I questioned my boss yesterday regarding overtime, he says he can ask me to do overtime with no notice. He wanted me to do 2 hours o/t yesterday but i had allready arranged to do some stuff with my wife and kids. Bassicly i want to know how much prior notice of o/t he has to give as he got quite abrupt when i turned it down i thank you. 
overtime is part and parcel of hgv driving.you could be on a doddle of a 8 hour day but it only takes a bit of traffic accident or delays at rdc to bump them hours up.
plus dont you know when you become a driver family life and other comitments go out the window 
jon
Jonboy yer talking crap - yea if your on a job and it goes ā ā ā ā up thats life, but if his shifts over and jobs done its bye bye if hes got other plans. a decent boss will accept that im sure.
If i was you i would have told him the previous day that i had to be done for what ever time,that way you both know where you stand.
PMAC:
I questioned my boss yesterday regarding overtime, he says he can ask me to do overtime with no notice. He wanted me to do 2 hours o/t yesterday but i had allready arranged to do some stuff with my wife and kids. Bassicly i want to know how much prior notice of o/t he has to give as he got quite abrupt when i turned it down i thank you.
Do you have a written contract? or what verbal agreement did you have when you started?
Had this issue with my current workplace, except the overtime never got paid and it wasnāt 2 hours it was more like 6! (7am-10pm) yes it was a total ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā but since they sorted their mess out and got contracts written up I wonāt go out and do extra stuff after my contracted finish time. If Iām back an hour or so late I donāt kick a fuss up about the hours O/T as I often get off early in winter anyway and I know iād never get itā¦
But if your back at the depot, youāve got your work done and your asked to do O/T you have a right to refuse without being penalised, unless itās written into your contract, but iām not sure if thatās even legally possible as itād be too open to abuse by employers iād imagine.
You cannot refuse to do a āreasonable amountā of overtime - part of employment law.
However this does depend on how you are emlpoyed. By this being in the new and wannabe section I assume you are new. Refusing overtime and not being a āteam playerā certainly wouldnt be on my top 5 list of how to get the choice assignments from an agency.
But in short it its a reasonable request then you cannot refuse to do it and they could discipline you for it.
Sockpuppet:
You cannot refuse to do a āreasonable amountā of overtime - part of employment law.
Of course you can refuse to do it. Granted you may not have a job for much longer but no one can force you to do something you donāt want to do.
Isnāt it illegal these days to make people do overtime at all? Genuine question?
Isnāt it illegal these days to make people do overtime at all? Genuine question?
I always thought that was the case.
In terms of notice I would ask the guy how much he notice he needs if you need to finish early (or at a certain time) and then apply the same the other way around.
G
Lucy:
Isnāt it illegal these days to make people do overtime at all? Genuine question?
Can you be forced to work overtime, or stopped from doing so?
Your contract of employment should include the conditions for working overtime. You only have to work overtime if your contract says so. Even if it does you canāt usually be forced to work more than an average of 48 hours per week. If youāre told to work more than this and you donāt want to, you should first take it up with your employer.
Seems it is down to the specific contract, unless the overtime takes you over the WTD limit.
Sockpuppet:
You cannot refuse to do a āreasonable amountā of overtime - part of employment law.
The āReasonable amount of overtimeā clause is usually in every contract but it really means nothingā¦ who can define āreasonableā?
Iāve always worked on the principal of if I have to give 24-48 hrs notice for a days holiday then the same amount of notice applies if they want me to ruin my weekendā¦ if a job runs over thats different but phoning me @ 5.10 p.m. on a Friday saying Iām working Saturday wonāt wash!
but phoning me @ 5.10 p.m. on a Friday saying Iām working Saturday wonāt wash!
You mean that they manage to get hold of you when you are not working ā ā ?
For some strange reason calls from our base rarely get me when I am āoff dutyāā¦
G
Thatās probably because youāre in the minority of people who actually finish work before 5pm
tobytyke:
Jonboy yer talking crap
johnboy might have an opinion on thatā¦ 
(As might any other Admin.)
tobytyke:
- yea if your on a job and it goes ā ā ā ā up thats life,
That bit is spot-on.
tobytyke:
but if his shifts over and jobs done its bye bye if hes got other plans.
