OH Practically being forced out of job over £12
New account for obvious reasons.
Wife has worked at Morrisons for over 10 years.
We recently had a little boy, and she volunteered to reduce her hours from 30 to 15, to get a good family/work life balance. I work full time.
Skip forward 18 months, he's going to nursery (and LOVING it!) , as we get the working parents entitlement.
Recently HMRC contacted us to say that her earnings are below the threshold to get the nursery funding. It turns out she is one hour short per week. £12 something per week.
This means that we will now lose out on approx £1000pm worth of childcare, and he will miss out on nursery which he loves so much. For £12.
She spoke to a manager about getting 1 extra hour, he said he'd get back to her. 3 weeks went by, and nothing. So she went to another manager who's a bit higher, nothing. So she went to store manager. He basically couldn't give a fuck. She said she's worked here for 10 years and practically never had a day off sick, only time off for maternity leave.
He dismissevly said that it's out of his hands, he's unable to change contracts and it may only seem like 1 hour, but the store is running £4k per week over on staff costs. Surely a STORE MANAGER has some control over his staff?
Anyway he said he'd ask higher up (doubt he actually did) 5 days later, no suprise, it came back as a no.
I understand the nursery basically takes bookings by the term and if you pull him out, we're liable for the full cost (as in their t&c's).
So because of £12per week, we're now liable to pay the full rest of the term (approx £3000). Which we can't afford. So I guess we'll have to make some kind of payment plan.
Along side that, shes been applying for jobs for about the last 8 months and had no luck.
The WORST thing about it all, is that while telling her that basically the company can't afford £12 due to staffing costs, they're actively advertising vacancies in that very store. Vacancies that are 4hrs per week. And then she ends up till training them.
This company is a fucking joke.
So basically it's looks like she'll have to quit work altogether because we can't afford to pay over £1k per month childcare.
I feel like this situation has been noticed, and they've thought:
"ah, if we don't give her the hour, they won't get childcare, so she'll quit, thus saving the store money"
Ridiculous.
I'm not sure why I posted this really. Just for a rant I suppose.