Is this discrimination against a part time employee?

[Bessie123]

My boss has decided to hold team meetings once a month on a day I do not usually work. His reason for holding them on that day is that he thinks people will be more relaxed on that day than on another. I don't know what this is based on. I am expected to go to the team meetings which will last between half a day and a day (and will get one of my regular 'working' days as a day off that week). I will not get any extra money for attending the meetings or any compensation for the extra childcare I will have to arrange. My daughter's nursery will not allow me to swap days so every team meeting i attend will effectively cost me £50. The team meetings will consist of training, information sharing and team bonding. There are no other part time workers.

I would like to go to team meetings but don't want to be out of pocket. I have paid £200 so far doing this. My boss previously said (in front of witnesses) that he would move all team meetings to a day I do work but has since changed his mind.

My questions are:

Is my boss allowed to choose to hold team meetings on a day I don't work?

Is my boss allowed to force me to attend team meetings without compensation?

What can I do about this?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Bessie.

I went on a course at work recently and it addressed this precise issue. If your boss keeps asking you to attend the team meetings he is guilty of harrassment and indirect sexual discrimination.

Thanks again for all the advice.

What I meant with regard to varying the contract without my consent was that there is a bit in the variation letter that says my employer reserves the right to review my flexible working arrangements monthly; I am concerned they can change my days again whether i agree to it or not.

How long have you been working 3 days? And has the arrangement been reviewed monthly?

In practice if you work a certain pattern for ages with no problem, even if the contract says they can vary it, doesn't necessarily mean it's that easy, depending on circumstances.

If he did want to change your days permanently would that be a problem anyway?

I have been working 3 days for 3 months (and have already paid £200 in extra nursery fees). I couldn't work 4 days without having to find a childminder for the extra day. I had my first review last week, where my line manager mentioned I might want to change my days. I can only do this if the nursery can accommodate it (which is by no means certain) and then will have the problem of dd not being able to do music group or her regular Thursday play date any more (I know this is not a valid reason to give my employer). I will also not get bank holiday mondays any more (my employer will not pro-rate them).

Is your manager proposing you increase your days then? Or just change them to fit in with the specific day he wants team meetings on?

If you've only been doing it 3 months and have agreed to it being reviewed, then it sounds like they could request you change your days, yes.

your employer doesn't get to decide not to pro rate bank holidays, as a part time employee, if full time employees get bank holidays on top of holiday entitlement, then you are entitled to a proportion of bank holidays in line with the hours you work.

There are 8 bank holidays a year, as someone who works 3 days a week you are entitled to 5 of them. How your employer administers that is up to them, but you can't lose out compared to full time employees.

ah, thanks very much, flowery.

I guess I will have to talk to the nursery about whether I can change dd's days there, then

Well I wouldn't do that yet myself. I'd try and get the meetings moved at least some of the time first, and confirmation that additional costs can be claimed on expenses. Then if that didn't work, perhaps see about changing your days.

Well, I have tried that already. No luck on the expenses front but I am going to talk to the boss this week to see if I can get at least a proper reason for why meetings have to be on a thursday. if he can't come up with one (imo, a perception that people will be 'more relaxed' is not a proper reason) then I will try again to convince him.

Incidentally, if the nursery is unable to accommodate a change in dd's days, is that a valid reason for trying to keep my working days as they are? Dd's nursery is very popular and has a waiting list of 6-12 months so it is likely they will not be able to make a change.

I don't think 'getting a proper reason' should be your priority - even if it were up to you to decide what's a 'proper reason', apart from anything else getting one won't actually help you!

You need to request that meetings are changed at least some of the time to be on your working days, explaining why. If he's not prepared to accommodate you at all, point out that by keeping them all on Thursdays thereby forcing you to have to pay additional costs to come in, he is treating you less favourably than full time employees who incur no such costs, which is illegal.

If your nursery require such long notice to change days, have you been using alternative childcare for the extra days you have needed so far? Would that alternative not be available if the nursery aren't?

The trouble is that you've only been doing this arrangement for a short time and have agreed that it can be reviewed.

yes, I understand the situation is problematic.

I have already asked for the meetings to be moved to days I can attend and the message has so far been no. Re the 'proper reason', I thought if the boss is unable to come up with a better reason for having meetings on a thursday, HR might tell him he has to change the meeting day. I work for a fairly large organisation and there are people more senior than my boss.

The nursery will take my dd on extra days when they have capacity or can put floating staff in a room temporarily but they can't guarantee it. For example, they can't commit to having additional floating staff in her room every thursday because that removes all their flexibility. Whether I can move days depends on whether the nursery has a regular thursday place free.

