Overloading me with work

[sleezer]

I work 8 hours a day 40 hours a week. I claim working tax credits due to my partner not working.

 

I keep telling my employer I cannot work overtime because the last time I did working tax dropped the amount they paid me.

 

Today they gave me 11.5 man hours of work and they look at me stupid if its not completed. Normally there is 2 workers which do the workload but the other lad is on holiday for 1 week (which I was none the wiser).

 

Tomorrow they gave me a workload of 16.5 man hours.

 

I questioned this and said it cant be correct and I got told not to take notice of the times on the worksheets because they have the average time it takes to complete the job noted down on their computer system.

 

There is no way ive ever done this amount of work in one day. Ive always done my 8 hours which is in my contract.

[SabreSheep]

HI there

 

How long have you been employed with this company?

 

Are you a union member?

[sleezer]

I have been employed by them for 2 years in august next year.

 

If you mean the company then no

 

If you mean me also no

[SabreSheep]

OK be aware that outside of the single equality act you have very little in the way of legal protection untill you hit that date in August.

[ericsbrother]

You arrive at work at the appointed time and you leave at the appointed time. As they have some sort of piece rate it cannot be argued that you are slacking if your completed work is close to the published benchmark. Your employer is obviously in bother because they havent made suitable arrangements for people's holiday entitlement and are shifting the burden of their own errors on you. Just do what you can in your alloted time.

[sleezer]

Thanks for the help if it gets any worse I will update the thread.

[becky2585]

If your contract says that overtime will be expected then unfortunately you may need to suck it up. If you are expected to work over a 48 hour week, however, you do have the right to opt back into the maximum 48 hours (and if you were dismissed for asserting this right then it could be automatically unfair).

 

Unfortunately there's no requirement for an employer to assist you with the tax credits issue (but I know how frustrating that can be - I struggled myself on a low income 7 years ago having to find childcare for my kids!). Many employers would be reasonable in such circumstances though.

 

The final option I suppose would be to make a formal flexible working request for your desired working pattern.