Covering colleagues annual leave - unpaid

[help766]

My girlfriend works for a large company at an airport.

She is in a managerial role, on a 24 hour shift rotation basis of 12 hour shifts with 4 other colleagues including her.

She has just been told that when one of her colleagues is on annual leave that she is expected to cover their annual leave and all their shifts, unpaid.

So she could be working over 7 days in a row at any one time, or however long her colleagues annual leave happens to be, in addition to her actual own shifts.

Is this legal? I'm not sure where we stand legally, surely there is a law that you cannot be expected to work for free covering colleagues?

In any case, the working hours will be extremely excessive, so maybe that alone is enough to at least reduce the hours even if they are still unpaid.

[paulajayne]

Re: Covering colleagues annual leave - unpaid

Unpaid? Are you sure she had heard it correctly - does she have it in writing?

[help766]

Re: Covering colleagues annual leave - unpaid

Definitely unpaid. She is expected to cover her colleagues leave for nothing. No pay or even time of in lieu! I couldn't believe it when she told me. So this is hence the question, can this even be legal?

There are a certain number of hours and obviously rest periods stipulated by law so for example if she was expected to do her usual 4 shifts then followed by say 4 days covering a colleagues leave which would have otherwise been her days off, and then is due back in work for her own 4 shifts again, that's 12 days consecutively at work and therefore illegal, in the hours limits alone?

[help766]

Re: Covering colleagues annual leave - unpaid

Just been reading elsewhere that this is likely to exceed 48 hours a week and therefore it would be illegal to work and cover any shifts totalling hours over 48?

Can anyone confirm this? So even if she was asked to cover, this can only be up to a maximum of 48 hours whether paid or unpaid