Contract Q: clause agreeing to opt out of 48 hour week limit for office job. OK or no?

[Epona]

Apologies if you think my joke was a bit insensitive but surely doughnuts do need making in the wee small hours? It would be a bit pointless if they didn't show up until about three in the afternoon. Surely your argument should be he is criminally underpaid for such a socially important role rather than the role is unnecessary.

My husband should work nights on minimum wage and we never get any time together so better paid people higher up the social ladder can buy expensive doughnuts first thing in the morning?
Fuck off.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

If you need the job then go for it regardless. If you intend staying in the job, which you may not really know for some while, opt out of the extra hours when you know the lie of the land. Theoretically you can't be sacked for not agreeing to work extra hours, but in the short term you don't really have any rights worth talking about.

 

[Spymaster]

My husband should work nights on minimum wage and we never get any time together so better paid people higher up the social ladder can buy expensive doughnuts first thing in the morning?
Fuck off.

But surely it’s the minimum wage thing that’s the issue here, not the night shift?

Aren’t bakeries famously night-work oriented?

 

[Epona]

But surely it’s the minimum wage thing that’s the issue here, not the night shift?

Aren’t bakeries famously night-work oriented?

It's not a little family bakery, it's a massive US corporation with horrendous practices across more than one continent where staff welfare comes very low down on the list.
It's not the night work I object to per se, it's the minimum wage bullshit and bullying behaviour from managers.
If someone has to be on nights every night for years (not saving lives, but to make sure the doughnut production never falters) it should be better paid and treated with better respect.
They put up great big signs saying we made this much profit in the last year, well done all of you and cut people's hours and pay.
Choke on your doughnuts.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Years ago, I had to sign a similar opt-out. My job was 9-5.30, but if we ended up staying late, overtime pay didn't kick in till 6pm onwards. And I did earn a fair bit of overtime when we were coming up to project deadlines.

Maybe I remember signing that that opt-out because it was the first time I'd had to do so? Because I can't remember having to sign one for jobs since then.

I think the thing to look out for, is how many hours is the standard working week, what's the start time, what's the finish time, and how long is lunch and other breaks?

I got caught out in my current job, by assuming lunch hour when he was asking me, verbally, if £x amount was okay for the salary. But then the actual offer letter was emailed to me and it turned out lunch was only 30 minutes. I pointed out that meant the hourly rate was lower than expected.

That's one thing I've noticed, ie sometimes you get a call with a verbal offer, 'We'd like to offer you the job, the salary will be X, is that okay?' If you're put on the spot like that, I think the tendency is that you might be too excited/relieved to have a job offer that you'll just accept, because you don't want to start on on the wrong foot by coming across as awkward. But it's standard to negotiate, ask for more.

But moreover it's important to ask for time to consider the offer and then go through it with a fine-tooth comb.

My current contract says something like working additional hours might be expected or needed, depending on the needs of the business, and overtime isn't payable unless agreed in advance.

I did end up working some (unpaid) overtime to meet deadlines. And when I went back and checked my contract there was nothing in it about TOIL.

I ended up getting quite frustrated and annoyed and stressed out in month four, because reasons. And ended up emailing my boss and saying I was taking some TOIL, because otherwise - as I wasn't being paid for overtime - all the overtime I'd done meant there was a risk my effective hourly rate fell below the National Living Wage, which would be illegal.

In hindsight, I think it's now a red flag. Especially when working for an SME.

You could try saying you've never had to sign anything like that before and can they explain to you how it works in practice, can they eg let you know how much overtime the previous incumbent did, and if the overtime was paid, or if they accrued and took TOIL?

I think if you're being asked to sign a document agreeing to work overtime, it's reasonable to ask how that overtime will be remunerated/what the TOIL policy is.

 

[freshapple]

It's basically worthless. This is first job I've done where there was no expectation I'd sign it.

Its intresting to see people mentioning overtime rates. Are these still a thing for many people? I've always been paid at whatever my hourly rate is and no extra.

Local government is 1.5x on Sat & 2x on Sunday but it’s capped at around £25

 

[moomoo]

It's basically worthless. This is first job I've done where there was no expectation I'd sign it.

Its intresting to see people mentioning overtime rates. Are these still a thing for many people? I've always been paid at whatever my hourly rate is and no extra.

We don’t get any overtime premium unless we work on Sundays and then it’s time and 17%.

 

[Epona]

Local government is 1.5x on Sat & 2x on Sunday but it’s capped at around £25

This was a number of years ago now, but I did when I was working in facilities management in the CS work over entire weekends (to supervise stuff that couldn't be done during the week, such as carpet replacement, decorating etc) and the remuneration was pretty decent - x1.5 on Saturday and x2 on Sunday. If there had been a cap I'd have told them where to shove it.
On Monday morning however I was not in a good place and wondering what I was doing with my life.

