Selectively cutting hours

LegacyUser

Our boss sent us all letters a couple of months ago advising that due to business needs and the downturn in business we were going to be required to work our 40 hour week over 6 days. None of the staff would agree to this so he came back and said the alternative was a cut in hours (retail - 9 shops, approx 30 staff and managers wouldn't be affected). No-one was happy with this either but it went ahead anyway.

My query is this. There isn't any set pattern to the cutting of hours. One week one person in each shop might lose 4 hours from their week, the following week, it might be only 2 people across all the shops losing hours. It hasn't affected me until this week because I was a store manager but because I moved to another area they put me in that store as a sales assistant and today I got next weeks rota and I've lost 4 hours next week.

Is it legal to cut only certain people's hours? Surely a change to the terms of my employment contract would have to be something that's implemented across the board with all staff ie like a pay cut, otherwise it's unfair?

I'm with the company 6 years and feeling fairly ticked off about this

Corruptedmorals

Perhaps they are trying to figure out the best say to save money, and are experimenting with different ways of cutting hours, either across the board or here and there. Where I worked (much bigger retail company), hours being slashed was not random, it completely depended on how much certain people were needed in their department. Some flexi staff had their weekly hours slashed by 10+, some stayed the same as they worked in busier departments etc. Personally, my part-time hours remained steady as I was working in the busiest department, yet people on the same contract would work up to 9hours less than me, as their departments were much deader. Rosters would be made provisionally and would be passed around management and HR with 'cut 70 hours off this' on top...apart from how vital someone was, those on top rates of pay also suffered.

It was perfectly legal to cut part-time and flexi hours. Part-timers had to work 15, but usually worked 22ish. Flexi had to work 15, but usually worked 37.5. Both could be slashed to 15 easily. Full-time could not. If your contract sets in stone that you must work X hours and the cuts are not fulfilling that, that is illegal- unless you sign your name to the hour amendments.

LegacyUser

Thanks for reply, sorry I'm not on this very often so didn't see it til now.

I'm full-time permenant. My contract states that I'm contracted to work a 40 hour week. Everyone else in the company is the same, there are no part time workers.

I'll give you an example of how this is working out.

This week in my branch, there's 3 of us working. The manager (who's hours are never cut, a guy (we'll call him Paul) and me.

Paul's hours this week are Mon 12-6, off Tues, Wed 9-6, Thurs 12-7, Fri 12-7, Sat 11-6. So effectively he's losing a day plus 1 hour. I'm in 9-6 for 5 days (1 hour for breaks, 8 hour day, 40 hour week.)

Next week, I'm on the same hours that Paul is doing this week but I'm on the rota for 12-6 on Saturday rather than 11 to 6 that he is doing this week so I'm loosing out on a day and 2 hours!!

Another example is some staff in other branches may only have hours cut every 3 or 4 weeks and some not at all!!

I'm checked out rights regarding this on the NERO website but all it advises is to accept cuts in hours as the alternative may be to lose my job but it's impossible to find information on this situation ie, cutting hours randomly and not across the board!!

Corruptedmorals

I see what you mean alright. One reason I can come up with is that your store's budget is under more stress than those of the other branches- could be to do with it having more staff than the others and the budget being stingy, could be to with having longger-serving store managers etc. who command higher salaries on older contracts or to do with length of service staff wise- staff in your store may command higher rates of pay than newer staff in other stores. If not, you're right, it makes no sense. Maybe you would be better off ringing NERO? Cutting your hours full stop is against your contract in the first place. If you get no redress from them, it is possible your hours will pick up in September or so for the busy period? Not much consolation though when much of the year is not.