To contact dds work?

[Isadora2007]

Dd1 is 16. Still at school but recently got a waitressing job at local hotel. She has worked three shifts - well four if you count the first 6 hour "trial" shift for which she won't get paid (her staggering £3.80 an hour) for.
Anyway. Yesterday she came home from a 2-8pm shift at 8.45 (ten minute walk home) knackered and a bit tearful. She hadn't had a break and hadn't felt able to ask as "no one else had a break".
Aibu to call her work and ask about breaks? She thinks they will sack her if I do. I think they're breaking the law as I believe 16-18 yr olds are required to have a half hour break every 4.5 hours of work.
Help... I'm really not usually an interfering mum but my mama bear instincts are kicking in as I think it's so wrong to pay crap wages and take advantage of young workers like this. (But I realise I may be overreacting)

What does your daughter want you to do? Personally I wouldn't. My mum did this with my brother and he's now nearly 30 and she still has to because she didn't give him the opportunity to develop coping mechanisms

I don't think you should call but I think you should explain to her about her breaks and tell her to ask her manager about it.

Seriously?? No. Obviously. As a PP has said, if she's old enough to be working then she'd old enough to deal with this (or learn how to deal with it) herself. You can help her with that - assertiveness, how to phrase it, etc. The company has absolutely no reason to talk with you about how they treat any of their staff, and in any case what do you really think you might achieve by contacting them?

I can't believe that anyone would think this appropriate tbh...

Re involving ACAS etc - the law provides protections when the relationship between employer and employee have really broken down. In this case, she hasn't spoken with them seriously about the breaks but if she is seriously thinking of going down this road, then I'd suggest that it's probably best that she gets another job. Retail roles tend to have more fixed breaks.

If you changed the word 'work' for 'school' here, there would be uproar and calls for the head teacher to be sacked. The kid is 16, in a first job and naive. If the op phones all bright and breezy, apologies for disturbing but says she needs to have a face to face chat with her kid and wondered when her break would be. If she is told that her dd won't be having one she can play dumb 'oh, but on a 6 hours shift it's a legal requirement?'.

Don't call on her behalf. Part of being within the working world is learning how to be assertive and to manage these sorts of problems yourself.

She needs to approach her manager and politely ask about break times.

With regards to the rota, being scheduled to work over the Christmas period should not have come as a surprise given that she's working in catering and hospitality. Split shifts and back-to-backs are not uncommon during busy times. Again this comes down to learning to be assertive, but it is unrealistic to be upset about being rota'd to work two of the busiest days of the year.

DJBaggySmalls - are you serious about getting ACAS involved?! I'd assume you were being sarcastic if you hadn't included so much information in your post!?

She's a part-time 16 year old waitress who has worked 4 shifts and has yet to raise the issue herself - do you really think that getting ACAS involved is appropriate or would lead to a positive result? Completely disproportionate.

Agree with others that she'll be laughed out of the door if OP gets involved. The girl just needs to be encouraged to ask about breaks in the first instance.

Rightly or wrongly though, if she wants a job where she knows exactly when her break will be and that it will be uninterrupted, catering probably isn't for her.

It's great that she wants to earn, but at this point in her life, should those hours not be spent studying for exams?

Ringing her work won't help, because they are clearly heavily invested in routinely exploiting young workers. If your daughter doesn't HAVE to do this, then don't let her.

Great idea Whatsername17, because the employer will never twig that challenging them about breaks was the sole intention of the phone call..

I've waited on and worked in the kitchens for well over a decade in loads of different restaurants and hotels and have never had a break, not even when, at 16 I worked 9am - midnight on NYE. Not even a toilet break (which was easy enough because I hadn't eaten or drank a thing that day!)
Apparently my parents had called multiple times trying to find out where I was and my boss kept telling them "She said she'll call you back". I could barely walk home that night. He was a dick.

Working a 6-10 hour shift without a break seems to be the norm in the hospitality and catering industry, particularly for chefs. It seems to be one industry where labour laws are completely ignored in certain areas except perhaps in large chains.

I wouldn't call about a break within a short 6 hour shift but I would tell my daughter to request one. For longer shifts I would call on my daughter's behalf of they refuse her a break.

No you should not become involved. She'd look like a 2year old. Six hours no break for a 16 year old is hardly the end of the world. Tell her if she doesn't like it to find another job.

Life n this kind of industry at Christmas time, I'm afraid. I was working in the same industry doing 12 hour shifts I break up until fairly recently over xmas. Unfortunately the attitude is if you don't like it you are replaceable!
I would never asked for a break after 6 hours, sadly we are all too replaceable with so many people looking for work!

You can encourage her to stand up for herself and explain her rights to her, but absolutely do not contact her employer! If she is old enough to have a job, she should be old enough to deal with any issues arising from that job, without needing her mother to do it for her! You can guide and advise but she needs to do it herself.

I have to add that if calling, asking when her break is, is a better way that calling to demand breaks.

