[News] As an employer this made me chuckle

[Lenny Rider]

She was sacked 2 days after raising the issue in a meeting with her employer.

The issues raised were, working hours, unpaid commission, Statutory working hours and stress.
If she was well informed, she will have raised the fact that her working hours exceeded 48 hrs per week on average over a 17 week period.

My guess is that she was working well over those hours and being under-remunerated for it.
She called a meeting to discuss it,
The stress aspect, may have been an attempt at leverage for increased pay or a legitimate wellbeing issue.

Either way, it's not ok to sack someone for raising a grievance,

Clearly not but as Icy Gull points out a disruptive member of staff in the camp is also not acceptable.

 

[Icy Gull]

Weird or efficient... depends on how you see it.

OK Adolf

 

[nwgull]

Is this a joke? 48 hours a week, every week, is ridiculous.

 

[The Clamp]

The longest a weekend is 48 hours long so are you saying you work the whole weekend.

Long weekend. Shift work. So that would be four shifts for us. Apologies, didn’t explain very well.

 

[Muhammad - I’m hard - Bruce Lee]

Click a link for the Daily Mail?

Nah, you're alright

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Long weekend. Shift work. So that would be four shifts for us. Apologies, didn’t explain very well.

I used to work 4 on 4 off 12 hours shifts as an aircraft engineer. With overtime when my daughter was first born and money very tight, I worked 21 days straight 12 hour days had 3 days off and a further 17 on. Looking back it was bloody dangerous not just for me but as I was working on aircraft

 

[Questions]

I’m self employed and have sacked myself twice for coming in drunk before.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

Clearly not but as Icy Gull points out a disruptive member of staff in the camp is also not acceptable.

Agreed, but there is no mention of any ongoing disruption in the article.
In fact she was rewarded with a bottle of champagne in the months leading up to the complaint.
Sacking her for performance issues after rewarding her performance, just shows that these employers are a bit dim (IMO).

If the employers had followed either a documented grievenace or performance management process, they would not have lost the case.

 

[The Clamp]

I used to work 4 on 4 off 12 hours shifts as an aircraft engineer. With overtime when my daughter was first born and money very tight, I worked 21 days straight 12 hour days had 3 days off and a further 17 on. Looking back it was bloody dangerous not just for me but as I was working on aircraft

That is risky but we have to do it sometimes. I regularly work 12 nights in row. 12 hour shifts and 15 hours at weekends I’m also supposed to do 4 on 4 off but always take overtime due to last year they cut our hours to modify day shift and night shift lost £300 a month overnight. Now instead of overtime being a nice bonus, I need it to make ends meet and put a bit away.
I lone work in a safe house for vulnerable women. It’s not ideal but our basic wage is low and I need to do it.
I’ll get the sack for moaning now

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

So many bits in OP's link that don't appear to make much sense. 48 hour weeks, sometimes working 12 hours without a break? First up, would be amazed if the right to a break on a 12 hour shift isn't enshrined in law. And 48 hours week divided by 12 hours would tend to suggest a 4 day working week. Or a 5 day working week with a few quite long working days interspersed with a few quite short working days. Story only seems to be half the story

 

[Uh_huh_him]

Is this a joke? 48 hours a week, every week, is ridiculous.

If she is claiming that the company were breaching the Working time directive, then it would have been in excess of an average of 48hrs every week over a 17 week period.


I seem to recall that employers can ask employees to sign a waiver to this.
This is normally for staff that have availability to overtime.

Pretty sure I signed this when i was a printer working 60 hour weeks frequently.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

So many bits in OP's link that don't appear to make much sense. 48 hour weeks, sometimes working 12 hours without a break? First up, would be amazed if the right to a break on a 12 hour shift isn't enshrined in law. And 48 hours week divided by 12 hours would tend to suggest a 4 day working week. Or a 5 day working week with a few quite long working days interspersed with a few quite short working days. Story only seems to be half the story

She doesn't claim she worked '48 hour weeks' though. She claims that she worked 'MORE THAN 48 hours per week'. Her case has been presented like that (with that specific wording) because 48 hours is a legal threshold.

 

[MattBackHome]

As per the last thread on the malingering pub skiver, the company should have called ACAS and filled in a few forms and there wouldn't be a case.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

So many bits in OP's link that don't appear to make much sense. 48 hour weeks, sometimes working 12 hours without a break? First up, would be amazed if the right to a break on a 12 hour shift isn't enshrined in law. And 48 hours week divided by 12 hours would tend to suggest a 4 day working week. Or a 5 day working week with a few quite long working days interspersed with a few quite short working days. Story only seems to be half the story

You don't expect facts from the Daily Mail, do you? Even Wikipedia refuse them as reference points.

Of course, the OP is fishing. It's his MO.

 

[zefarelly]

I used to work 4 on 4 off 12 hours shifts as an aircraft engineer. With overtime when my daughter was first born and money very tight, I worked 21 days straight 12 hour days had 3 days off and a further 17 on. Looking back it was bloody dangerous not just for me but as I was working on aircraft

I did something like that out in Romania on a refinery . . . totally agree its bloody dangerous, especially toward the end of a late shift, or a few times working all night on machinery . . . Romanian oil refineries are bloody dangerous at the best of times.

HAving wqorked for myself for 12 years and gone through periods of what felt like 24/7 I am SOOOO glad to be back in a 37.5hr office. Not strictly clock watching but professional and fair. We're far more productive that way.

 

[The Clamp]

So many bits in OP's link that don't appear to make much sense. 48 hour weeks, sometimes working 12 hours without a break? First up, would be amazed if the right to a break on a 12 hour shift isn't enshrined in law. And 48 hours week divided by 12 hours would tend to suggest a 4 day working week. Or a 5 day working week with a few quite long working days interspersed with a few quite short working days. Story only seems to be half the story

It’s odd. Odd that someone would let it go on so long they had to make a complaint. You have to set your stall out early. It’s good to be flexible but you have to have boundaries.
I don’t ask much from employers;
Pay me fairly
Say please and thank you
If you ask me to do something dangerous, I’ll probably say no.

Gotta let people know where you stand or they take the Mick. Especially in sleazy occupations like sales/estate agency.

 

[nwgull]

If she is claiming that the company were breaching the Working time directive, then it would have been in excess of an average of 48hrs every week over a 17 week period.


I seem to recall that employers can ask employees to sign a waiver to this.
This is normally for staff that have availability to overtime.

Pretty sure I signed this when i was a printer working 60 hour weeks frequently.

It wasn't the legal side, just the OP's implication that 48 hour weeks were somehow normal practice and that not wanting to do them was a bit slack.

 

[The Clamp]

She says she has some sort of problem with her payslip regarding sick pay. I dunno, I maybe way off the mark but I’m building up a picture of an office moaner with a bad sickness record. And someone who chooses to tell her story to the Daily Mail. Which means at the very least, she has questionable scruples.
But I’m very willing to say that I could be totally wrong. With only a Daily Mail article to work from, it’s hard to ascertain.

 

[The Clamp]

It wasn't the legal side, just the OP's implication that 48 hour weeks were somehow normal practice and that not wanting to do them was a bit slack.

In a commission based, high value sales job, a 48 hour week is a bit slack to be fair.

 

[amexer]

As an employer in sales there are many quite times. A great believer in staff working all hours when lots of work about and less including days off and going home early when nothing doing. In my experience it was never the successful ones that moaned about hours
In case mentioned doesnt look like they handled it well. Didnt help that employer said it was for poor performance and she gets up in court to say she was awarded a bottle of champagne