Mandatory Employee Outing.

[Guest]

Hi,*

We've recently been notified at work that there will be a mandatory company wide outing to the head office of a corporate partner. They are approx 2 hours away so a coach has been arranged by the company. The Outing entails a presentation during office hours and then going for a meal afterwards, outside of our usual working hours.

The director has stated that those unable to make it will need to either take an afternoon of holiday, paid only if you have remaining holiday allowance to do so, otherwise it would be unpaid leave. No overtime has been offered for those essentially forced into attendance... Is this allowed?!*

As some people have higher priorities (kids etc) they cannot attend. Those who are unable to take holiday are forced to lose out financially, and a large proportion of the excursion will be outside of our contracted work hours!*

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.*

[luxardo]

Check your employment contract to see what it says. Sometimes these things are covered under mandatory training or similar. Also check what it says about the location of your place of work.
There should also be something about travel expenses for work outside your home office.
As long as the presentation finished the same time as your normal time you'd be entitled to leave and go home and not attend the meal.
This obviously leaves you 2 hours from home so you should be able to claim travel expenses if you didn't want to wait. But if you got travel expenses you couldn't expect overtime as well. Overtime is not usually paid for travelling time.
Couldn't really comment further unless I saw the contract.