Overtime

[Lounge Lizard]

I've worked for Royal Mail for a couple of years and have now noticed that my Contract states that "The nature of the service makes a measure of overtime working necessary. For this reason it is a condition of your employment that you are liable to work overtime and to attend at varying times on any day including weekends, Bank and Public Holidays". How can this be so when there are many comments on this forum about overtime being optional with the choice of cutting off if you've said in advance that you intend doing so ?

[tmac]

i think you will find that overtime is voluntary no one can force you to work any more hours than 40

[baldrick]

EU legislation - the Working Time Directive - makes compulsory overtime unlawful.

[brothermagrew]

My Contract states that "The nature of the service makes a measure of overtime working necessary. For this reason it is a condition of your employment that you are liable to work overtime and to attend at varying times on any day including weekends, Bank and Public Holidays". How can this be so when there are many comments on this forum about overtime being optional with the choice of cutting off if you've said in advance that you intend doing so ?

Also seen this wording as well, but there is an important phrase of words missing in the version that I have seen (highlighted in red).

"The nature of the service makes a measure of overtime working necessary which will be on a voluntary basis, wherever possible. For this reason, it is a condition of your employment that you are liable to work overtime and to attend at varying times on any day including weekends, Bank and Public Holidays".

[delboy]

so i'm on a 25 hour contract can they make me work more hours also my hours are 9-2 can they make me work different hours, they say i have to be flexible to suite them..

[Si67]

EU legislation - the Working Time Directive - makes compulsory overtime unlawful.

EU legislation means JACK s**t in britains work place of 2009....

[whitemoor66]

EU legislation - the Working Time Directive - makes compulsory overtime unlawful.

EU legislation means JACK s**t in britains work place of 2009....

EU legislation is very relavent in the U.K. The RM and probably many other employers will pay it lip service and ignore it when it suits them. If nobody challenges them, they will carry on as they like. They probably rightly guess that an individual will not challange them because it is too much trouble for the individual to put his neck on the line. They also propably know that the CWU will not do anything either. I found all my contact with the CWU very frustrating. It seemed they were all for a quite life. In fact I would go as far as to say that the CWU is just a money collecting exercise to keep the few in a lifestyle to which they have become accustomed. That might be a bit of an unfair criticism, but thats how I saw it from where I was standing.

My ex-DOM told my employment tribunal that I did not have to work over and above the one hour I was contracted to do. I have posted his witness statement to admin. The reality of it is that I wanted to work more than an hour, they also wanted me to work more than one hour. If I was to work one hour, it wouldn't be worth getting up, washed and dressed and travelling to my workplace. By the time I had had a meal break, gone for a piss and had a smoke, there wouldn't be time to do anything else.

I think the problem is, if you agree to do overtime, can you then turn round and say you don't want to do it? I never had a choice of the amount of hours I wanted to do. My DOM never said to me, do you want to do overtime, I just got told I was doing it.

[bogstandard]

so i'm on a 25 hour contract can they make me work more hours also my hours are 9-2 can they make me work different hours, they say i have to be flexible to suite them..

i would say no to any more than your contracted hours unless you agree, although yes to changing your hours of attendance, unless of course your contract states 25 hours from 9-2 mon - fri, which, i'm guessing it doesn't. Though i could be wrong.

[Lounge Lizard]

My Contract states that "The nature of the service makes a measure of overtime working necessary. For this reason it is a condition of your employment that you are liable to work overtime and to attend at varying times on any day including weekends, Bank and Public Holidays". How can this be so when there are many comments on this forum about overtime being optional with the choice of cutting off if you've said in advance that you intend doing so ?

Also seen this wording as well, but there is an important phrase of words missing in the version that I have seen (highlighted in red).

"The nature of the service makes a measure of overtime working necessary which will be on a voluntary basis, wherever possible. For this reason, it is a condition of your employment that you are liable to work overtime and to attend at varying times on any day including weekends, Bank and Public Holidays".

Thanks for that information, but how can the all important "which will be on a voluntary basis, wherever possible" be in some contracts and not in others ?