'Fraid itās not that simple. Overtime is a matter of contractual arrangement. Depending on how the employment contract is written, a driver could be on a disciplinary for refusing overtime with dismissal as the ultimate sanction after a fair process. So now weāre at the Employment Tribunal to fight a dismissal for having refused overtime, did you realise that, apart from the contract hurdle, ācustom and practiceā in a particular industry or at a particular employer are also taken into account 
How many driversā employment contracts have you read
In how many Employment Tribunal cases have you advocated
To what extent are your comments backed up by your own knowledge/experience/qualifications gained in our industry
To save you any embarrassment, please treat the 4X as rhetorical.
tobytyke:
a decent boss will accept that im sure.
Whether the boss is ādecentā might not be the issue here. By the very nature of transport, a job could come in that needs to be done, or something else might have gone wrong during the day that needs to be covered/rectified. There are many potential causes for this.
Just before you actually commit to your LGV training, and in view of your comments, you might consider whether youāre cut out for this industry. My advice to anybody entering our industry is: head down, trap shut, ask and listen, but above all, show respect for those with greater knowledge.
Last thought- believe me, Iāve gone very easy on you because youāre new.
Daveās right, Toby. You have a lot to learn about this industry, evidently.
When you are asked to do o/time the first thing to ask is have you completed a 8 or 10 hr day (as most companies use the 40hr week = guaranteed 50 hrs pay) so if you haven,t done 10 hours you could say I will work up to the 10hrs and thats it.
Secondly what is your contracted hours as if it is 10 hours your boss has the right to instruct you to stay for 10 hrs even standing doing nothing.
Thirdly you are in road transport and as I have said for the last 35 years + that I have been driving any plans go out of the window as soon as you leave the yard and with all the will of the boss and in the world of planning, murphy,s law takes over and anything can and does go wrong it is not unreasonable for a boss to ask a driver to cover a job that needs to be done at short notice. 
Luckily I work for a firm that whenever possible they will try their best to give notice of extra overtime in situations like this and they will whenever possible do what they can to give a driver a requested finish time but as Rog says if you don,t want to do overtime maybe you should consider a job on fixed start / finish times and I am not being sanctimonious in saying that but there has to be give and take on both sides. 
Maybe I am being cynical on this but not getting at you we had one guy who used to want nights out on a regular basis (2 or 3 a week) and then when coming off a night out wanted to finish early to see his kids!
Also everyone has their own perception of a āreasonableā amount of overtime the classic example was one guy I worked with had the perception (his only) that 1 hr of overtime per YEAR was acceptable he eventually made the position of transport supervisor and then tried to coerce everyone to work up to 15 hr days (and nights). 
Ad Infinitum
Melchett:
Sockpuppet:
You cannot refuse to do a āreasonable amountā of overtime - part of employment law.The āReasonable amount of overtimeā clause is usually in every contract but it really means nothingā¦ who can define āreasonableā?
Iāve always worked on the principal of if I have to give 24-48 hrs notice for a days holiday then the same amount of notice applies if they want me to ruin my weekendā¦ if a job runs over thats different but phoning me @ 5.10 p.m. on a Friday saying Iām working Saturday wonāt wash!
Diesel Dave & Lucy you can think what you like, but this guy is thinking along the right lines, its all about fair & reasonable, and if I or whoever have other plans it will be tough ā ā ā ā ā too the job.
tobytyke:
Diesel Dave & Lucy you can think what you like, but this guy is thinking along the right lines, its all about fair & reasonable, and if I or whoever have other plans it will be tough ā ā ā ā ā too the job.
The more of your posts I read TT the more I think you should consider another industry. This is a job when plans can go out the window in a second. What are you going to do if you have made plans and on the way back to the depot you get stuck in traffic for 3, 4, 5, 6, or more hours?
tobytyke:
Diesel Dave & Lucy you can think what you like, but this guy is thinking along the right lines, its all about fair & reasonable, and if I or whoever have other plans it will be tough ā ā ā ā ā too the job.
It is also fair and reasonable to assume that in an industry with so many variables Toby that this kind of situation does and will happen.
The job is simply not a 9 to 5 guaranteed finish time type of occupation. Even on timed runs or trunks your finish time can go out of the window very easily due to conditions beyond your control 
That said it is a compromise situation and a reasonable boss would only ask and not order an unreasonable request. Just as a driver should be accepting of the fact that sometimes things need to be done and if you have the driving time you would be reasonable to do it. It is really a matter of what is in your contract. You should be aware of the maximim hours a driver is allowed to do by law so is it unreasonable to come into the industry and expect that in a certain situation you may be āaskedā to do them