Hello,

I was hoping someone could advise on the below :

Can an employee reduce your lunch break from 1 hour to half an hour without warning?

Details :

On starting my job (9+ months ago) I was informed I would be entitled to a 1 hour lunch break (verbal agreement), something I worked to from day 1 without issue or complaint.

However, recently an email was sent out saying we would no longer be allowed this entitlement and must now only take a half hour lunch

- No warning or discussion was given, just the email stating you must now only take half an hour for lunch as per your contract and on querying further they explained the 1 hour lunch was only supposed to be a temporary thing to relieve stress while the work load was high.

However, at no point was I informed of this being a temporary allowance and on reviewing my contract it simply states the below with no mention of break entitlement

Hours of Work

Your contractual hours are 37.5 hours per week.

Operating hours is Monday to Friday between 8am and 6pm and you will be expected to work on a shift rota between these hours.

Overtime is not paid.

HR is saying due to the 37.5 weekly working hours, listed on my contract, divided by my 8 hour day, I only get half an hour free for a lunch entitlement

– They don’t pay for the other half an hour.

I have since looked for further evidence to back my verbal agreement and proven work pattern and have now also found an email sent round just before I started.

This email is from our office manager, and it tells us all that we should all take an hour for lunch due to the nature of the job and work load, with no mention of it being a temporary measure (something they are now back tracking on and from by claiming it was mistakenly put)

in short do I have any right to appeal this based on the evidence and my prior 9 months + of working to it?

And can they ultimately force it through/change it regardless?

Regards

Jay

unless you are infront of a PC monitor for the full time .... I think 30mins is correct.

dx

In any 8 hour working day, you are Contractually required to work for 7.5 hr +30 min lunch break. Other employment Law may govern allowable duration of other 'breaks' eg toilet.

One for the Union etc?

If you are contracted for 37.5 hours over 5 days then you need to work 7.5 hours per day. Lunch is normally unpaid. Assuming your lunch is at the "normal" time then there is no requirement to get additional breaks. However if you work on a production line where you leaving for a comfort break would be an issue, the company may give a break to minimise the impact. Those breaks are usually paid.

The down side for you is that you have only been there for 9 months, so if you stir things up, you may find you are surplus to requirements!

A very simple answer. Yes. And if you kick up a fuss you are likely to be looking for a new job in the near future. And to be honest, if they were giving their employees some additional, paid, break time to help them through a particularly busy period, then I wouldn't suggest rocking the boat. First off because they would actually be a GOOD employer. Secondly because your kicking off about it will result in them never doing it again - in which case getting sacked would be the best outcome for you, and your colleagues getting hold of you the worst one!

Thanks for the quick replies. Taking all things on board I think it's best that I do leave (sadly no person in the office would mind much if the job did end - moral is that bad, mine being the worst now i think). I actually gave up one job to start this one after believing they were the more supportive, relaxed and decent employer - With better future options. Money was secondary to me for these reasons (They there were paying was less)

Just to clarify my performance as an employee (justify myself ) : Since being there my workload far exceeds that of 90% of the other staff - I’ve halved the time it takes to process transfers, before then drastically reducing it again even further (more than half again). I didnt really expect anything for this, I just take pride in my work (Although a bonus payment would’ve been nice ) but I really felt put out when instead, without discussion, they sent the email round restricting my hours further, followed then by a suggestion of pushing the targets even further while also adding more parts to how they are processed (triple whammy). All this when I had explained I was maxed out and running at breaking point achieving the earlier stats.

So all in all im not looking to kick off and be a difficult employee. Im just really annoyed at their lack of respect and decency for the obviously exceptional work I do! As well as changing what I thought was an agreed working pattern. Put my performance another way - agreed SLA targets are 48hrs and i was getting close achieving them all in 2hrs. Honestly the hour lunch really helped me achieve this as it gave me chance to get away from my desk, get some fresh air, and eat a proper lunch. Unlike now where I have to rush out to grab something nearby before rushing it down (often finishing it at my desk) and starting the processing all again. This has made the job even more stressful and draining - Im now struggling to focus, getting extreme tiredness, losing concentration etc. So this has really had a detrimental effect on me and ironically my performance and figures.

So all in all it seems the one thing I can take from this and your responses is that I should just focus my energy on getting a new job, as there is nothing else I can really do. Ultimately I know they would miss me more, than I them