Increased Work Load - no extra pay

mel123

A friend of mine has a problem in work (same company as me). Basically due to new business her work load has been increased dramatically. Before all the new business she was told there would be no extra work for her - obviously to get out of giving her a pay increase. She was asked to temporarily do it as a favour. She said if they wanted to keep her doing it, she would want a pay increase. They said they would look at the situation in due course. Now the time has lapsed where she was doing it as a favour, and they wouldnt give her any extra cash. SO she told them she wasnt doing the jobs anymore - which do infact consist of quite a lot of work. They told her basically who did she think she was to say she wasnt doing the work.
Now she doenst have anything in writing to say that her workload was not going to increase since the new business was taken over. She isnt in a union.
Basically can she refuse to do the work?
She has a contract for the work she does. The new work would fall into this category, as its much the same of what she does now.
Can anyone offer advise to her?
IMO i wouldnt have thought they can make someone take on extra work against their will, or without a pay increase, and anyway, its pretty miserable that they wont give her a few extra quid!!!
Any comments??? Cant really find anything relating to this on oasis.gov etc.

AARRRGH

There is no law which says "you can't make your employees work hard" or "you can pick and choose the work you do".

She's being a spa (sorry) and needs to cop on.

digitally-yours

Find a new job.

I can understand your friends situation.

Its a common practice in Ireland in low paid jobs to give more and more work load.

I think she should draw the line and tell them she has other options if this dont change.

The best thing would be to QUIT !

if the work load is not balanced that means she is just being abused.
there is no "LAW" for this dosen't mean that its right to make staff over work without compensation.

seamus

So she's doing the work that's within her contract, for the same company with whom she signed that contract, it's just that there's much more of it?

The company can give her as much work as they like. She's getting paid to do work, they're giving her work.

If the new workload is excessive, then she needs to say *that*, so they can hire someone to take the pressure off. If she can handle it within her daily hours, then I don't see why she's entitled to a pay rise.

dade

dublindude wrote:

There is no law which says "you can't make your employees work hard" or "you can pick and choose the work you do".

pretty much,

from my understanding if it fits her usual job description/terms of employment etc the she can't complain. but if it is outside her role then she can refuse, kinda like asking an office clerk to clean the windows. if it means she has to work more hours to do it then she should be entitled to additional pay for the additional hours be it over time or a salary increase, and if she's the only one doing it and others in a similar role are not helping out then she may have a right to complain.

my wife was in a situation like this a long time ago, she was a part time office worker and they asked her to help out on something so she did. anyway the boss turned around and said we want you to work full time. double the hours double the pay she said no, review my salary first and change my contract as you are altering the terms of my contract (different duties added to her existing ones). they refused and replaced her with a full time worker and let her go. Ends up in the labour court and she won as the company can not sack a part timer to take on a full timer and she was in her rights to refuse the additional work load (this additional work load was outside the terms of her original contract) if the company would not review/change her contract.

Best thing she can do though is walk, if the company are willing to treat someone like that and speak to them in the manner of "who do you think you are" then it's not a company worth working for.

doolox

Nowadays people hate the word unions. they see them as violent, shiftless,lazy mediocre layabouts. Out to create chaos and disorder. Only in it for the quick buck. etc......
Business nowadays is lionized and praised. But their objectives are much the same. An honest boss will tell you that he is out to get the job done at the cheapest rate and will put as much work on your table as you can do. It is up to you as a worker to do as much as you can within reason, taking family, colleagues, the market etc into account. No government can legislate for this. No authority can tell you how much you do. It is a matter between you and your boss.
In the old days norms were set up for each job and a set of pay-rates, work rates etc were set up for each job. The public sector and, to some extent, the Irish private sector acts this way and it is easy to find out what standard of work is considered normal for a given wage. Unions act as intermediaries to keep order in the system and keep bosses from bullying and exploiting weak workers. Also underperforming workers stand out quicker and more obviously in this system as the norms for each job are publicly known by everybody in the workplace and it is harder to hide incompetence behind workplace politics and a cosy worker/boss relationship.
It sounds as if you need to get into a workplace that has a better level of unionisation than the one you have now. You could also try getting to know people working in similar jobs as you, get to find out what they are doing, how much of it they are doing and what they are paid etc.
Most rational bosses will listen to arguments based on data and will at least respect you more if you can present an argument based on facts, got from other people working the same job as you. At least the fact the you are talking to other similarly employed people outside your own company might scare your boss off from exploiting you.
On the other hand you might find out that your sector is going through hard times and more work/ less pay is the norm for your sector at the present time.
My company is a U.S based multinational and although they pay reasonably well they are hell to work for. The same thing is happening....more work/ less pay and less people to do the work. All we can do is a sort of soul destroying dodge the work game where we work as slowly as possible and be "elsewhere" as much as possible... if we work as hard as told to mistakes are made and we get hammered for mistakes. At least someone who does his share, AND No More than his share, reduces the risk of mistakes and possible demotion and zero payrises.
What is needed is a good ass-kicking union to give the management something to worry about, root out the ass-lickers and protect the real workers.