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Hi there. I have been in my new job as a support worker for a well known, national care company since May of this year. I support people with physical and learning disabilities. My job requires me to occasionally take "sleep-in" night shifts. The sleep-in shift begins at 22:00 and ends at 07:00, but most employees then do another full or half day shift. For a sleep-in, the employee is provided with a single bedroom (which is incredibly dirty and untidy with mess/equipment everywhere I might add!) with no entertainment facilities, e.g. a TV. For the duration of the sleep-in night shift, the employee is forbidden to leave the building and must be physically present, on site, at all times in case of an emergency requiring them to wake up and lend a hand to the waking night staff. The employee must clock in at the start of the sleep-in shift, as they would on any other type of shift, and of course clock out. For this 9 hour shift, the payment is only a single £35.00 amount, but if the employer is called upon during the night and woken up, they are paid their standard rate of pay for each hour they are awake (which is £6.64/hour for me). In reality, 99.99% of the time, the sleep-in staff are never woken up. The only part of my employment contract which specifically mentions sleep-in shifts, is the "Pay" section, which states "Your rate of pay for each sleep-in worked is £35.00. This payment is for 'on-call' services only." This equates to £3.88 per hour, for a 9 hour sleep-in night shift. Subscription to Unison is an unmanageable expense at the moment, given the cost of living and my current wages, so what is the most effective way to deal with securing the minimum wage (at least!) for sleep-in shifts. Any advice is very welcome. Thanks for reading.

Hello everyone. Im looking for some advice regarding my current job. I am a carer and work with elderly people with disabilities. I started work 2 months ago and I am still on probabtion period. I have a zero hours contract, paid hourly at minimum wage and I am expected to do sleeover shifts at the home I work in, which has 3-4 clients. I accepted the job before knowing the shift pattern and was surprised to find I am expected to do 24hour shifts, 12 of which paid at minimum wage and with the other 12 (9pm to 9am) counting as a sleep-in. I am paid 20 pounds for this "sleep-over". Firstly I want to know opinions on whether they are allowed to count 12 hours as a sleep-in. The most shocking here is I actually have duties during the sleep-in! Medication is written down to be administered at 10 pm and some residents are up at 7 waiting to be dressed. I have only been with this agency for a short while, but feel cheated because I was told by my manager (and its in the contract) that any hours worked within this period would be paid on top of sleepover rate, but when I wrote them on my time sheet I was told the contract is only talking about medical emergencies, fires, floods etc. It doesn't. I brought this up a couple of times more but was advised by a "concerned" colleague that I would have reprisals if I insisted too much.. I am really upset over all this and feel exploited. I declined other job offers and now face another couple of months of job hunting with no income if I leave. I am mostly angry that these people appear to work with impunity and I feel worthless as a worker. In your opinion, what is the best thing to do? I have started applying for other jobs but the atmosphere at work is now so poor I may end up having to leave sooner. Sorry for the rant and thank you for your time and help

Hi all, First post on this site as I am a little confused as to what should be happening with our shift patterns regarding bank holidays. I have worked for a medium-sized automotive spares manufacturer for 7 months now and in those 7 months have had 5 different shift patterns and contracts, which is a little strenuous to keep up with to say the least! My concern at the moment is what is meant to happen with continental shifts and bank holidays if the shifts are based around the bank holidays instead of inclusive of them. Basically the guys here who work continentals are intrigued as to why their shift patterns are "interrupted" by bank holidays. For example: On August Bank Holiday Weekend, one team of 2 guys on opposite shifts (days and nights) were scheduled to work Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. However, because of the agreement regarding bank holidays (ie the operators would not work the bank holiday), they instead worked Saturday, Sunday, had the Monday off, and then worked Tuesday and Wednesday. So yes the guys had the Monday off and were paid for it, but they technically didn't get a day off as their shift was simply put forward a day. I have raised this with my Site Manager (we don't have an HR department due to the size of the company) and have basically been shot down in flames. I raised it this way: "considering the (Monday-Thursday) staff are not expected to work a Friday when there is a bank holiday week, and all other staff who work Monday to Friday do not, as a result of the bank holiday Monday, work on Saturday. And this is technically the equivalent of putting a continental shift forward by a day is it not?" I was of the understanding that if a shift worker doesn't work a bank holiday because it is a bank holiday, that this day does not simply interrupt the shift pattern? As technically they haven't had a day off. And also, if the shift worker is not rota'd in for that shift, do they not in turn get an extra day off as that is in turn "their" bank holiday...? Please have a nosey at the Leave Policy and see what you guys think. Cheers, cardamine