Work want to increase hours but will mean losing disability support

[gladyspips]

I currently work 4 days a week, work want me to go up to 5.

Normally I'd say yes no problem, but I spend 3 hours on my day off learning BSL as I am hearing impaired - they do know about my hearing, it's been officially recorded with HR.

Can they make me increase my hours and miss the class?

Is there a reason why you cannot do the learning outside of work time? Having said that, if you have A 4 day contract, I don't think any employer can force you to increase hours.

Only that the class that I've been going to is run during the day! I'm sure there may be others, but I chose that one as it was on my day off!

Would they let you do that during work hours as a compromise?

Completely unrelated to your question but just make sure you really want to do 5 days a week, a couple of my colleagues have gone from 4 to 5 and really regret it!

It is largely irrelevant what you do on your day off. An employer cannot unilaterally change an employees contract. So if you don’t want to do it say no.

As a PP said, make sure you REALLY want the extra day at work. I have regretted this in the past as I really cherished that one day totally to myself, and didn't realise just how much until I'd been doing 5 days a week! It's much harder (IMO) to request to drop back to the 4 days if you do regret it. They cannot force you to take on an additional day. It also seems a shame to miss out on the vital class and have to join a different one (will you fancy going of an evening or weekend after a 5 day week?). The extra money doesn't always make up for the change to your work/life balance I don't think.