The School of Jack

[Crocodile]

To be fair to the course tutor ... Although I agree with Crocs sentiments.. I would hope that I would be at my place of work so that I can "start work" at the stroke of 8 or 8:30am rather than turn up, just after, and then have a cuppa, while getting a chat in before the "day proper" gets going around 9ish.

I always get to work with time to spare, to have a breather before starting work. either that or work out a way to arrive exactly on teh final strike of the bells and go straight to my trench. ah teh 80s..

I try and get to site early for my own comfort but if I'm still putting my boots on at a minute past eight I don't feel that I am swinging the lead. My boots are often on before eight, I'm not a clock watcher, though bad employers or managers can turn you into one, usually by superficial clock watching.

Things used to be worse in the workplace. In the nineties one of my girlfriends used to work in a newsagents where they were expected to clean up before the shop closed. It usually took half an hour to clean up but often the girls couldn't start cleaning because there were still customers to serve. This meant they often had to do the cleaning after closing. They weren't paid for this extra half hour because they were supposed to have done it before the shop closed. Though not as common this type of thing still goes on.

[barkingdigger]

Nice one Dino! (Once had the joy of finding half a mortar shell on a shovel - and the break was very fresh...)

My best spoil-heap experience was hunting an unexcavated post-hole on an old (10 years+?) dig in a quarry, where it seems some clown slipped in after the dig and deposited a completely non-archaeological spoilheap in the form of a 20ft high berm directly on top of it! Still, it was necessary for some prehysterical heavenly alignment guff, so out came the BYT to clear it off...

[Dinosaur]

I actually achieved the rare feat a couple of years ago of getting some quarry guys to build an edge-berm around a small pit that I hadn't had time to get to (which luckily turned out dead interesting -can't wait for the C14) - bit wierd, and a little claustaphobic, working in a 1m square area surrounded on 3 sides by 5m bunds...and of course the spoil kept coming back after a 2-3 second delay...

[Kel]

if an employee was to receive less than minimum over the pay period for that loss of 5 or 10 minutes each time they booted up then the employer will have broken the law. .... you'd probably have a strong case if you wished to contest the issue.

Work time counts as any time that you are required to be at work, other than when you are on a rest break, including travelling during the working day, though not to and from work.

Employers like that care about such things only when instructed to do so by an industrial tribunal. This route is either not financially available (due to lack of Legal Aid) or desirable (due to blot on CV/future job references) for that kind of low-paid un-unionised workforce.

[Crocodile]

Employers like that care about such things only when instructed to do so by an industrial tribunal. This route is either not financially available (due to lack of Legal Aid) or desirable (due to blot on CV/future job references) for that kind of low-paid un-unionised workforce.

Not so complicated. Phone the minimum wage helpline and report them anonymously. More complicated, I admit, if you are working for a small company but then I think the whole reference threat is a bit overstated. The reputatation of bad companies usually precedes them.

[Crocodile]

Employers like that care about such things only when instructed to do so by an industrial tribunal. This route is either not financially available (due to lack of Legal Aid) or desirable (due to blot on CV/future job references) for that kind of low-paid un-unionised workforce.

Of course if you are being paid minimum wage or above but are not being paid for your full work time this is not a concern of minimum wage law.

[kevin wooldridge]

Of course if you are being paid minimum wage or above but are not being paid for your full work time this is not a concern of minimum wage law.

But it would appear to be of concern to HMRC....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/j...law-on-pay

[Wax]

As a matter of interest has there ever been an archaeologist who went down the industrial tribunal route ? if not why not considering the amount of employment malpractice that appears to go on? Are we such a small incestuous profession that we are all scared of being black listed?

[Crocodile]

But it would appear to be of concern to HMRC....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/j...law-on-pay

Sorry I think my wording made what I meant ambiguous. Minimum wage law is concerned if you are paid less than minimum wage and clearly defines what hours count as time work in order to make sure that you are being paid minimum for all the hours you do, this includes travel during the working day. What is not clear is if the law regarding what counts as work time for minimum wage purposes also extend to those people being paid more than minimum, that is, if I am paid £10 an hour over a forty hour week but am not paid the £12.50 that I am owed because my employer requires me to be on site 15 minutes earlier than my official start time (Under minimum wage law this time would count as work time because I am required to be at work at this time by my employer) do these laws on work time extend to me, even though I receive more than minimum? It's not clear whether they do.

I had a similar problem when I worked in a job where I was paid for output. Minimum wage law requires that output work be set at a fair piece rate so that a person working at below average output can still make minimum. The company I worked for did in fact have work that was not rated fairly and the pay was below minimum but by giving this work to higher output employees and mixing it with jobs that paid a fair rate we would still receive minimum over the pay period. So we lost unfairly on the underpaid projects, projects that would not pay minimum if you were to work on nothing else for the entire pay period, but we could not do anything because the fairer paid projects would bring your pay up to minimum. In fact higher output employees could end up receiving less pay than lower output workers because higher output workers got the slower jobs.

[P Prentice]

Never understood this mentality. If any job requires that you be there fifteen minutes before you are getting paid to be there, then this should be your start time and this is time you should be paid for. Most working people already dedicate a substantial amount of unpaid time toward their job and their working day, breaks, travel time, washing work clothes and cleaning equipment etc, if you think low paid workers need to dedicate another 58.25 hours for free, then knock yourself out. It's as if the eightees never ended.

admirable sentiment but unlikely to get your contract renewed in this decade.