Contractual overtime.

[aintsayin6766997]

A postie at my place has taken it upon himself to make a one man stand and to only work his hours. Unfortunately he's also been a recent thorn in the side of the management to everybody elses advantage for different reasons and is a good bloke and I wouldn't want to see him making a bad mistake here.

Clause 9 of my contract stipulates that overtime is a condition of employment and my understanding is that it would be O.K to refuse overtime as long as you have some sort of overtime record to refer to in case of managerial machinations.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated since I may have a whisper in his ear.

[IloveMYredTROLLEY!]

Contractual overtime now requires a pay supplement since the summer Work Time Directive ruling, whereby if Fred has to work say 5 hours overtime per week, he must get the equivalent of 5 hours overtime pay added to his first four holiday weeks per year.

I doubt you will see any OPG with an extra payment on their payslip for this, because overtime is optional.

NHS workers get an overtime rate when they work Saturday or Sunday, when they get their monthly payslip, they now get a "WTD" supplement related to those hours that attract the overtime rate.

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

That clause is not legally enforceable as it does not detail exactly what overtime is expected, overtime is not compulsory regardless of what it says in contract,

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Sad sack that I am I still have a copy of my contract and the paragraph mentioning overtime says:

Hours Of Work/Overtime

10. Royal Mail has the responsibility of providing a public service. This puts a special obligation on all employees to play their part in maintaining a kind of service which the public has the right to expect. 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 employmeny that you are liable to work overtime and to attend at varying times on any day (including weekends, Bank and Public Holidays) as the need of the service demand.

but I think this post at http://www.legalbeagles.info/forums/sho ... n-contract" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; nails it:

Re: Compulsory overtime clause in contract ??
In my personal view - So long as adequate notice is given, and it employees are not being expected to do more than 48 hours (unless they signed an opt-out) then the term is no different to ordinary contracts that say from time to time they will be expected to work overtime as the business/company demands/requires etc.

What is unlawful is the line managers passing it of as compulsory, when it does not state anything about it being compulsory. Therefore if they are saying it is compulsory for them to do overtime and they force them to do so against the employees wishes and in addition to their basic contractual hours. Then they are in fact in breach of contract. They may also be in committing blackmail, by using that term and stating is compulsory (when it's not), by threatening people with disciplinary if they refuse to do overtime (that's if they are making such threats to employee's).

Basically the line managers are acting unlawfully by misleading employees over the said term in the contract, not only that by doing so the employer is in breach of said contract.

MY advice for the person whom you maybe helping, would be to tell them to put in a formal grievance about the line managers misrepresentation of that term in the contract and their daily abuse of said term. Making it clear that the term in the contract does not state it is compulsory, where as the line managers are on a daily basis misleading employees as to the nature of the term being compulsory when it is not, and therefore forcing employees to do overtime against their wishes, should any not wish to do said overtime. Which not only makes the line managers misleading statements unlawful, but also puts the company in breach of the employment contracts between company and those employees that have been a victim of the line managers abusive and misleading use of the term in the contract.

[POSTMAN]

A FEW FACTS WHEN WORKING IN DELIVERIES
OVERTIME IS NOT COMPULSORY IN ROYAL MAIL

December EBulletin December 2012.pdf

[aintsayin6766997]

Thanks all and a merry Christmas to you, I guess the blokes 'ice' isn't as thin as I thought it was.

Personally though, I shall keep a small, occasional overtime habit going just in case, unless they try not paying it again like they did a year or so back.