If your dc is old enough to work they are old enough to deal with work themselves.

Exactly.

I did shifts longer than that without a break at 14. I would have killed my mum if she'd intervened.

I don't want to be all 'down the coal mines when I was a young-un' about it, but really. That was only a generation ago.

Do not ring her work

She's only just started, they would easily find a reason to let her go and hire someone who's mother doesn't interfere

She needs to speak to the manager herself.

And as for Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, she's a new stater in an industry busy over Christmas, she should expect to work both days.

Give support, advice and hugs. Same thing happened to a DGD. Mum, wisely left it to her DD. It's a good learning experience in so many ways.

Mmmm. Dont call but help daughter ask about a break. I have worked in hospitality (hotels, fast food and pub) and never not had a break in long shifts.

However, working Xmas eve and Xmas day is the norm so that needs to be thought about as it would be that, rather than asking for a break, that would probably annoy a manager more.

I worked in a pub/restaurant at the same age. And also a burger chain and a pizza hut.

She doesn't need to work. But don't underestimate the benefits of it on her CV. I got a job in a bank at 18 despite others applying with better A level results purely because of the work in crappy part time jobs. The woman who interviewed me had worked in hospitality so knew the slog it was and I had sales results from the burger place and team leader skills including cashing up from the pizza place.

It's 6 hours. It will be uncomfortable for her. It isn't the end of the world. She needs to speak up if she needs the loo in a way that doesn't leave her supervisor to say no. 'I am just finishing this service then I need the loo'. Tell her to leave a bottle of lucozade or something in her bag. No one is going to stop a 16 year old girl taking a bag to the loo. She can have a drink, a wee and crack on with the rest of her shift.

And if she did take a break they don't have to pay her through it so she would be at work for less pay!

No don't call on her behalf, at best you will be told what you want to hear and nothing will change in practice.

Coach her to stand up for herself properly. I would teach her to wait for a lull in service then tell her manager she's off for a drink/toilet/food break. For that approach to work she needs to be sensible about recognising the opportunity to flit off. If that doesn't work then she needs a proper conversation with her boss. It may be it'll mark her card, so she needs to assess whether she wants this particular job or the breaks.

On the plus side Christmas/boxing Day tips should be amazing.

Hospitality can be great fun, it's really hard work but honestly it's massively character building and teaches you loads about colleague/customer relations (good and bad). Don't take the experience away from her.

At her age, I worked on a check out in the store where 'every little helps'.

My hours were 5-8pm. They insisted I had to stay until 8.20 to cash up my till.

There were some my age, there were also a lot of mothers who had young children and really needed the hours to fit around their husbands/partners working hours.

I spoke up and actually got up twice at 8 pm to leave.Then they got it authorised for us all to be paid until 8.20, when we all had to work until.

The women who needed the job were especially grateful that I spoke up!

I would not have appreciated my Mum interfering though, I was proud I managed to sort it myself.

Please stay out of this. She needs to negotiate the working world for herself.

And there's a lesson here that's important. The nice, clean legalities don't always pan out in the real world.

I would absolutely advise her being assertive and asking about her breaks. But she must also understand that management may or may not be reasonable. They'll find a way to get rid of her if that's what they deem the easiest way forward. She's only been there a wet week.

If the realities of catering are not for her, she needs to think about alternatives. My experience of retail is that it's a bit more 'by the book' on this one.

And she must work this out for herself - otherwise are you planning to stay involved for the rest of her career?

When she's working for Accenture are you going to call them up and say 'excuse me, she's only contracted for a 37.5 hour week?' when they're demanding copious (unpaid) overtime. That won't go down well.

Do her a big favour and step back.

I wonder if uoure daughter works at the same place mine did. No don't call, she has to sort it or look for a new job. Sadly I think a lot of employers do this , they just take advantage of young kids, low wages, no breaks, minimal oversight or thought.

It's very wrong, but they will either just give you platitudes or they will fire her and not write her in for any more shifts.

My daughter ended up telling hers not to bother writing her in for any more shifts, they were working her like a dog and she was coming home in tears, but what was worse the owners had left a 19 year old boy in charge of the waiting staff, by virtue of him being there the longest, and he did sod all whilst ordering them about rudely, telling the owners would have been useless as they needed him and he knew it. I left her to make the decision and I actually think she made the right one. They have a huge staff turnover in kids, most of them stay about two weeks. Very bad situation.

She's not an adult and as a parent who is responsible for a minor, you do have the duty to do something about what is from a legal POV child exploitation - though phoning her workplace may not be the best way of handling it.

Talk to her about her legal rights and how to enforce them. Encourage her to join a union. Speak to ACAS yourself if the employer is breaking the law. And if the lack of breaks mean that she is being paid less than the minimum wage, then report the employer to HMRC.

It doesn't matter if they 'twig' - they can't sack her for it and more than I could be sacked if dh did the same at my work.