An employee works permanent graveyard shifts which start at midnight on Sundays through til 6 am Monday morning. But the next 4 days of his shift start 22.00 Monday though til 4.00am on Tues, etc til Thurs.
Contract says he gets bank holidays off. We require him to take the Monday graveyard off (10pm to 4am) but he says he should get the Sunday graveyard because that falls fully on the Mon morning and his contract states that he is entitled to take his normal shift which falls on a bank holiday. He says as he works Monday morning, then if that day is a bank holiday he should be off, and then come back in on Monday evening for his next shift. He says that bank holiday leave on Monday nightshift is no good as does not give him the benefit of the correct day off. He says it means that we treat it as a normal working day for him only, whereas all other staff get the day off.
We do have standby cover on B/Hols and staff volunteer to be on standby. He says that those staff get benefits to be on standby (a standby allowance, plus a day off and if called in get double time) and because we treat Mon morning as a normal shift for him and he therefore can’t be on standby at double time etc, that we are discriminating against him. He says he is the only person who has no choice about being in for his whole shift during a bank holiday and anyone else would get double time for being in but he gets normal pay. He also says that the shift pattern is unreasonable because it means he is in for one night (Sun) , then out (B/Hol leave), then in again (Tues) etc and it messes up his bodyclock.
We are pretty sure that as the law stands, we have the right to specify when he takes his bank hol, and that although he wants to take it Monday morning, if we say he has to take it Monday nightshift, to fit in with the other Mon-Fri graveyard staff, it’s tough, unfair or not.
He has been working for a year or so and has only just decided to bring this up so we feel it’s an implied term of his contract anyway, whether he likes it or not,irrespective of the wording in his contract.
He is currently using the grievance procedure to try and get the right to take it on the Monday morning instead of the Monday graveyard. If he doesn’t get the outcome he wants, would he have any grounds for an ET for inconsistent or unfair treatment?
LL
