Answer by Laura Livingstone

Although you were notified of this on Monday, it sounds like it would have been very difficult to change your arrangements, and therefore there appears to be potential discrimination against your working part-time set hours. 

I suggest that you put in a grievance regarding being sent home and not paid because you had turned up for work with the reasonable expectation of being paid.  

You should point out that there is no contractual requirement to attend a training day and therefore it was not reasonable to not allow you to work and therefore be paid.  You should raise a further point about the difficulty which your current shift working places on her home arrangements, especially since you and your husband are separated.

Laura Livingstone is an employment lawyer for Davenport Lyons in London. Her practice focuses on contentious and non-contentious employment work, but she leans towards the non-contentious.  She has advised a wide variety of corporate clients in all areas of employment.