AWBU - or are DH employers?

[MrsWarleggan]

DH took an "anything is better than nothing" job after losing his job at the beginning of 2nd lockdown.

Hours set 9.30-6.00. He does overtime everyday finishing at around 8.30. Whilst the hours aren't great it means that I can go into work earlier get all my hours done for school pick up and DH is around in the morning to do drop offs.There is another guy who does and earlier shift about 4.00-3.00ish.

His bosses have come down this morning and said its costing too much money having you work the shifts you are at the moment so we are going to have two permanent shifts. 6-4 and 2-10 and you will work them alternately. Oh and by the way this starts next week.

In DH interview there was no discussion about shifts possibly changing, these were the hours, job done.

The change in shifts will impact us massively, I won't be in the office long enough to complete my hours so will have to work from home in the evenings to complete them and we will incur a significant raise in childcare costs for breakfast and after school clubs which at the moment we can't afford for his early shifts.

Infuriatingly DH has a history of throwing his toys out the pram work wise: "I don't want to do it, end of" it's pointless having a conversation with him about it because he gets pissed off as soon as I say they don't give a shit about you personally, don't care about childcare, they are paying you to do a job and run a business.

I've told him we will just have to suck it up for now and he will just have to look for another job...... That wasn't good enough for him because...."I don't want to do it, its not what I've signed up for"

Can his employer just turn round and make significant shift pattern changes without consultation?

Will he get a shift allowance for working unsociable hours?

Then op he’s going to have to start looking for another job immediately and suck it up till then. Your op really gave the impression he’d refuse to do it, and refusing to do it only involves effectively resigning, even if that means forcing them to fire him.

@MrsWarleggan

By him agreeing to do the later shift in effectively wipes out any option of overtime. IWhilst yes, overtime is a privilege and not a guarantee it sticks in his throat that others will have the ability to do it and not him.

I also think there is going to be a major H&S aspect as on the later shift (past 8pm) he would be the only person in the building. He's an engineer using machinery.
He is going to have

If I were running a business and were routinely paying overtime because I did not have staff contracted hours for the times I needed them, then I would also look at my staff working hours, basic business decision. I

I don’t understand who are these “others” that have the ability to do overtime though, it sounds like there are only two employees involved.

To the question of changing shifts, I can see no argument that can be made it here. Even if there were not sufficient flexibility in the contract, with short tenure, all they need to do is terminate the employment and rehire on the working hours basis that is required. And if they had been there over two years, they could do similar but go through redundancy process.

Talk to his colleague and come up with an alternative proposal.

Talk to H&S rep in the workplace about lone working.

I presume the alternation is by the week, as they are entitled to 11 hours off between shifts?

My DH is an engineer working on large machines on the 2-10 shift. When the company was going through some tough times, there was only him and one other worker for a few months. DH had little to do at that time as it was the others guys parts production that was needed to fulfill a very important contract. DH was only there because of the no working alone rule and he was also a qualified first aider

If one had to leave for an emergency, the other one also had to leave. Management stipulated that nobody is allowed to work alone, ever. There also has to be a first aider on shift at all times or everyone gets sent home or has to switch shifts temporarily if they know in advance.

While not illegal to work alone as such, an employer does have the legal obligation to look after their employees health and safety while at work. In the case of heavy machinery use it would be all hell to pay if a lone worker had an accident and there was no one else there to switch the machine off and call 999 so most companies wouldn't do it. On top of that, the companies insurers wouldn't pay out either if health and safety had been willfully ignored.

DH's place has also had to do hours changes of various employees and have always sought the signed agreement of its workers before making the changes. I am not sure if that was requirement or courtesy though.

Well technically it’s a breach of contract if hours are set in the contract.

However as he hasn’t been there for two full years, they will probably choose to sack him if he refuses to work the new hours.

It’s crap, but that’s how it is.

Wait until you have your home purchased, then find a new job and quit.

Thanks all for your advice. Really helpful and what I suspected. Suck it up and get a new job.

@Aprilx there are two people that run this particular machine. They are the only ones subject to the hours change. For instance the guys that supply the materials for DH's work (in the same warehouse) work standard 8-5 and overtime if they want it. DH has said well if I'm working until 10 surely I will need a constant stream of material so they would then have to have a shift change. They didn't have an answer to that. 🤷‍♀️

The safety - working on machines alone - angle sounds like the only hope of negotiating better arrangements.