Help, contractual changes and DDA...

[emskaboo]

I'm posting this for my mum who works for a well known charity that has been asborbed into a larger charity. Her current contract under the old charity says she is 17.5 hours a week and that she doesn't have to work later than 10pm. My mum went part time due to illness (recognised disability) and her employers know this.

So they are proposing a change to the contract to allow midnight shifts and a rolling rota that will mean her working 14 hours one week and 20 hours another across every day of the week whereas at the moment she only works Mon, Wed and Thur. She's being really pressured to agree to these changes and is feeling unhappy. Can she refuse to change and will this mean they can sack her? She's come up with a comprimise that would mean her working 14 hours one week an 20 hours the next including covering her share of midnight shifts but would mean she worked three set days of the week, Mon, Wed Fri this wouldn't have a negative impact on anyone else, i.e. they wouldn't have to do more midnights or anything to cover her but her manager is being reluctant to agree to her proposal as it wouldn't be fair!

What should she do, can they make her change her contract?

Thank you very much.

[flowerybeanbag]

emskaboo see here about TUPE and terms and conditions being protected in the event of a takeover or similar.

See here about what to do if you don't accept a change to your terms and conditions.

As you can see there are lots of hoops an employer must jump through to make changes, they must consult, employees can refuse, if it comes to it the employer can terminate the contract and reemploy on the new terms, the employee can claim unfair dismissal but the claim is unlikely to succeed if there is a genuine business need to make those changes.

As I understand it, your mum seems fine with the changes to work later than 10pm, and the changes to number of hours, but what she doesn't want to do is work her hours over more than 3 days a week, is that right? I am assuming the compromise the has proposed is perfectly workable?

She should refuse to accept these changes, put this in writing together with details of the compromise she is prepared to accept, and if there is a medical reason she shouldn't work more than 3 days of the week (even doing the same hours) then she should make this clear.

Then her employer would be forced to terminate her contract to push the change through and given her disability and the fact that she has already compromised it would be very risky of them to do so.

Have other employees agreed to the changes?

[emskaboo]

Hi Flowery,

Thanks for that. None of the other staff have agreed yet, and some are saying they won't whereas others are scared about what will happen if they don't! My mum's comprimise is totally workable so hopefully if she writes to them as you've described they will agree to that.

Thanks again, so much.

[flowerybeanbag]

Does she have a union and are they involved emskaboo?

[emskaboo]

She's in a union but the workplace doesn't recognise them, she's contactedthe union for advice and is waiting for someone to get back to her, but she's upset so I thought I'd come on here and get some advice faster for her to try and make her feel better!

[flowerybeanbag]

Ok, hopefully they should be able to help her even though they aren't recognised as such.

[emskaboo]

Fingers crossed, and thanks again.