Sunday working opting-out notice

Shop workers have the right to object to working on Sundays by giving you a signed and dated written opting-out notice.

Three months’ notice

The law says that shop workers can give you a signed and dated written notice that they object to Sunday working at any time, provided they are or may be required to work on Sundays and they’re not employed to work only on Sundays. Our Sunday Working Opting-Out Notice enables the employee to easily do this and, where they do, it then overrides your contractual right to require them to work on Sundays. Importantly though, the employee’s notice only takes effect three months after it has been given, so our notice firstly highlights that you can still require them to work on Sundays for three months from the date on which they give it to you. Note that you can’t refuse a shop worker’s right to opt out because of business need, so there’s nothing you could lawfully do to prevent all your shop workers (other than those who are employed to work only on Sundays) from opting out of Sunday working!

Salary and benefits

Whilst an opted-out shop worker is entitled not to be dismissed or to be subjected to any other detriment by reason of their decision to opt out of Sunday working (and any such dismissal would be automatically unfair), it’s not a detriment for you to refuse to pay them for Sundays on which they don’t work. It’s also not a detriment to pay other shop workers who do work on Sundays a higher rate of pay, or to provide them with other benefits where the extent of the benefit varies according to the number of hours worked by the employee or the salary payable. Likewise, where a shop worker works a fixed number of weekly hours including Sundays and the effect of opting out means their total hours of work per week is reduced, you’re not obliged to increase their hours on other days to compensate them for that reduction (unless the terms of their employment contract provide otherwise). So, our notice also makes clear that, when they cease to work on Sundays, the employee’s salary and any benefits may be reduced by the amount previously attributable to Sunday working. This information may be sufficient to put them off opting out.

Opting back in

Once the employee has served an opting-out notice, it will continue in force for as long as they remain continuously employed by you as a shop worker. However, if they subsequently wish to return to working on Sunday, they must give you a further signed and dated written notice (an opting-in notice) stating that they wish to work on Sundays, or that they no longer object to Sunday working, and then they expressly agree with you to do shop work on Sundays or on a particular Sunday. Our notice therefore states that, in these circumstances, the opting-out notice would cease to have effect. So, if they want to opt out again, they’d have to serve another opting-out notice and wait a further three months.