In the last year or so, the charity associated with the shop I volunteer in has become much more stringent on the issue of the shop remaining open all the time, even when staff shortages make this difficult or impossible without our manager giving up her time off to come in and cover without extra pay.
Our shop has a paid (FT) manager and a paid (PT) deputy manager. The rest of the staff are all volunteers.
Neither of the managers work on the Sunday, so the shop is staffed entirely by volunteers on that day. It's the only full day off that our manager gets, as her working hours cover the other six days.
In the past, if not enough of the Sunday volunteers could come, the shop just wouldn't open that time. But according to what our manager says, she is now being told that if a suitable number of the volunteers cannot show up on Sunday, she needs to come in herself to provide cover, if other members of staff can't/won't. The (non-Sunday) volunteers are usually unable or unwilling to work on a Sunday, so it ends up falling to our manager.
This Sunday, for example - two of the (four Sunday) volunteers are unable to be there. I can be there, but our fourth Sunday volunteer does not arrive until between 1-1.30 pm. The shop opens shortly after 11 and health and safety rules dictate that staff are not allowed to be alone in the shop when it's open to the public. The manager has been told that she is expected to come in and cover.
I am 100% sure that she will not be paid for these additional hours; from what has been said, it's typically expected that additional cover is done unpaid. I think the charity works around it by offering time off in lieu, so as not to be in conflict with the law, but due to the complexity of rota staffing when the majority of staff are volunteers (and thus can have as much time off as they want, for any reason) I think our manager finds it quite tricky to take all of her leave.
If the above was just a one-off, I don't think it would matter, but whilst those of us who volunteer on Sunday do our best to be there as much as possible, there are times when other things conflict and take precedence. Last Sunday, I myself did not come in because my mother and I were looking after my nephews for the day. One of my colleagues has a partner with fragile health and she sometimes has to arrange for him to go to the hospital at short notice. So there are times when, for a multitude of reasons, not enough of us can show up at the same time to ensure that the shop is adequately covered throughout the day.
In the past, it was just accepted that the shop would not open for that day if enough of us could not make it. But like I say, in recent times, the charity has become less understanding/tolerant of this and are more or less insisting that our manager come in to provide the cover instead.
My view is that - given the majority of staff are volunteers, with the freedom to have time off whenever - that expecting the shop to always remain open isn't realistic or fair. We're not a 'typical' retail business in that respect, because most of us are unpaid.
Considering that the only day off our manager gets is the Sunday, I think it is unfair to expect/demand that she always cover, especially for no pay.