Advice needed, re: Sunday working

A question about : Advice needed, re: Sunday working

Hi all, I currently work in a supermarket as an in-store baker so as far as I can tell, I have the right to opt out of working on Sundays.

Now, as far as my actual contract goes, I work Tuesday - Saturday, no mention of Sunday working. But where I work, there are only 4 of us, so we generally switch our days off, meaning I do occasionally work a Sunday.

Can anybody please shed some light on where I stand in terms of opting out? Can I simply tell them I don't want to work on a Sunday anymore or do I still have to give the required three months notice? If so, can somebody please provide me with an idea of what to write?

Thanks!

Best answers:

• Does your contract not have a line like "plus any other duties to suit the needs of the business"?
• I would suspect you could just refuse but considering this is likely to pee off your colleagues alot you might want to give the 3 months notice and work on the same premise before then.
  You do realise your colleagues are going to have to pick the slack up right?
• Would the shop be viable if you didn't all share the Sunday work?
• Did you get any information about opting out of Sunday working off your employer?
  An employer who needs staff to work on Sundays must tell them in writing that they can opt out. They must do this within 2 months of the person starting work - if they don't, only 1 month's notice is needed to opt out.
• So the occasional working a Sunday till 11am.
  Now the other 3 required to cover even more Sundays. nice
• What type of shop has finished it's business by 11 a.m. on a Sunday? Sounds odd to me, and I suspect there's more too it than we're being told.
  And it raises the question: does the shop need to open at all on a Sunday?
• Of course, if the employer wanted to get really awkward about this, the definition of a shop worker does not fit with that of a baker - they could argue that the OP is not a shop worker but a food preparation operative since they work in the bakery and not in the shop or on the shop floor. That would leave the OP having to make a claim to get a determination. I doubt they will go that far though. If they are really bothered by this they will simply find a way of managing the OP out of work. I suspect they may find that they employ too many bakers.
• Here is what CAB's website says:
  https://www.adviceguide.org.uk/englan...ts_at_work.htm
• And maybe the new staff employed to work on Sundays are slowly given more and more shifts, taking shifts from those who opted out of working Sundays...!