 

[Spymaster]

It's not a little family bakery, it's a massive US corporation with horrendous practices across more than one continent where staff welfare comes very low down on the list.
It's not the night work I object to per se, it's the minimum wage bullshit and bullying behaviour from managers.
If someone has to be on nights every night for years (not saving lives, but to make sure the doughnut production never falters) it should be better paid and treated with better respect.
They put up great big signs saying we made this much profit in the last year, well done all of you and cut people's hours and pay.
Choke on your doughnuts.

I couldn’t agree more except for the last line.

Your beef’s with the people who are paying shit wages. Not the ones buying the doughnuts! Although there’s probably some daft Marxist shit that says otherwise.

 

[Epona]

I couldn’t agree more except for the last line.

Your beef’s with the people who are paying shit wages. Not the ones buying the doughnuts! Although there’s probably some daft Marxist shit that says otherwise.

No my beef is with both.
It's the extraction of value from labour that allows them to sell boxes of doughnuts for £20 which is more than the people who actually make them can afford.
I understand if you might be able to afford to buy the products that my husband gets underpaid on his labour for, but at least try to be a tad apologetic for it Ta xx

 

[cesare]

All work where net profit goes elsewhere than to the employees is exploitation tbf

 

[Silas Loom]

Doughnuts should be banned anyway. Or at least, banned in workplaces. Sell them only in plain packaging festooned with diabetes warnings. The colour palette for glazed toppings and cream fillings should be restricted to khakis.

That package of measures would have various impacts on employment practices within bakeries, probably positive ones overall.

 

[tim]

In theory, presumably, someone could not be refused a job or sacked if they decided not to volunteer. Could anyone with more knowledge of law clarify this?

 

[MickiQ]

It's the 'humour' of someone who has never done a day's honest graft and so takes the work of others as a given.

Coincidentally MickiQ won't tell us what he does for a living, only that he gets paid very well for doing it.

Did Frank, I've retired now been a pensioner for almost two whole months now. As for what I did for a living before, I'm pretty certain that I have told you. For the previous eight years I was a freelance IT consultant doing technical support/system design work for various blue chip companies. Before that I worked for 25 years for Evil American Megacorp doing all sorts of stuff, tech support, system design, writing OS level code and application development and testing. Before that I spent a decade working for a small consultancy based in Liverpool and before that I was a clerk in a warehouse which ironically is how I got into IT. I've worked with most major operating systems such as MVS, VM, Aix, Solaris and the various innumerable flavours of Linux.
Written code in about 20 diferent languages modern ones such as Ruby, Perl and Python not to mention C and Assembler plus some such as REXX and AS2 that even most of the Urban75 nerds haven't heard of and some like Fortran that are best not talked about in polite company. I would lay a small bet that I'm the only Urb that has actually written Cobol rather than just read about in history books. I'm 66 and I started work in IT at 18 so I've pretty much been in IT for as long as there has been IT.
As to whether this is socially useful that's for others to decide but yes Frank it has been very well paid indeed.

 

[Spymaster]

Written code in about 20 diferent languages modern ones such as Ruby ...

Let me know if I can tempt you out of retirement!

 

[Elpenor]

Did Frank, I've retired now been a pensioner for almost two whole months now. As for what I did for a living before, I'm pretty certain that I have told you. For the previous eight years I was a freelance IT consultant doing technical support/system design work for various blue chip companies. Before that I worked for 25 years for Evil American Megacorp doing all sorts of stuff, tech support, system design, writing OS level code and application development and testing. Before that I spent a decade working for a small consultancy based in Liverpool and before that I was a clerk in a warehouse which ironically is how I got into IT. I've worked with most major operating systems such as MVS, VM, Aix, Solaris and the various innumerable flavours of Linux.
Written code in about 20 diferent languages modern ones such as Ruby, Perl and Python not to mention C and Assembler plus some such as REXX and AS2 that even most of the Urban75 nerds haven't heard of and some like Fortran that are best not talked about in polite company. I would lay a small bet that I'm the only Urb that has actually written Cobol rather than just read about in history books. I'm 66 and I started work in IT at 18 so I've pretty much been in IT for as long as there has been IT.
As to whether this is socially useful that's for others to decide but yes Frank it has been very well paid indeed.

My uncle teaches or maybe taught cobol, he might have stopped doing it as I understand a lot of legacy systems use it

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Did Frank, I've retired now been a pensioner for almost two whole months now. As for what I did for a living before, I'm pretty certain that I have told you. For the previous eight years I was a freelance IT consultant doing technical support/system design work for various blue chip companies. Before that I worked for 25 years for Evil American Megacorp doing all sorts of stuff, tech support, system design, writing OS level code and application development and testing. Before that I spent a decade working for a small consultancy based in Liverpool and before that I was a clerk in a warehouse which ironically is how I got into IT. I've worked with most major operating systems such as MVS, VM, Aix, Solaris and the various innumerable flavours of Linux.
Written code in about 20 diferent languages modern ones such as Ruby, Perl and Python not to mention C and Assembler plus some such as REXX and AS2 that even most of the Urban75 nerds haven't heard of and some like Fortran that are best not talked about in polite company. I would lay a small bet that I'm the only Urb that has actually written Cobol rather than just read about in history books. I'm 66 and I started work in IT at 18 so I've pretty much been in IT for as long as there has been IT.
As to whether this is socially useful that's for others to decide but yes Frank it has been very well paid indeed.

