Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Well, I returned to work after my hols to uproar.
There had been a noticed put up on the notice board that all persons who normally work on mondays would be expected to work on monday 28th December 2009 and we would be on normal pay, not time and a half and no day in lieu.
Now,this is a bank holiday because christmas day is friday and boxing day is saturday. sunday is a normal working day and monday is the bank holiday.
We all agreed that if they did this we would not turn up for that monday.
We have not been told this officially by the management by the way, it was just a notice and it has now been taken down.

Everyone, and I mean everyone is in uproar about this.

I am in the union (GMB) and I rang them and spoke to Andy, I asked him if it was possible they could do this and he said: YES.
It was possible.
I explained that we had all said we would not turn up for that day and he was silent for a few seconds and then he advised me not to do that as we would be 'awol' and it will lead to serious disciplinary action.
He explained that of course they knew what Asda was doing and they were in negotiations with them to stop them from doing this.

Asda has tried this once before, with the bank holidays.
I have worked there for 19 years and they tried to get us to work at least 2 bank holidays a year. When before it was purely voluntary. But if you did work a bank holiday, you got time and a half and a day in lieu. They have stopped that now and only pay you normal hours and no day in lieu.
The union was in negotiations with them and they stopped us from having to do any bank holidays. It is voluntary, like it was before.

It's only been a couple of weeks now and nothing has been said by Asda about the monday, and we are waiting to hear from the union.

We work hard enough as it is and I'm sure you can imagine what it's like at christmas time, and they want to take away our holiday.
How dare they!!!!

So, I will let you know what happens when we hear from them.

2 comments:

Sage said...

Sounds grim.. guess we know how Asda manages to keep its prices down now, it screws the staff instead of the customers ... commiserations.

Foody said...

I quite agree with you. How dare they? You deserve the holiday. It must be hell on earth working in a supermarket at Christmas. I hope it has all worked out in your favour.