Office move - legal advice

NEDDURC

Hello,

The company I work for a consolidating a number of offices into one and therefore will require me to commute to an office further away from my house.

Is there any law covering this that I could look in to?

lifeandtimes

No there isn't, companies can move as they wish,however if the move is beyond a certain distance they are required to pay you disturbance money

NEDDURC

Thanks lifeandtimes,

Is that a rule somewhere that I can look at?

I suppose the distance isn't all that far but the extra travel time could be alot worse for me (bad traffic area). Does that come into it at all?

Peregrinus

A fairly standard term in employment contracts is to the effect that your ordinary place of work will be where we say it is, and may change, and you will attend there at the regular hours. Getting to work is your affair, not theirs.

Obviously it's possible for them to abuse this by, e.g. relocating from Cork to Belfast, but in general they can move office to another part of the same city. I don't know of any law that says that you're entitled to disturbance money; that's a matter for negotiation. Generally if employers pay this it's because they want to keep employees happy, not because they are legally obliged to.

NEDDURC

My employment agreement doesn't say that.

All it says is: 'Your normal place of work will be X'. X is the old location.
Employment agreement does say at the bottom that the company reserves the right to make reasonable changes to the terms and conditions etc with my consent.

Surely there must be case law on this one? Google isn't great on this one. I probably need my search to be more specific I'd say.
I could go to a library but would also be abit clueless as to where to even look.

schemingbohemia

Have you discussed this with your colleagues? Employers?
Are you looking for disturbance money or constructive dismissal?
If the move is so injurious are you looking for a new job?

Manach

Sometimes an alternative option, if the move is too far away as per Peregrinus' example, the company might offer to subsidise for a home office instead, but again at their discretion. As mentioned, if the reasonable nature of the relocation is to be shown by the company, then this suggests both a proper consultation to exist between them and the employees effected within a sensible timeframe. If not, AFAIR from reading a employment tribunal ruling, even if such moves where explicitly part of a contract then employer might be in breach of the terms due to unreasonableness: eg Cork ->Belfast.

NEDDURC

Thanks for the replies!

The move is not that far in distance but could add an extra 30mins each way to my commute which is already 45mins each way.

I don't really want to leave the job but it's something that could have a significant impact on my commute time and life balance. Some kind of disturbance money might be good or work from home options. I'm just trying to figure out if that is totally baseless in law.

Is there any good book I can read up on for this? As I said I'm clueless.