Unfair Treatment of Staff

rob6970

Just wondering if anyone can shed any light on a situation for me,

If a company decides that employees working hours are to be cut to their contract band ( which i know they are perfectly entitled to do so) but they decide certain area of the store and certain employees will remain working above their contract band what sort of action can i take as surely this is fabourtism and unfair treatment of other employees??

If anyone has any information on this it would be great.

Procrastastudy

rob6970 wrote: »

Just wondering if anyone can shed any light on a situation for me,

If a company decides that employees working hours are to be cut to their contract band ( which i know they are perfectly entitled to do so) but they decide certain area of the store and certain employees will remain working above their contract band what sort of action can i take as surely this is fabourtism and unfair treatment of other employees??

If anyone has any information on this it would be great.

After a certain number of weeks an argument can be made that you are now reliant on the extra hours / shift times. Look at the NERA website. If you're not getting hours and someone else is there is likely a reason - perhaps try and address this with your boss. I used to do it all the time for many reasons. AFAIK there is no reason they cant do it unless its one of the grounds for discrimination.

rob6970

I know that they can cut everyone back alright but surely they cant pick and choose who gets cut back and who doesnt its blatant favourtism and doscrimination

Procrastastudy

rob6970 wrote: »

I know that they can cut everyone back alright but surely they cant pick and choose who gets cut back and who doesnt its blatant favourtism and doscrimination

Other than what I have already said about the custom an practice rule I'm afraid they can cut back who they like to contract unless its based on one of the grounds like sex, religion etc. It's only during redundancy do the consultations kick in and even then work performance may very well come in to it. I'm assuming here but that was the reason I used to cut back people's hours.

Denerick

rob6970 wrote: »

I know that they can cut everyone back alright but surely they cant pick and choose who gets cut back and who doesnt its blatant favourtism and doscrimination

To be fair, if one worker is productive and quite frankly better it isn't favouritism or discrimination, its just prioritising him/her above others of more average ability. Its quite common in part time work, and I think it would be unfair on the more able and better workers if they were forced to work fewer hours because of some misguided notion of egalitarianism.

Mrs OBumble

rob6970 wrote: »

I know that they can cut everyone back alright but surely they cant pick and choose who gets cut back and who doesnt its blatant favourtism and doscrimination

They can't discriminate on the basis of age, sex, religion, disability, race, being a member of the travelling community, and a few other things.

But they are perfectly entitled to discriminate on other things, including:

• how hard someone works - or what results they achieve, not matter how hard or easy it was for them,
• what department they are in,
• how smart, attractive, talll or overweight they are (except if those things are related to disability)
• political views (mmm, I think ... not sure exactly what the illegal grounds are )
• educational qualifications
• where you live (unless this implies nationality or MOTC)
• how you travel to work

Now there may be some more specific employment laws that discount this - but they are a good deal harder to argue from, whereas the discrimination angle is pretty clear cut.

And there may be some other factors that apply if you work in a goverment job too.

Other than that though, you just need to accept that life isn't fair.

confuseddotcom

Wowsers! How would how you travel to work be used??!!??

Procrastastudy

confuseddotcom wrote: »

Wowsers! How would how you travel to work be used??!!??

Managing a shop - need to be there for alarm calls - takes you two hours to get there. One of a bazillion scenarios.

Wishbone Ash

confuseddotcom wrote: »

Wowsers! How would how you travel to work be used??!!??

It happens us regularly. If at short notice we discover that we need additional staff, we are more inclined to call in someone who lives across the road than someone who lives a couple of hours drive away or someone relying on public transport. (We try to balance it though by giving the other staff shifts which can be predicted in advance).

Mrs OBumble

confuseddotcom wrote: »

Wowsers! How would how you travel to work be used??!!??

Well if there are ten spaces in the car park and the company already employs ten people who bring a car, then hiring another who would drive there would cause un-necessary problems.

Or if the company is environmentally conscious. Or staffed by cycling geeks who want to hire someone who will fit in.

Etc.

Corruptedmorals

I see you closed your account, but if you're still reading the answer is probably down to busier departments etc. For example when I worked part-time, the contract band was 15 hours. When hours were cut I would always come out with more hours than part-timers working in kids, home, mens etc. because I worked in ladieswear which was much busier and required more staff. People also had their hours cut especially on Sundays if they were on a higher rate of pay. Again, they didn't care as much if it was ladieswear where they were more flexible about it. I know it's unfair, but there is reasoning behind it. You could always request a transfer to the busiest department? If you looked at the roster, you would probably be able to discern a pattern of the people in the busiest department getting the most hours, and also the hardest workers as opposed to new staff etc.