Overtime and unsocial hours, help please.

[saintpeter48]

Hello all, I would be very grateful of any advice to the following. My wife has worked for a cleaning company for 5 months now, quite a big company, they are contracted to clean Tesco, my problem is that she works 40 plus hours a week starting at 5 oclock 6 days a week for �5.35 a hour, she does not get any overtime or unsocial hours rate and with the coming Easter holiday me thinks she'll have to work for normal time even though it is a bank holiday. They never gave her a contract at the start so I cannot check the details. My wife is not British and doesn't want to, and finds it difficult to speak to her immediate supervisor about this. I don't really want to rock the boat for fear of her losing her job, which by the way she does enjoy and waited a long time to get. I feel that this is just exploiting the very low paid and want to speak to someone about it, is there any law regarding overtime rates or was that lost with the unions back in the '80's!!any advice please. PS. she is working today from 5 morning til 5 this afternoon, about �60 for 12 hours, bloody scandalous!!! thanks for any help on this. Regards Pete

[Buenchico]

There is no legal requirement to pay a higher rate for overtime than for for normal working hours. As long as hourly rate meets the requirements of the National Minimum Wage (currently �5.35 per hour for employees aged 22 and over) the law is satisfied. (In my last job, within the rail industry, it was standard practice that staff received the same rate for all hours worked, whether or not overtime was involved. Up until recently, junior hospital doctors only received one third of their normal pay rate while working overtime i.e. their pay was much lower than normal during overtime).

Public holidays have no special status within employment law. If a public holiday falls on a day when an employee would normally be at work, the employer has the right to expect the employee to work at their normal pay rate. (When I worked on the railways, public holidays were always worked at the usual pay rate. I've previously done bar work, on Christmas Day, at the regular pay rate).

All employees have a contract with their employer. This automatically comes into existence as soon as the employee accepts the job offer. However, employers are also obliged to provide employees with a written 'statement of employment particulars' within two months of the commencement of the employment.

Full information about employment rights (together with guidance upon appropriate action if these rights are breached) can be found here:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employe es/index.htm

Chris

[Stu Dent]

As Chris has rightly stated, there is no requirement on the employer to pay employees enhanced rates of pay at various days or times (unless of course, they are contracted to do so). Neither is the employer required to pay the employee for time spent on rest/meal breaks - very wrongly in my opinion.

Therefore the cleaning company appear to 'limbo-dance' below the bar of illegality regarding the minimum wage. But I would question though, is that the employer may be in breach of the European Working-Time regulations - unless she has agreed to waive her rights. I think the regulations is that employees should work no more than an AVERAGE of 48 hours per week within a timescale I cannot recall - let's say three months for the sake of argument though.

If your wife has been working 60 hours per week, I would say that it's very likely this directive is being breached. What can she do though? Not a lot for herself personally I'm afraid - other than cut her hours, and consequently, her pay.

I strongly sympathise with you both though - and you sound very much like a husband who genuinely cares for his wife. Long hours to get a reasonable pay clearly means that couples/families get less time to spend quality time together, and that's harmful to society as a whole.

[saintpeter48]

thankyou very much both of you, very sound advice. looks like i'll just have to carry on getting up at 4 to take her to her poorly paid job and just bite my tongue and say nothing. by the way, there are 6 others who work with her, all non british, her supervisor tells me that they can't get brits to do the job, methinks that majority of young brits don't want to get off their arses for 5.35 an hour but rather churn ou babys and claim off the social!! there are jobs out there like these but only non brits get to do them,very wrong i think, stop the social payments tomorrow and they'll all want, ney, HAVE to work!! time to get off my soap box now!