Minimum Breaks

[groomi]

My Dad is approaching retirement and has been working for a mid-size engineering company for about 10 years. They have recently been bought out by an American firm who are trying to change the hours the staff work - specifically to 7.5hrs a day with only a 20 minute lunch break. No other breaks allowed.

Is this legal and if not where can I find a document to demonstrate it. He has a meeting on Monday and I would like to make sure he knows exactly where he stands with this.

As always, any help is appreciated.

[spikeyhead]

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/W...

Suggests the 20 mins is the minimum legal break.

I've no idea about the legal implication of changing the contract.

[groomi]

Thanks for that, a surprising read. It did mention about the H&S responsibilities to ensure staff are suitably rested and given that my Dad works with potentially lethal electric currents, there may be an avenue to explore there.

Or maybe I'm just being soft by thinking 20 minutes isn't enough of a break during the day?

[spikeyhead]

groomi said:

Or maybe I'm just being soft by thinking 20 minutes isn't enough of a break during the day?

A long time ago, someone took many thousand of the US army and spent a long time working with them and measuring productivity.

8 hour days, 10 mins break every hour, so working in 50 minute bursts and half an hour break half way through.

[edb49]

If the company has been bought out, there are some employment transfer regs which means he has to be given the same terms.

[spikeyhead]

edb49 said:

If the company has been bought out, there are some employment transfer regs which means he has to be given the same terms.

See P13 and 14 here

http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file20761.pdf