Can anyone advice on legality of offering employee fewer hours than contracted for?

[DaisyMooSteiner]

I accepted a job in the NHS to start after Christmas, working 3 nights a week (about 28 hours). I was advised that for the first couple of weeks I would be doing training and would have to work full time in the day. When my work rota arrived after this first 2 weeks period I have then been allocated for three 8 hour daytime shifts a week, for another 4 weeks, which taking into account unpaid breaks is considerably less than 28 hours.

I'm unhappy on 2 points:

1. That I'm being required to work days for 4 weeks, when the job I was offered and accepted was working nights. The pay is considerably less when working days.
   
   
2. I'm being given fewer hours than I was offered, which means less money again.
   
   Do I have any legal right to be given the full number of hours that I was offered? And as they job I've been offered was nights, can I insist on working nights rather than days?
   
   Many thanks.

[flowerybeanbag]

What does your contract say about hours?

Your contract can't be varied without your consent, so if it says specifically those hours and doesn't provide for any variation, you could technically refuse.

But you have virtually no employment rights until you've been working there a year, so in practical terms, you can 'insist' on what you like, but if they sack you for refusing to accept the hours they are specifying, you don't have a lot of recourse unless you feel it's some type of discrimination.

I would be surprised if your contract doesn't contain anything about hours variation, and the fact that you need to look at a work rota to see when you are working implies that as well.

[DaisyMooSteiner]

Thanks for replying Flowery. I haven't actually got a contract yet (that's one of the things I'm supposed to be doing in my first week!), I'm just going on the offer letter which states my hours and the fact that it's nights.

I'll have a chat with them though and see what they say.