Is this legal?

[IHeartKingThistle]

Can a 17 year old on a zero hours contract be expected to work a 10 hour shift with no scheduled breaks?

Well known pizza chain, for reference. She usually works a 5 hour shift in the evening. It's not great anyway as she's told her shifts for the week on a Monday and there's considerable pressure on her to work every weekend night every weekend. We don't let her work more than 3 shifts a week due to college but they still ring her and ask.

Tomorrow she's down for 11-9. No set breaks. She says it'll be fine as it'll be quiet in the morning and they let them make a pizza to eat for their own lunch. But surely even on a zero hours contract you can't do a 10 hour shift with no break?

I'd be very happy to march down there of course but trying to preserve DD's independence....

No. Breach of working time regs for adults let alone young workers

Must have a break after 6 hours.

Will she get a lunch break yo eat her pizza.

It sounds like she will get a break, to eat her pizza, it's just not at a time specified in advance? If that's the case it's perfectly fine and quite normal.

I'm not sure, however, that at 17 she's allowed to do more than 8hrs in one day.

20 mins for every 6 hours. Doesn't have to be at a certain time / scheduled but needs to be given.

Working hours and rest breaks for young workers

By law, young workers must not work more than:

• 8 hours a day
• 40 hours a week

They must also have, as a minimum:

• a 30-minute break if their working day is longer than 4.5 hours
• 12 hours' rest in any 24-hour period in which they work (for example, between one working day and the next)
• 48 hours' (2 days) rest taken together, each week or – if there is a good business reason why this is not possible – at least 36 hours' rest, with the remaining 12 hours taken as soon as possible afterwards

That's brilliant, thank you. What's the source for that @dementedpixie please? Asking because my bloody stubborn 17 year old will probably still say it's fine!

She might say and believe it’s fine, and to be honest that’s an incredible attitude to have as a young worker.

the amount of graduates I have worked with who will literally clock off at 12 for lunch, basically mid sentence is astonishing. One cost my team £30k because in their words; “to finish that transaction would have taken 2 extra minutes and I wanted to meet my friend for lunch”.

As long as your daughter knows her rights and will exercise them when she needs the same flexibility back, I think she will be ok.

Rest Breaks https://www.gov.uk/rest-breaks-work/young-workers

Daily/Weekly working hours https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours

https://www.acas.org.uk/young-workers-apprentices-and-work-experience

This is where I screenshot from

With respect, whilst it perhaps shouldn't happen ( because I'm not actually seeing any evidence at all that there won't be breaks, and your child seems to think there are) and the length of the day is certainly not right... but if your "bloody stubborn 17 year old" is prepared to accept it, then there isn't much you can or should do. You can support them to know their rights, entitlements and responsibilities - for themselves and for others - but your (going to very soon be legally an adult) child needs to make their own decisions about where their employment boundaries are, about what they are prepared to stand (or not), and what matters to them. This is not your fight. And whether it is their fight needs to be their choice.

Yeah you're right, that's why I haven't interfered! I just wanted to make sure she was fully informed in order to make that call. Thanks.

That is not correct, either for a young worker nor for anyone else. There are separate rules for young workers as already outlined.

For everyone else the legal entitlement is one break of at least 20 minutes during a shifts of six or more hours, which should be taken towards the middle of the shift and not at our near the beginning or end. It's not 20 minutes for every six hours.

Personally, as soon as they were or enough to work, I placed a union membership form in front of mine and told them I'd pay the first year's membership!

For everyone else the legal entitlement is one break of at least 20 minutes during a shifts of six or more hours

It's for more than 6 hours. For 6 hours you're not entitled to anything. For adults.

Ime they don’t schedule breaks but work them out during the shift so manager will say to each staff member when they can take their break and manager will cover their role (or get someone else to) but they make a judgement because if a massive table comes in it’ll be all hands on deck and breaks would need to be flexed. We always got them though (when I worked at Pizza Hut in the late 90s).