Extra Days

[spidersenses]

I work for an agency. It’s a pretty unpleasant place. It’s a small company, no HR, many people have resigned with no jobs to go to. You’re a number, nothing positive is ever said. I’m job hunting.

I work part time. When I have won extra business I have agreed with the CEO (who is my boss) that I will work extra full days as and when is required - and be paid. It has suited me as a single parent as money has been tight.

On the side I am learning hypnosis and have a bit of a side hustle that helps me bring in extra income. I have never been asked to declare this to my main employer. It’s flexible but it helps me get by. I can’t get by on my part time salary alone.

I recently won a huge bit of new business. It was on the same premise that I would work extra days to be able to fulfill it. Some months I would need to work full time. My boss was aware of this when the proposal was submitted to the potential client.

After fhe win, my boss told me he had spoken to their accountants who confirmed the “working extra hours to meet business need” line in my contract meant he did not have to pay me for extra days outwith my normal working days. And he would not be doing so going forward. My boss has quoted my contract and has said I have to.

In my mind this is stretching this standard contract clause to the maximum. If my children were young (they are in secondary school) there is no way I could do this. This is an absolute p*ss take.

I also have a health condition where I guess I am like a battery. My energy is limited and I have to use it wisely. I need to be able to use my days off to earn extra money either via my side hustle or my main job.

i have said i won’t work full extra days for no additional income. Does anyone know where I stand legally in this and anywhere I could go for advice.

it has all left a very unpleasant taste.

Am guessing you're not in a union? I guess ACAS is the way to go, and look for a new job

No union unfortunately. It’s a very small business. I will definitely speak to ACAS. I have before and not found them much help, but will definitely try in the new year.

Would working extra hours for no pay take you under minimum wage? Just because it says working extra hours to meet business needs doesn't mean it has to be unpaid

I mean obviously you don’t have to work any further hours as you’re part time. I wonder if their HR/accountant whichever numpty came up with this understood you were part time?

just say no and don’t elaborate further. I’m very sorry you’re not getting extra money for winning new business for them.

they are MASSIVE CUNTS

Working full time on my part time contract and salary wouldn’t take me under minimum wage. However in my mind it is a total breach of contract. A business-needs clause cannot justify a permanent or significant increase in contractual hours without agreement. Even though the accountants are telling him he can do this.

Thank you. I love your post. It made me smile. Yeah it’s really quite awful. I am not going to budge. Extra hours or staying late or evening events or weekend work etc is understandable- but whole extra days over a sustained time period it not okay legally and morally.

"In my mind this is stretching this standard contract clause to the maximum. If my children were young (they are in secondary school) there is no way I could do this. This is an absolute p*ss take."

This is the buyer's market. They know they can easily replace you because there are plenty of people looking for a job, so they have no problem treating you this way. You either find a way to make it work, or you look for an employer who isn't such an unpleasant individual (to which they'll fill your role in a day or two).

Even if it is a genuine case of stupidity; they don't know or have forgotten you're part-time, they're going to look quite dumb to everyone else.

I'm sorry this is happening to you.

What is the actual line in your contract?

Why would the accountants be doing anything regarding what your contract says?

It’s a really standard catch all line about working additional hours within reason to meet business need. Being honest i don’t want to turn my work laptop on whilst I’m on holiday to check. But the line is very vague and really doesn’t say much more.

Yes the accountants is an odd one - I presume it is because they have been asked to make additional payments to me when I have worked additional days - and there is no HR. But yeah they’re hardly specialists in this field!

Thank you. They know. They definitely do. Also unfortunately no one else in the business would care. All men and very much an Everyman for himself type environment.

How long have you been paid 'extra' for the additional work you have done?! As it might be covered by custom and practice ie its an established payment agreement. Also, as a PT employee, you can't be treated less favourably than a FT employee - which you would be in this case as you potentially could work more 'free' hours than FT person to achieve the work needed for the contract.
Any reason you couldn't go FT?

Get some legal advice. Think they are on dodgy ground.

Anyone can join a union. It doesn't have to be recognised by your workplace, if not over 30% of staff are members, in which case you don't get joint pay negotiations, but you're still entitled to advice from them, and representation in the case of any dispute with your employer.

The catch all line includes “within reason” and it’s totally unreasonable to expect you to go from part time to full time without a change in compensation. Within reason would be staying late to help close a deal, or logging on at the weekend if the whole systems went down and you were the only person who could fix it. I’d point that out to them! Can you contact a professional body?

The accountants honestly should have 0 involvement apart from making / recording the transaction, did you hear it from them or did the boss pass it on? Sounds like he might have made the decision and trying to shift the blame!

Accountants, as paid advisers, get asked all sorts of stuff. A lot of it tends towards the HR/Payroll/Redundancy type stuff. Depending on the size of firm they may actually have expertise here. Everyone knows, however, that these contracts cover ad hoc events not recurring ones

At my last job the payroll was done by the accountants and they kept copies of all employment contracts. They would have been involved in this sort of situation.

Obviously though they would only know what the employer shared with them but they would certainly have been up on all employment law

Thank you. You’ve all reassured me to keep pushing back on this. I was never going to cave, but it is so helpful to share and be reassured something is very off here.

Don't work for free. Ring ACAS for advice.

Calculate what your overall hourly rate would be if you did these extra days with no extra money, below legal minimum?
This is probably the scam that has caused other agency workers to leave.

You need to speak up for yourself and tell them your hours are for sale and they only get the time they buy. Mean it and just don’t work extra hours for nothing.

Doing extra hours as required is meant for things likenot leaving in thr middle of a customer call because it's 5pm, or staying on to deal with recovering the system after an outage, or helping with testing on a weekend after a planned upgrade. Many people, especially on salaries, will do an extra hour or so on quite a few workdays.

But you should get pay or at least TOIL, especially for planned extra work. You also have a contract. It's fine for them to ask you to do more hours or change your working days, but they do still have to pay you. Otherwise, any employer but the most scrupulous would employ people on PT contracts and then have them working FT at no extra pay.

You'd need to put the pay/hours of work details fro. Your contract on here (copied verbatim) for anybody to be able to comment competently.