Unpaid Overtime Campaign Archive

Similar to many companies, there has long been a culture at NatWest Group that strongly encourages work that is unpaid. In particular, contact centre workers are expected to be signed on and ready for their first call prior to their contracted start time; they are often forced to take a last call that takes them well over their official finish time; and branch workers are expected to prepare the branch for opening and complete end of day tasks such as securing the vault after the formal end of their shift.

To tackle this issue which only got worse as the bank progressed with its branch closure and mass redundancy programmes, Unite began a campaign on overtime. We educated members on their rights to demand pay, to refuse time off in lieu and called on the bank to agree a joint review of the use of overtime and time off in lieu.

Unpaid overtime newsletters

  • Unpaid Overtime

    Unpaid overtime is a threat to your job, plain and simple. If you work before or after your official shift hours and do not claim it, the business assumes that any work you have completed was done within your contracted hours. If many people do the same, as we know they do, then huge numbers…

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  • Overtime and TOIL

    Our overtime campaign progressed with Unite educating members on their rights to claim overtime and not to be forced to take time off in lieu – a practice reported widely by our members. Unite called on the bank to agree to a joint review on the use of TOIL vs. overtime in an attempt to…

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  • Overtime policy statement

    We launched our overtime campaign in March 2019 after it became clear from our annual pay survey that shockingly high numbers of RBS and NatWest workers were expected to work beyond their contracted hours while not receiving additional pay for that work. In July 2019, we called on the bank to commit to a joint…

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