Do any companies still pay overtime rates?
I remember the days when Sunday was double time, general overtime rates were time and a half, reducing over the years to time and a third/quarter, until my last job paid overtime at flat rates.
Sunday now seems to be ordinary flat rates for many/most.
My main experience of the WTD was in the NHS. You may remember in the bad old days junior doctors on acute wards and in A&E would often work 150+ hours in a week, which was regarded as part of their training. It didn’t seem to matter that mistakes threatening patients lives could be made because the houseman was dead on his/her feet.
In my own profession as a Biomedical Scientist I often had to start work at 9am, work all day, all night, and all the following day with no sleep. The craziest part of all that was that because of the arcane pay structure, the busier you were, the less you got paid! Other professions had their own ways of inflicting torture on their members.
All that changed with the WTD. Shift work was introduced meaning no one had to work more than 37 hours in a week, with a minimum 11 hour break between shifts. Even though junior doctors were at first specifically excluded from the WTD, by 2004 they were included, and by 2007 could only work 48 hours in a week.
I cannot imagine what life for NHS staff will become like when the WTD is removed, as I would bet my house on happening now the current bunch of scumbag ****s have got their way and dragged out of the EU. The same will be true of workers in all other industries. “Paying for the pandemic” will become the excuse for cutting standards, slashing protections, and driving down wages.
