Part time contract still working full time - anyone?

[parttimewarrior]

I'm at the beginning of what is going to be a legal battle with a law firm about this. I know I'm not the only person to have found themselves in this situation (and I won't be the last) - but I'm reaching out for my own sanity to hear other stories too.

Here's mine.

I returned to work full-time and it was too much. I asked to reduce my hours to a 4.5 day working week and the firm agreed. My salary and holiday entitlement were reduced to reflect the reduction in my contractual working hours.

The thing is, my actual working hours didn't change. In fact, at some points I worked even more than when I was "full-time". The result: the firm took the benefit of the hours that I worked and didn't pay for them. It decided that I was not entitled to be paid for, or receive holiday pay based on, 35 hours work per week even when I worked at least 35 hours per week because my contract was for 4.5 days. Colleagues were entitled to be paid for and receive holiday pay based on the same 35 hours of work because their contract was for 5 days.

Informal then formal grievance and appeal got nowhere. So now I've started a claim.

Is this a problem that's as prevalent as I think it is? Has it happened to you or someone you know?

It's just beyond wrong!

They have no impact on pay, no. You were implying that lawyers hours aren’t tracked. They are. It makes no difference to salary, TOIL (don’t get it) or flexitime (don’t get it). None of them will only be working their contracted hours and they won’t get overtime.

Hours worked might be a part of any bonus calculation - pro rated for part timers.

@LittleBearPad you missed that I was responding to user09876543 who incorrectly said public sector workers were hourly paid due to flexi sheets etc. (see post I have quoted)

I was pointing out that public sector does not link flexi sheets to payroll. A common misunderstanding.

I have always understood lawyers record their time and have billable and non-billable hours. Lawyers in the public sector record their time in 6 minute blocks, non-lawyers use less detailed time recording.

Essentially Public Sector and Lawyers both record their time but neither link to payroll. Payroll for both sectors is configured to calculate hourly rate based on salary and contracted hours.

And I was responding to your comment

Teachers are similar to Lawyers in terms of unmeasured hours, but not holidays.

Lawyers hours aren’t unmeasured because they do timesheets. Their hours absolutely are measured.

@LittleBearPad sorry sometimes it’s difficult to follow which post posters are responding to so I misinterpreted where you were picking me up.

I know what I meant in the context of when I wrote it which was that there isn”t a set number of hours over contractual that teachers or lawyers are required to work but agree that isn’t how it read.

Lawyers hours are measured for billing purposes. That does not correlate in any way to their pay.

I actually said that public sector workers (in the nhs and local authority) below a certain grade are effectively hourly paid even though they are salaried because they are eligible for flexitime and overtime/additional hours payments meaning they are recompensed for working over and above their core contracted hours. Lawyers are not. Yes of course anyone’s pay can be put into a calculation and reduced down to an hourly rate but that doesn’t mean they get paid more for working more. In fact for lawyers their hourly rate of pay would reduce for each hour extra they work.

Anyway I’m no longer going to post on this thread. I’ve been on MN for twenty years and have never known a thread to be zapped by MN for a week or so and then get resurrected so I’m suspicious. The OP is trying to drive traffic to her instagram and her crowdfunding campaign. I’m not sure why that’s being permitted since it wouldn’t ordinarily be

How on earth did this get reinstated?!!

I PMd and was simply asked where I work. No explanation of how it’s being pleaded.

I have never seen a thread get re-instated with no explanation like this.
@MNHQ why was this allowed?

I have. They’ve taken out the really problematic bit - the rest isn’t so different from other threads although the OP here is particularly batshit.

I don’t believe @ MNHQ will alert them either. If you really want an explanation you need to report the thread.

No, that's why I asked about it earlier.
I was questioning my memory.
I don't remember a thread before that was taken down then put back up. Very odd.

However, I agree that what the OP is asking is bonkers.