John works in an IT department which has been restructured. He has had a change in his contract where he has been asked to work 1 weekend in 3 on-call instead of 1 weekend in 4. He has also been told that he will not receive additional pay for the weekends he is on-call as he is on a high wage and this on-call work is covered by his wage. John was also told that he would no longer receive the cost of living increase each year until other staff caught up to his pay. John tried to point out that this would be a substantial loss of income for him if he does not receive payment for on-call work and he would also have additional hours he would work doing 1 weekend in 3 rather than 1 in 4. In the end he agreed to these changes as the Manager was not able to make adjustments within his budget, and John was concerned if he didnt agree, it could effect his job security.
John worked his first on-call weekend under these new terms. He is on call from 7am–10.30pm on Saturday and 7am-7.30pm on Sunday and is required to be in the office from 7am–11am on Saturday and 7am-9am on Sunday. The rest of the time he can be at home or in the office to take the calls from the stores if they have IT problems. If the call requires work on the computer that can’t be completed at home he has to come back to work to complete this. Calls over the weekend range between 75 – 100 calls, each call is a separate issue that needs to be solved. Last weekend John had 95 calls and worked 28 hours so 3.4 calls per hour then had follow up work on the computer to solve the problems.
John has been told that this is on-call work, so he does not get any other additional rest day. John has accepted that he isn’t getting any additional pay for this but my question is should John be entitled to an alternative rest day? It appears to me he has worked 7 days Mon – Sun, but gets no break in the week prior or after his on-call weekend. He returns to work Mon – Fri after his on-call weekend. Is the Manager entitled to do this by saying that the weekend work is on-call?
Sarah Kempthorne
