to refuse to work for free

[HardWorkerNotAFool]

For every minute I work outside of 9.30am to 6.00pm, I consider myself working for free. For every lunch break I spend huddled in front of my pc whilst my stomach growls painfully or heaves from the nastiness that is a hurried down store-bought sandwich, I am working for free. And you know what? I fucking resent it!

Discuss.

Can we discuss demands to discuss first? I hate that.

But you have a point about working for free. I think whether you have a right to complain about that or not depends on how much you earn. If you earn a pittance, like I do, then it is easy to resent it. Personally, the work I do for free is done because I like my job and I like my colleagues, so I don't mind. I'm not forced to do it which makes a big difference, because I know I I'm doing it through choice.

In professions that command a high or reasonably high wage, I think you have less right to complain. You get paid to do a job, and I think employees should be as flexible as they would like their employers to be.

I used to resent it too. Now I get paid for every minute I work and it's great.

What counts as a "high" or "reasonably high" wage?

My contract states my hours are 9am-5pm with an (unpaid) hour for lunch. However, I am considered to be late if I arrive after 7.30am and leaving early if I go before 6pm, as for taking an hour for lunch? Not a chance, we have a sandwich shop on the trading floor so we don't have to leave to get lunch. However, I'm an investment banker with a salary to match, I knew this was they way it would be when I took the job 15 years ago, so I don't resent it at all. There was much muttering about working to rule when we stopped getting bonuses, but in reality we are all still so grateful to have a job, when so many peers have been made redundant we have all continued working at least 7.30am - 6pm.

Would an employer get away with putting in a contract "I pay you x, therefore you are required to be at the office whenever I want you to. If this requires you to be at the office for 96 hours (or more!) straight or more with no more than a couple of hours' sleep a day at your desk or a work-provided bed, then so be it. As I pay you a 'high'/'reasonably high' wage of x, you are not allowed to complain!"

At what wage can an employer's unreasonable demands be said to be totally reasonable? Who's willing to put a price/figure to that?

Genuinely interested, by the way. This may inform how I choose to treat staff in my future company

Why doesn't the employer then detail your genuine required working hours in your contract?

I work in Higher Education. My contract states I have to do the hours required to fulfill my role, but I'll be remunerated to 35 hours per week. I'm lucky if I manage to get away with 50. It's just the way it is.... But, I am pretty senior, and it's what I do.

When I was a strategy consultant there was a clause in my contract which said pretty much that. It was a recognised part of the job.

So it depends if you go in to it knowing that, and are compensated by high wages, or whether your company are arseholes who take the piss as to whether I would resent it or not.

I don't resent it, it comes with the job, I consider myself lucky if I do less than 2 hours of unpaid overtime a day.
Nursing is not a 9-5 job and a bad job for clock watchers. I do try to make sure that junior staff get their time back but they don't get paid overtime.

My boss works 7-8 from what I can tell and I work 9-5. I have a child who I like to see sometimes. Working long hours is a choice IMO. Before I had my child I worked longer hours but did the same amount of work. I have a job to do and I do it.

IMO, you're paid to do a job so if that means coming in early or staying a bit late every so often, then that's the rub of the green.

Clock-watching isn't something I've done apart from when I was at school and had a saturday job on the back door at a local sainsbury's. But that was only so I could meet my mates in the pub and spend most of the money I'd just earned!

I think for us, it's to do with the working hours directive, although we were all told we had to opt out of it to keep our jobs anyway. Our contract is worded something along the lines of 9am - 5pm, or whatever hours are required by the business. But for me, it really not an issue at all, I like my job, I am well paid for doing it and it's what I have always done so there is probably an element of not knowing any different. They are also very flexible in terms of needing to take a half day off if one of the children is ill and I get 'the call' from nursery for example, so it is swings and roundabouts.

The irony is that if you refuse to opt out of the WTD/WTR and they fire you because of or for reasons relating to it, I think that counts as an automatic unfair dismissal simply because you chose to assert a statutory right (employment lawyers, do correct me if I'm wrong!)

Then again, given the maximum award for UD that doesn't involve a discriminatory element, it may still be worth people's while to remain slaves to their wages ... (again, employment lawyers, correct me if I'm wrong!)

I couldn't do my job in my contracted hours (35). I tend to work 50-55 hours a week. I'm a teacher (primary).

Again, no one has actually detailed a wage at which it's acceptable. Short of asking people to reveal what they earn, I shall continue to hazard guesses ...

I don't think you can refuse to work them really if your contract states your basic hours alongside "and any extra hours required to fulfill your role".

I resented it wildly at my last job where I wasn't paid enough to support myself properly. There were a lot of things I hated about that particular job.

There is no doubt that being told you would lose your job if you didn't opt out was unfair, but the nature of the industry (for me) means that once I had lost my job and been awarded a relatively small sum of money (in comparison to say 15 years wages), I would still need to find a job in investment banking. The working hours are the same industry wide so I'd still be working the samre hours regardless.

I get paid by the hour (just over min wage), I rarely work more than I'm paid for. When I had a salaried job, I worked longer.

However, the more flexible my employers are, the more flexible I am.

When i work unpaid overtime i have to pay my nanny overtime, so i am paying to work

It's very hard to give a definite figure of where it's acceptable. Obviously it will be different for different people anyway, but it depends on the nature of the job and how much extra time is expected.

If we are talking a couple of extra hours each day and more if necessary, I'd think a wage needs to be at least £50k. If we are talking someone on NMW, then I think it's acceptable to expect them to stay for an extra half hour if needed on the odd occasion.

The friends I have who work in the City regularly aren't home until 9/10pm most nights and they are in before 8 every morning. But if I need to call them they are nearly always available to talk, they all seem to answer personal emails almost straight away, and I know they are able to organise a lot of their own personal things from work. Whereas I, in my current job which doesn't pay much more than MW, barely get time to go to the toilet when I'm at work, let alone make a cup of tea, but then I'm free to leave on the dot every day.

Different jobs come with different expectations.

I don't mind working over to meet a deadline as long as I feel properly appreciated. That's what happens where I work - no bonuses as we are public sector, but there are always little things - like being singled out for praise in team meetings, finding flowers or a thank-you card on your desk that I know my line manager has paid for out of her own pocket.

In a previous job I'd routinely work 45 hours per week and was taken completely for granted, so once the DCs came along that was an end of that.

Someone (was it on here?) once said that working for free was the difference between a career and a job.
I think that is possibly true. I have previously worked between 50 - 120 hours per week when I was paid for 39. However, that was a willing stepping stone to where I am now.
I now am paid (very well) for a 48 hour week when in actual fact I do anywhere from 40 - 90.

At least 50k, really? I accepted it at 25ish, but then I was an academic so it's expected.
I shouldn't think that many teachers are getting more than 50 though, and I don't know how you'd do that job without working the extra hours.

If the job was one of those NMW ones where you're lucky if you get a chance to go to the loo and you could get sacked for looking at personal emails, even expecting half an hour unpaid is taking the piss IMO.

I think you're right pointy, it's about appreciation whether that is shown financially or from colleagues/patients.

I'm in the NHS and have some times when I can leave on time and others when I am dramatically late.

YANBU to not want to work more than your contracted hours.

You just won't climb the career ladder as someone who is (all other things being equal, or nearly equal).

That's the trade off I guess.