That DS hasn't done anything wrong not going to work

[valleymountain]

DS is 17 and works in a shop. He has specific set hours/days that he has to work as part of his contract. He has also provided his managers with his availability over and above the contracted hours he always works. This is provided on the shop's online staff portal.

DS was allocated a shift that fell on a non-contracted day and which fell outside of his availability. He messaged the manager who organises the rotas to tell them he would not be able to work the shift he had been given the following week as it was not on one of his contracted days and he had told them he was unavailable at the time of the shift.
The manager did not respond to his message, but DS decided that as he had now told them twice (by first providing his availability on the portal, and then in the message directly to the manager) that he would not be able to do the shift, he was within his rights not to go in for the shift. He is now worried he will be in trouble next time he is in work. AIBU that he hasn't done anything wrong? He has communicated his boundaries clearly and let them know he would not be able to do the shift with reasonable advance notice.

In principle, he's done nothing wrong but, in practice, there's some really bad employers so he could be in trouble.

I would have rang in to confirm I was not available when there was no reply to my email.
BUT it's the managers responsibility to check the staff are available before allocating shifts,not just putting names down and expecting people to just turn up.
Your son should not get in trouble.This is on the manager.🌈

He should have phoned when his message wasn't responded to but I wouldn't expect any real recourse as he's told them twice

He should have phoned.

DP used to work for a company where this happened fairly frequently. In his case it was just down to a crap manager who couldn't be bothered to remember people's contracted days or check if anyone had extra availability. Staff often ended up having to sort it out among themselves, and then the manager would complain when her printed rota had loads of annotations because it would make her look bad if a regional manager came in unexpectedly. If staff couldn't sort it out, their accepted approach was to message the manager and also the whole team group chat, so she couldn't claim it had been missed. They had quite a high turnover...

I would have phoned but yeah their fault for putting him on a day he's not contracted for.

They might not like it though. Their loss, he can find another job.

Like,others have said, when he didn't receive any acknowledgment to his message, it should have been followed up by him with a phone call confirming they were aware that he would not being doing it, for all the valid reasons set. So 50/50 if he's in 'trouble' has the date of the shift he said no already happened? If so and he didn't get a where are you call, it's crap communication from the boss who,should have acknowledged the message.