Unpaid Overtime
Recent reports have shown that approximately 5,000,000 Britons work around 7 hours unpaid overtime each week. 1 in 5 workers in Britain report feeling extremely stressed. Whilst, the Government is proposing to expand flexible working legislation to assist workers, the reality is that this legislation will only assist parents of children aged under 18.
I was recently asked to comment on this for the BBC Radio Leeds breakfast show on 3 June 2010. My advice for listeners working excessive unpaid overtime is as follows:
- Review your Contract of Employment (as well as any non-contractual company policies) to check whether you are entitled to paid overtime and, if not, whether the employer is entitled to require you to work additional hours without pay. Whilst the expectation for many salaried employees is that they will work such additional hours as are required to perform their job, for individuals paid on an hourly basis the presumption would usually be that they are entitled to be paid in respect of any extra hours worked.
- The working relationship is also governed by the provisions of the Working Time Regulations which (among other things) entitle employees to reasonable rest breaks. More significantly, the Regulations prohibit workers from working more than 48 hours in a 7 day period unless they have specifically opted out from the Working Time Regulations. Employers are not allowed to subject employees to a detriment for refusing to opt out. Therefore, employees need to review whether the amount of overtime they are putting in means that they are typically working over 48 hours per week.
- Employers should bear in mind that they are under a common law duty to protect their employees’ health and safety. Employers should not be requiring employees to work long hours to the extent that it poses a health and safety risk either to them or to any third parties.
- Employees who feel that they are consistently carrying out significant amounts of overtime should raise the matter in the first instance with their Line Manager and/or their Trade Union Representative (if appropriate). We always recommend trying to resolve matters informally in the first instance.
- Failing all else, employees doing excessive overtime should call us to discuss their options.
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Employment Law
ELawrence@LawBlacks.com
0113 227 9207
@EuanLawBlacks
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Euan Lawrence
