Employment law regarding foreign workers?

-Mike- · 6 Feb 2006 at 05:43

While at work a lady who does a baby swimming academy mentioned about the foreign people working with us. She commented that my workplace shouldn't be giving the foreign people more hours than me. Is this true?

I do need the hours and on a regular basis they are giving them 10 or more hours on top of what I am being given. Its not that they pay them less either, as they are on more an hour than I am.

Any advice would be appreciated thanks

theleg · 6 Feb 2006 at 05:48

Mike306dt said:
While at work a lady who does a baby swimming academy mentioned about the foreign people working with us. She commented that my workplace shouldn't be giving the foreign people more hours than me. Is this true?

I do need the hours and on a regular basis they are giving them 10 or more hours on top of what I am being given. Its not that they pay them less either, as they are on more an hour than I am.

Any advice would be appreciated thanks

Perhaps they are more qualified than you? Or have seniority?

pyro · 6 Feb 2006 at 05:50

If they get paid more it's probably their qualifications, also, how old are you? And have you asked for extra hours? What did they say?

Ex-RoNiN · 6 Feb 2006 at 07:50

Mike306dt said:
While at work a lady who does a baby swimming academy mentioned about the foreign people working with us. She commented that my workplace shouldn't be giving the foreign people more hours than me. Is this true?

I do need the hours and on a regular basis they are giving them 10 or more hours on top of what I am being given. Its not that they pay them less either, as they are on more an hour than I am.

Any advice would be appreciated thanks

If they are EU foreigners, then legally there is no distinction between you and them.

Raymond Lin · 6 Feb 2006 at 08:24

Ex-RoNiN said:
If they are EU foreigners, then legally there is no distinction between you and them.

exactly, equal pay for equal work. Can't remember which article.

chimaera · 6 Feb 2006 at 08:36

Sounds like she was talking ideologically, theres no way foreign workers can be trated differently to British people, whether thats worse or better. You are paid according to skill and experience, if you think you deserve more then tell your boss, stating that you have these qualifications and this many years in the work, and that if they pay someone with the same as you more, then you should have that as well.

I think saying its a foreigner thing could get you in trouble, better to put it in managerspeak in facts and figues.

-Mike- · 6 Feb 2006 at 08:46

Balddog said:
Perhaps they are more qualified than you? Or have seniority?

They can't properly speak english and they aren't as qualified as me. They are in the same position also. I have asked for more hours and my boss says there simply aren't enough to go around. Yet they get more. I'm going to try and move departments today anyway. I find it quite annoying being spoken to at the rate of a word every ten seconds by the customers because they assume I can't understand them.

Nix · 6 Feb 2006 at 08:55

EU citizens are free to work in any other EU country without being challenged. If they're outside EU then it's not really allowed.

chimaera · 6 Feb 2006 at 08:57

If they're not as qualified then write down what you have compared to what they have, and the difference in wages, then take it to your boss.

I believe there is some EU directive somewhere that states you can't be paid less than someone doing the same job as you, unless they can justify why.

AtreuS · 6 Feb 2006 at 09:14

If what you say is true then it sounds to me like you have a manager who is scared stiff of being labelled as "racist" for giving extra hours to anyone but the forgeign workers. Trust me it happens.... ive worked in two places that were just the same.
In one place they changed the rotas round and several chunks of extra hours went away from some african workers and 3 out of the 5 new people were white. The african workers kicked up a stink and went to the Citizens advice and stuff claming they were being discriminated against! ( apart from the fact that all the ones that had lost hours had done so for damn good reasons like lateness and stuff). In the end the management buckled and changed things back just to keep them quiet! i mean WTF!

Reminds me of another thing they did at the last place i worked for. The asian staff ( asian owned company ) all had both Ede and christmass off!!! however the white workers were only allowed christmass off and they took that out of our holiday allowance. When we asked why we shouldnt get ede off too they said "ede is our holiday NOT yours... you work as normal!" so of course we then asked why they had christmass off when it "wasnt their holiday?" we were told that we were being silly and also being racists and that we should be careful about what we say...... we were gobsmacked and several of us left a few days later. As it happens about 3 months later the company went bust ( seems it was only us that did any work lol ).

* as a side note it must be mentioned that during the ede festival us "non muslims" as they put it, had to come to work and do stocktakes and stuff but not open the shop... as this would look bad to the local community. Asian owned shop and all that being open during ede!. We were merely suggesting that we got the 2 or 3 days off that they got free over christmass. We were made to feel like BNP members for even daring to suggest such a racist and defamatory thing!! :confused: