OT at work
 

Hey guys

Got a dilemma im trying to help my girlfriend out on and hope you guys can give me some words of wisdom as she is either too lazy to call the bc labour board or she just doesnt know how to go about this.

She recently got hired by company A ( for the sake of easyness ill use A and B), which i believe was a recruitment agency which handed her over to company B to work in. So she has been working at company B, 4 days on 3 days off, with each day being from 7:30am to 6 pm.

On her contract, which she signed with company A, stated she was to work this way, with occasional mandatory OT on a friday. As of right now she has been working Sunday to Wednesday and having thursday/friday/saturday off.

Now the problem is that company B is a warehouse position, which is becoming extremely busy because of the holidays coming up so they have told her she is to work 60hours in one week. Which means that she will be working Sunday to Friday, with the thursday and friday being OT days.

This isnt what she signed up for, and she has become very frustrated and stressed about. Thursdays and Fridays have been days she has been doing observations days at a Vet clinic, as she needs this to apply for her school program. So now she has had to miss last week thursday/friday and this week (yesterday and today) from work.

Company B , however, has a points system when you miss days. So everytime you miss a day you get dinged 1.5 points. And supposedly when you reach 6 points you get fired. Since one of the days dont count as she was given the okay, she currently stands at 4.5 points, assuming these points are true.

So my question is can a company legally make you work these many hours, and if you dont show up can they essentially fire you ? I believe this is complete bullshit and the points should only apply to days you miss during your SET scheduled, which should be between Sunday and Wednesday, and not on the OT days she has missed. Any suggestions? Anyone we should call or any certain division of the BC labour boards? Never had this happened to me and trying to help my gf out has become frustrating because all i want to do is call company B and tell them to shove the OT where the sun dont shine lol

Sounds like it is. I'd imagine the argument they'd use if you try to fight them is that occasional would be 1 month out of the year, December.

I don't think they're doing anything illegal. The situation sounds like it sucks, but if they have it in writing that she acknowledged that she is to work a set schedule and will have mandatory overtime days I don't think they'd be out of line to find someone that would fit the company demands better.

Honestly I'd just try to find another job if I were her. Something that could accommodate her needs for having the days off she needs.

Has she just straight up asked to not work Thursdays and Fridays? Maybe she could work on Saturday instead if that would please the company.

Good luck on the situation though.

i agree that she signed for the mandatory OT on friday, but its the fact that theyre telling her its on a thursday too. So she went from having 3 days off, to working 6 of 7 days, with only the saturday off. And nowhere in the contract did it say she was to work Thursdays. It only states Sunday to wednesday with the mandatory OT on fridays.

She said she could live with having to work every friday, but because she figured she would have thursday and saturday a 100% day off, she has revolved her life outside of work in those 2 days, which now theyre saying " oh thursdays is mandatory as well "

Thats what we find to be bullshit lol But yes thank you for the advice, she is definitely looking for something else as it seems shes going to be fired from missing days


In regards to this ---> Has she just straight up asked to not work Thursdays and Fridays? Maybe she could work on Saturday instead if that would please the company

She has told them she has her gym and vet observations appointments she has to attend, which she needs to complete now or she won't be able to apply to her program. Saturdays i think theyre closed

you need to look into what she signed up for

if she said yes to mandatory OT... its kinda hard to say no now, regardless of what she was led to believe. (unless an upper limit is in in writing)

edit:

re-read the thursday part, if thursday is not in the contract she is not obliged to work it, only Fridays. (is she getting paid for OT?)

it said mandatory OT for the occasional friday, but for this sake lets take out the occasional part, so mandatory OT for fridays. It doesnt say anything about Thursdays, and now theyre telling her its thursdays as well and if she doesnt show up you get dinged

edit : yes she is getting paid OT when she works the days, but its the fact that she cant do the thursdays, but shes still getting dinged. And so its stressing her because they keep telling her " this week coming up its sunday to friday" and everytime she has to remind them or get into this whole debate with them about thursdays

She should just work but take the days off that she needs to work in the vet. Just keep working till they fire her.

recruitment agency don't care about you. All they care is make money off you.

Your gf have to think this job is only temp and she isn't even going to put it on her resume. Her school and future career is more important. Does your gf really want to ruin that with a crappy warehouse job?

no i dont think shell put this on her resume, unless it worked out well as this job is supposed to go until March.

yes as of now she is taking the days off that she needs as her vet thing is more important, but she still stresses about it. Shes already looking for a new job, but she just wanted to be treated fairly while she was here

Who offered her the employment agreement?
What does that agreement say?
Who pays her - like on her pay cheque which company has their name printed?

This type of stuff is super common especially around the holidays. Places like Amazon Warehouse will pay $15/hr to places like Labour Ready. Labour Ready will go out and hire bodies for $10.45/hr and send them to work at Amazon. If this is the case, she should deal with Labour Ready as that is her employer.

LOl you got it ^ company B is Amazon but company A is some company called ABL. She has gone to ABL about it and they're basically saying too bad Amazon needs you for this many hours so deal with it

Wow... glad I didn't dump lordco for Amazon now...

Btw, iirc point systems are illegal in BC. I would have her call whoever deals with non-union worker complaints and ask. Stream got in a lot of shit a few years back for using a points system.

I see this type of work with my company as my company hires "temps" to cover for too much work or people on holidays. Essentially we go to recruitment company and recruitment finds someone (temp). We pay recruitment for the services and they pay the person that works for us.

I find recruitment companies a bunch of money hungry assholes. Say the "temp" doesn't work a day, that's one whole day of less billings they can charge us; hence, they will want the "temp" to work all possible hours they can.

I've also personally dealt with these situations before too, I was hired for a recruitment temp agency and I was sick for a few days, they were being a dick about it. When one is sick, then you are sick, not like anyone wants to be sick. It just meant, they couldn't maximize the billings to the client.

In the OP gf case, company A (recruitment) wants her to work all those hours for company B, because company A can charge a shitload of billings to company B, $$$$.

If she isn't an actual employee for amazon they can decide to not use her as she is not an employee of theirs but instead similar to a contractor. As an employer that is he main benefit to using a labor company as it doesn't tie you to the employee. She has a few options, go back to the labor company and ask for a new assignment as her current one isnt a correct fit, advise her manager and hope they don't hold it against her or avoid the situation and they are more likely to not bring her back.

If it's a real temp agency, they should be working around her schedule. Not the other way around.

If it's not working out, ask to be reassigned to a placement that works for her.