Overtime / on call
Discussion
It looks like our company is going to start mandatory 24hr cover for our department. This will involve a week of on call every month. Are they within their rights to just start this ? What if they are offering say £10 a night for this and we don't think this is enough ? What would happen if we refuse saying this is not enough ?
I'm guessing you have your terms & conditions of employment to hand, and on-call/overtime requirements are spelled out in there? If the new requirements are above & beyond what you signed up for, you can tell them to stuff it.
Every so often my company issues a new company handbook which (allegedly) "forms part of your T&C". Every time, I write back to HR and point out that I still have the original handbook that went with my T&C when I started and therefore I'll be abiding by that version and not the new one. Shuts 'em up nice & quickly, that does.
Every so often my company issues a new company handbook which (allegedly) "forms part of your T&C". Every time, I write back to HR and point out that I still have the original handbook that went with my T&C when I started and therefore I'll be abiding by that version and not the new one. Shuts 'em up nice & quickly, that does.
They can change any part of your t&c (as long as they stay within employment law obviously) as long as they give enough notice. This could include reducing pay, longer hours, changing place of work, making you redundant, or making you 'on call'... the notice depends on length of employment to a max of 12 weeks. 'over a barrel' springs to mind don't it?
adove said:
They can change any part of your t&c (as long as they stay within employment law obviously) as long as they give enough notice. This could include reducing pay, longer hours, changing place of work, making you redundant, or making you 'on call'... the notice depends on length of employment to a max of 12 weeks. 'over a barrel' springs to mind don't it?
Over a barrel ? It depends on your circumstances. If they tried this at my work I'd tell them to stuff it up their arse then I'd sit back and see what happened.
adove said:
They can change any part of your t&c (as long as they stay within employment law obviously) as long as they give enough notice. This could include reducing pay, longer hours, changing place of work, making you redundant, or making you 'on call'... the notice depends on length of employment to a max of 12 weeks. 'over a barrel' springs to mind don't it?
Surely that can't be right? Otherwise every employer would try to attract the top talent by offering £1m pa salary & 150 days holiday and then change the T&C the day after they start?
adove said:They can change any part of your t&c (as long as they stay within employment law obviously) as long as they give enough notice. This could include reducing pay, longer hours, changing place of work, making you redundant, or making you 'on call'... the notice depends on length of employment to a max of 12 weeks. 'over a barrel' springs to mind don't it?
Surely that can't be right? Otherwise every employer would try to attract the top talent by offering £1m pa salary & 150 days holiday and then change the T&C the day after they start?
Surely that can't be right? Otherwise every employer would try to attract the top talent by offering £1m pa salary & 150 days holiday and then change the T&C the day after they start?
I clearly can't do the 'quote' thing but in reply to pdv6:
I am just illustrating what position cool blue is in according to the letter of the law. In reality (we would like to think), employers use the law reasonably to get what they need from their workforce. And if you try and pull a stunt as you describe, you lose the employee.
When it comes down to deciding whether to accept extra responsibilties its up to each individual, delegation of colleagues, or trade union to negotiate the best recompense they can for the change in t&c.
I am just illustrating what position cool blue is in according to the letter of the law. In reality (we would like to think), employers use the law reasonably to get what they need from their workforce. And if you try and pull a stunt as you describe, you lose the employee.
When it comes down to deciding whether to accept extra responsibilties its up to each individual, delegation of colleagues, or trade union to negotiate the best recompense they can for the change in t&c.
This seems strange as our company got done for forcing people (with the threat of unpaid redundancy) to sign a new contract so that they could bring in new T&C's.
It didn't work and they ended up paying lots more (i.e. £100k+ per person for 150 people) than they would have had to if they had just relented on the new contract - and they lost a lot of their top staff at the same time.
All it was around was the new classification of 'home office' in the contract and there was an actual increase in the company car allowance to help offset the new tax rules on company cars. Most would have lost no more than £1k a year - if they didn't have a company car, and probably saved £5k a year in tax if they did take the company car.
It didn't work and they ended up paying lots more (i.e. £100k+ per person for 150 people) than they would have had to if they had just relented on the new contract - and they lost a lot of their top staff at the same time.
All it was around was the new classification of 'home office' in the contract and there was an actual increase in the company car allowance to help offset the new tax rules on company cars. Most would have lost no more than £1k a year - if they didn't have a company car, and probably saved £5k a year in tax if they did take the company car.
adove said:
I clearly can't do the 'quote' thing but in reply to pdv6:
I am just illustrating what position cool blue is in according to the letter of the law. In reality (we would like to think), employers use the law reasonably to get what they need from their workforce. And if you try and pull a stunt as you describe, you lose the employee.
When it comes down to deciding whether to accept extra responsibilties its up to each individual, delegation of colleagues, or trade union to negotiate the best recompense they can for the change in t&c.
That just cannot be correct. If it were, why would anyone ever be made redundant. i.e we don't want to pay redundancy pay, so instead we've decreased your salary from 50k/yr to 10k/yr. The employee would obviously leave and thus save the employer the redundancy.
adove said:
They can change any part of your t&c (as long as they stay within employment law obviously) as long as they give enough notice. This could include reducing pay, longer hours, changing place of work, making you redundant, or making you 'on call'... the notice depends on length of employment to a max of 12 weeks. 'over a barrel' springs to mind don't it?
This is not correct. If you accept the changes by either saying it's OK, or by deed or action, or by not complaining then they are accepted. If you refuse to accept them by complaining or saying 'No Way' then they are not enforceable. Usually the employer will offer something for this kind of change and you can accept, refuse or negotiate.
In terms of the original question, for comparison purposes:
I'm a Senior Technical Engineer in a regional IT team for a large outsourcer.
I'm paid £27.50 per day for 24h on call with £50 for a callout over 20 mins, then £50 every hour thereafter. I wouldn't want to do it for much less.
I'm a Senior Technical Engineer in a regional IT team for a large outsourcer.
I'm paid £27.50 per day for 24h on call with £50 for a callout over 20 mins, then £50 every hour thereafter. I wouldn't want to do it for much less.
DJ - dead right, and he would sue them for constructive dismissal, and win, so they wouldn't even try it in the first place.
kevinday - your last line sums it up.
anyway cool blue, in the weeks since this thread started, i hope you have managed to get yourself a decent deal for the extra workload - otherwise - what r we all slogging our guts out for eh!?
kevinday - your last line sums it up.
anyway cool blue, in the weeks since this thread started, i hope you have managed to get yourself a decent deal for the extra workload - otherwise - what r we all slogging our guts out for eh!?
As another comparison, I get £1.20 per hour weekday, £1.80 weekend and £2.40 on bank holidays for the standby rate (roughly works out as £185 per week gross). It's then 1 hour overtime (time and a third) for the first hour (even if it's just a 5 minute phone call) and then goes to half hour intervals after that (at the same rate).
We also then get sleep time, so you paid your normal rate for not going into work. This is based on eight hours sleep after you finish working.
I have to say in the last year, it's been worth about 25% extra for me, which in my eyes is well worth doing.
Rich.
We also then get sleep time, so you paid your normal rate for not going into work. This is based on eight hours sleep after you finish working.
I have to say in the last year, it's been worth about 25% extra for me, which in my eyes is well worth doing.
Rich.
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