Period of uninterrupted rest

Hello,

I am hoping that someone can answer a question regarding the right to uninterrupted rest, or alternatively tell me that I am being too unlenient towards my work.

I currently work night shifts for a well-known bakery, multidrop to supermarkets and the like. Like most places, there are good elements to the work as well as bad. However recently things seem to be taking a downward turn with management upsetting drivers, resulting in the loss of over 25 drivers in the past year. As a result, a shortage of drivers has led to managers constantly trying to get people to do overtime.

I am not against overtime and have helped out constantly. I didn’t do this for money reasons but to help out in times of need when the business needed it, although the money was a bonus. However recently I have scaled this back because it is quite clear that the way managers treat drivers when they need help and when they don’t is completely different.

Anyway, for the past few months, I have been going into my rest days (and sometimes between night shifts while sleeping) when the company will ring 2 to 3 times a day. Presuming it is something important, I always answer the phone where I have a manager asking if I can work overtime. These are not urgent overtime requests, but requests that are weeks in advance and could be done when I am actually in work. It didn’t bother me until recently when they were doing it between night shifts, knowing that I would most likely be sleeping in prep for the following night shift. And on rest days, I value my work/ life balance enough to not want to have to deal with work issues in my own time. I really don’t want to have all my free time revolve around work.

So, does anyone know if this is allowed in terms of driver rules and rest period? I am more than happy to deal with urgent enquiries on rest period, but this is not the case and can be done in work time. Would these phone calls count as having interrupted my rest period, or am I being too overly dramatic and just get on with it. I have discussed the matter with my employer, there is an overtime availability form in the office, and I could just ignore my phone on my rest days, but it would just play on my mind until I get back to work. It seems to happen every time I go onto rest days.

Many thanks.

I have my phone go automatically to silent from about 6am to 1pm, if I have a voicemail or text when I wake up I will deal with it then. As far as rest break legality of contact, I have no idea.

Do what many of us do these days = put all communication devices on silent when asleep

They’re taking the ■■■■ mate, you could down the route of lodging an official complaint or even contact DVSA to tell them what is happening. However both of them options are quite extreme and my own way of dealing with it would be to beat them with their own stick; I once received a phone call whilst parked up on a night out at 1am asking me what time I was starting that day, my plan was for a 5am start, but my response to them was “9 hours from now” and I put the phone down and started at 10am. They never did that again.

Legally if you have the choice to answer or not, then that is fine in a rest period, they can’t demand you answer or call in within a rest period.

But they are taking the ■■■■ ring when you’re off for a non urgent reason. I’d state my case against them doing it and say if it continues then you won’t answer any calls from work during a rest period

See if you can get hold of the manager’s home or mobile number and ring him during his time off to give the responses to his non-urgent enquiries (or to ask him for advice to deal with an issue that arises during your night shift).

This might help get the penny to drop…

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My response years ago was to inform the company that the company mobile would get launched .
My day off was mondays , every monday they would ring me on the mobile for all sorts of nonsense reasons , I always went fishing on mondays ,on my local pier .
It rang , it got launched off the end of the pier .
They replaced the phone and nothing more was said .
The replacement did several trips in fridge trailers without me , several days at -20c doesn’t do them any favours . I was a yard op in those days and we did the remedial stuff for the Ministry/VOSA/DVSA overloads , hence a mobile for the call outs .

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