime, double time for working Sundays and bank holidays.

Now they are offering me a £1 extra for working nights, £2 for working Saturdays and £4 for Sundays, no overtime pay.

Friday I was offered £16.75 an hour for doing a Friday night and Saturday night, 75 p extra what I usually get!

This seems to be happening more and more, the rail companies are demanding railway workers work unsociable hours for less pay

Considering the health implications and social implications should there be legislation limiting unsocciable hours working?

Some sectors do have unsociable hours work limited, pilots for example, nurses for example

[ZedLeg]

There are provisions to limit the amount of night work people do in the working time regulations. People need to start pushing back about opting out of those rules being part of contracts.

[Randy Winkman]

One thing to consider is that with office work nowadays it's all about flexible working and what your outputs are. Not about when and for how long you are at you desk. Especially because since Covid your desk could be anywhere. So for office workers the idea of when is the normal time to work is going. That means that the idea that particular days or times deserve different rates of pay is much less of an issue. I appreciate we all don't work in front of computers but that's just part of the context.

[rodericb]

Randy Winkman said:

One thing to consider is that with office work nowadays it's all about flexible working and what your outputs are. Not about when and for how long you are at you desk. Especially because since Covid your desk could be anywhere. So for office workers the idea of when is the normal time to work is going. That means that the idea that particular days or times deserve different rates of pay is much less of an issue. I appreciate we all don't work in front of computers but that's just part of the context.

I think a bit of office work "flexible working" is that it's the worker who chooses when they want to work - they could probably work one hour one and one hour off through the day if they so desire. That type of flexibility isn't available to a lot of people and the "flexible workforce" in those scenarios is "just be flexible with your expectations and life outside of work for whatever working times we set for you otherwise we'll find someone else".

[roger.mellie]

Flexible and unsociable aren’t the same thing. We’re pretty flexible on employee hours as long as they get the job done (IT and software) but where they’re mandated hours and out of the normal 9-5 e.g. on call support we pay an additional retainer. The extra top up money isn’t great but it’s mostly money for nothing so the engineers are happy to take it and they’re salaried rather than paid by the hour so there’s a difference there too. It’s certainly not available in all jobs and although I’d agree on the pushing back point it’s easier said than done as an individual rather than from a collective bargaining perspective.

[Pebbles167]

Hard to limit something that's vital to a particular job. Night work is essential and necessary on the roads/railways/airports.

Besides, many prefer night work, myself included.

In your situation I feel for you though, you're getting shafted in an unfair way. I'd voice your feelings to management, negotiate, and be prepared to leave if the end result isn't what you want.