How much was that bet for? I did a TOPS course in COBOL in Windsor back in 1980, and then had 2 jobs that were mainly COBOL, followed by one that wasn't and then three that included it. My last IT job (ended 2010) involved COBOL right up until the end. So, how much was that bet for again?

 

[MickiQ]

How much was that bet for? I did a TOPS course in COBOL in Windsor back in 1980, and then had 2 jobs that were mainly COBOL, followed by one that wasn't and then three that included it. My last IT job (ended 2010) involved COBOL right up until the end. So, how much was that bet for again?

Wow! All this time I thought I was the only one left alive Where did you do your TOPS course, the ICL Training Centre at Beaumont?

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Wow! All this time I thought I was the only one left alive Where did you do your TOPS course, the ICL Training Centre at Beaumont?

Yep. That's the one.

 

[Elpenor]

You may have been taught by my uncle as I think he worked at ICL around then

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

You may have been taught by my uncle as I think he worked at ICL around then

What was his name?

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Doughnuts should be banned anyway. Or at least, banned in workplaces. Sell them only in plain packaging festooned with diabetes warnings. The colour palette for glazed toppings and cream fillings should be restricted to khakis.

That package of measures would have various impacts on employment practices within bakeries, probably positive ones overall.

The workers doughnut

 

[Riklet]

I would sign and accept it but then fight and push from the inside with your fellow workers and/or union if it is being abused.

Ive signed loads of them over the years and TBF always been paid the extra hours. although I would always suggest you keep a careful track of these as companies are prone to make mistakes... and almost always in their favour. It can also be useful in then calculating if your holiday allowance and or holiday pay should change

I dont think it'll change much you refusing this clause in isolation but if you and your entire team for example decided you wanted to withdraw your permission as it was being used unfairly that would be a lot more powerful.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Let me know if I can tempt you out of retirement!

“Just one last job, I promise...”

 

[SpookyFrank]

Did Frank, I've retired now been a pensioner for almost two whole months now. As for what I did for a living before, I'm pretty certain that I have told you. For the previous eight years I was a freelance IT consultant doing technical support/system design work for various blue chip companies. Before that I worked for 25 years for Evil American Megacorp doing all sorts of stuff, tech support, system design, writing OS level code and application development and testing. Before that I spent a decade working for a small consultancy based in Liverpool and before that I was a clerk in a warehouse which ironically is how I got into IT. I've worked with most major operating systems such as MVS, VM, Aix, Solaris and the various innumerable flavours of Linux.
Written code in about 20 diferent languages modern ones such as Ruby, Perl and Python not to mention C and Assembler plus some such as REXX and AS2 that even most of the Urban75 nerds haven't heard of and some like Fortran that are best not talked about in polite company. I would lay a small bet that I'm the only Urb that has actually written Cobol rather than just read about in history books. I'm 66 and I started work in IT at 18 so I've pretty much been in IT for as long as there has been IT.
As to whether this is socially useful that's for others to decide but yes Frank it has been very well paid indeed.

If you just learn the phrase 'corporate IT drone' that'll save you a lot of unnecessary typing.

 

[muscovyduck]

Another thing to watch out for trying to gauge this, is what sort of jobs the people around you will have. For example, if you're non-clinical in a healthcare setting but you're going to be surrounded by nurses, on the one hand you'd look at the clause thinking "oh that makes sense as a standard clause in this work environment, nothing to worry about" but on the other hand, day to day you're going to be dealing with a work culture that doesn't understand they don't get first dibs on how you spend your time 24/7. You might think that logically you're not part of that because X Y and Z reasons, but they won't see it like that. With things like this, something as small as where your desk is based can be make or break.

 

[muscovyduck]

Also, how much energy would you be willing to put into arguing about it if it does become a problem. I've just bailed on a job where I think they were expecting me to push back on them on with stuff like this, and I could have ran rings around them, but I decided I couldn't be arsed. If I took the job again I'd be wanting to make sure I'd joined a union before my start date.

 

[MickiQ]

Let me know if I can tempt you out of retirement!

Time comes when a man must hang up his coding pencil and tend to his petunias, my main contribution from now on will be boring people witless by telling them how much better things were in the old days

 

[equationgirl]

My uncle teaches or maybe taught cobol, he might have stopped doing it as I understand a lot of legacy systems use it

I think a number of legacy systems do, but most people who have written the code are now retired so maintenance is a bit of an issue.

 

[equationgirl]

As to the thread question, it does depend on the industry and general corporate culture. I worked in the energy industry where this type of clause was standard but certain teams worked ridiculous hours for months making sure power stations were maintained and ready for the winter season. The company I worked for breached the WTR and did get a large fine.