2 Warnings in one day, is this legal?

[MadJan]

Hi All,

I am in a bit of a dilemma here (as usual lol). A friend works for company A, has never signed a contract in the last year that she has been there. It was verbally agreed that she works 6 days a week, which then changed to 5 days a week, and now back to 6 days.
However she did inform them that due to her studies she will not be able to work 6 days. She took on studying as she now had the weekends to devote to this (correspondance study)
The last 2 weeks she was asked if she could indeed come in on Saturday as well as on Sunday, her response was that she couldnt. The same situation for the weekend that passed.

This morning she gets slapped with 2 written warnings for this.
Now is this legal? Also the fact that she wasnt given any contract of employment as such to sign.
Also the warning letters did not come from her boss or manager but from another employee which i am sure was instructed by the manager. Funny enough she was not even required to sign the letter of warning.

The next issue is hours of work, apparently the 9hrs per day does not include the 1 hour lunch-break? She was TOLD that she only works 40hrs a week when she starts at 8am and leaves at 5pm which means that the additional 5 hrs went towards her lunch break. This seems so stupid as i understand that the 45hrs a week includes lunch breaks. This company probably has imbeciles in management...i dont know!!!!
So anyway their reasoning is that this additional 5hrs that was used up in her lunch breaks must be paid back in working on Saturdays.

i hope i have made sense with all of this....please help!

[Dave A]

She should lodge an appeal against the warnings on the grounds of lack of due process.

[MadJan]

Thanks Dave, she has actually quit....but without giving notice :-( but she never did sign a letter of appointment, hope she hasnt shot herself in the foot!

I have to say that its shocking that there are companies out there that exploit their employees to such extents, and some of them fairly large organisations, and yet here we are the small fish in this large pond that try to ensure we do everything right......makes me so mad.

[Dave A]

Try to consider there are two sides to every story before being too harsh. There are lots of people out there struggling through as best they can without a clue as to what they really should be doing. Ignorance is no defence in the eye of the law, but it is a perfectly valid argument in mitigation.

I hope your friend finds a better employer.

[MadJan]

So true...it is tough out there. Actually she did get another job, the company approached her for the position, i guess she is lucky, anyway when one door closes.....many more do open up....sometimes i guess lol :-)

[Ann Williams]

Now what she needs to do is go to the Labour Department and lodge a complaint against them for not having paid her UIF. She needn't worry about leaving immediately as she did not have a written contract stating what the terms for her leaving.