Law queries

At a factory down the road where there is no union we have discovered that they are working a 68-hour, five-day week with a break of less than 10 hours between the end of one day's work and the beginning of the next. Is this legal?

The Working Time Regulations 1998 say that no worker should be required to work more than 48 hours in a week and that, as a minimum, there should be an 11-hour gap between one day's work and the next. The work pattern described would therefore appear to breach the regulations.

It is possible, under the regulations, for individual workers to agree in writing to opt out of the maximum 48-hour week, but any worker who has done this has the right to opt back in at any time by giving notice in writing to do so.

The 48 hours can be averaged over a 17-week period or over a longer period (at maximum one year) if there is a workforce or collective agreement to that effect. Presumably there is no such agreement at the factory in question.

As far as the daily break is concerned this too can be varied but again only if there is a collective or workforce agreement that provides for alternative periods of compensatory breaks from work

* More information: LRD booklet, Working Time Regulations