I have been using a friend or a childminder on days I haven't been able to put dd in nursery but I don't feel I can ask the friend to take dd every thursday and the childminder is £75 for the day rather than £50 because she only takes dd, so even more expensive. Again, I am reluctant to incur additional expenditure on my boss' whim. But if I have to, I guess I will just have to put up with it.

I am a mum and I work part time in a Government Body. I work 18.5 hours per week. I have found that there can be a lot of work for my part time hours. My boss would oten ask me to do task that will make me have to stay on past my finishing time. I finish at 1.45pm and then I go to pick my children up from school etc. I cannot stay on much after 1.45 becuase of the kids. The other day when my boss said that the funding agreements had to be sent out that day and I only had an hour left of my working day get these ready for posting, it would actually take several hours to complete them. Is my boss treating me unfairly as a part time working mum. He is aware that I have children and I have school pick ups. When I told him I would not be able to get the work finished he said "what have I on today" meaning what am I doing today that I cant finish the work.

hey Suzy, did you hijack my thread?

I am bumping in case nobody saw your question.

If anyone is interested, the boss said he is 'not prepared to cover your childcare costs' but he will review arrangements at the end of the year if I am not able to change my working days(!) - i am still being excluded from this team event, am I still being discriminated against?

Suzywon1- I think people will need more background to comment, and would suggest that you start a new thread. It would be particularly important to understand whether full time employees have this issue - i.e. do full timers have too much work for their hours and get asked to complete work that would take them beyond their contracted hours?

OP - yes, potentially you are. Not the refusal to pay for childcare (you only have the right to be treated no less favourably, and paying childcare is treating you better than a full timer with children), but probably by refusing to change the day of the meeting without a good business reason. The example I usually use is that it would be fine to require a conference call meeting to start at 2pm if you needed participants from New York, even if it disadvantaged one person in the UK who only worked mornings. However, requiring a meeting to be 2pm with all UK participants and no other reason for going with the afternoon would probably be an issue.

Bessie, your boss is being neanderthal. I would be tempted to drop him an email stating somethinbg like the following - and copy HR on it.

"I am extremely upset that you seem to be failing to appreciate that by insisting on holding team meetings on my days off ? for no reasaonable business purpose ? you are treating me less favourably than full-time workers. It is not acceptable for me to continue to suffer additional childcare costs and be inconvenienced in this way, and I am upset that you have brushed aside my very legitimate concerns. Continuing in this way ? even if only until the end of the year ? will build barriers between myself and other members of the team (who are able to attend these meetings), and I am desperate to avoid this, but I cannot continue to attend meetings that are arranged knowingly to occur on my days off. Please can I ask you to discuss this informally with HR and come back with a proposal that is acceptable to us all. I have no desire to raise a formal grievance, but I am close to running out of other options now"

Teh alternative is to change your own days off of course and avoid this rather than deal with it - which could be a better solution depending on how you feel about it all, but TBH it wouldn't surprise me if he changes the date around again once you yourself have switched to accomodate him...I just get a niggly feelign that there might be a deliberate undermining going on here...

ribenaberry and oncewassquiffy - thanks v much for your posts. I spoke to someone from hr who was worse than useless and said she couldn't understand what the problem is.

I think with the childcare payment it is treating me less favourably than a full time person because if the meeting was on a day the full time employee didn't work, for example a Saturday, it would be reasonable for the full time employee to ask that their additional childcare costs be covered. Or have I got that wrong?

I am still thinking about what to do; I am going to ttc this month and if I do manage tc, I will only miss out on 4 or 5 meetings anyway (and perhaps don't want to rock the boat...) so might be better to leave things as they are - what do you think? Of course it's not ideal but the boss has shown in his dealings with the only other employee with children (also put in a v difficult position re childcare) that he is very happy to discriminate.

I really appreciate all the advice on this thread btw, thanks all. All views and opinions gratefully received.

I would be tempted to push it but it is up to you. Just being a useless HR bod doesn't mean they shouldn't check up on best practice...

Here is a case that might shake them up a bit - slightly different but rests on the same argument - you don't shift around people's attendance at work where such changes are detrimental on the grounds of sex (in that women carry proportionally larger burden with regard to childcare). The case is quite dated, but the law has since changed to strengthen womens' positions....

Saying that, it is your call on whether you have the appetite to stand up or if it is easier to go with the flow...

ok, so we now have part time worker discrimination and sex discrimination. I am trying to push it through the useless hr woman, will see if it gets me anywhere. Unfortunately, the team meetings are the only time my team is all together so missing them does make quite a difference to how integrated/involved in the team I can be.