20th April 2010, 07:11 PM
Reasonably speaking everything over the standard day should qualify as overtime. But as noted above no one's forcing you in to it. I worked on a job recently where overtime was described as extra work and paid at standard rate. No one objected until they discovered every other worker on the job appeared to be getting paid overtime. A lot of whingeing was done, but when it came to discussing it with senior staff no one really spoke up, and as was pointed out everybody had signed a contract to the effect of extra work / standard rate. If people really want to change these things then may I recommend joining the Union. With unionisation comes collective bargaining! Worth some thought, that for the cost of a pint a week you could be 26.25 hours better off rather than only 17.5!