Answer by Laura Livingstone

You have made it clear that even when you started work for the firm 9 months ago, it was on a part-time three-day a week basis.  This was therefore not as a result of a flexible working request, but as a result of contracted agreed hours.

In order to change contractual terms, it is not possible for the firm simply to change your terms unilaterally.  The easiest way is by consent, which is what happened when you moved from your three day week to a three and a half day week.  If you consent to amend your terms then there is no problem since the firm can then just move you on to your revised terms.

The situation is, however, different if, as now, the proposal is to move you onto a four and a half day week.  There are several ways in which they could try to achieve this if you do not consent :

- the firm could try to negotiate with you and perhaps offer you an additional benefit or additional holiday if you were to consent to that arrangement;

- if, following consultation, you still said that you were not interested in moving to the new working arrangement, the firm could terminate your current contract on notice (to avoid any breach of contract/wrongful dismissal claim) and then offer to re-engage you on the new terms.  The firm would have to show that there was justification for changing the terms and that it had discussed this with you. However, you might then find it difficult to refuse the new terms, on the basis that the alternative would be no job;

- the firm could simply try to impose the change unilaterally following a certain time frame of consultation or notification.  If they did this then this would entitle you to resign and claim breach of contract (constructive unfair dismissal not being available since you only have nine months' service).  If you did not want to resign, then it might still be possible to claim breach of contract whilst you are still employed.  Also you might, depending upon the reason for you needing to work flexibly or part time, be able to claim that you had suffered a detriment as a result of this change of hours and that more women than men would suffer as a result, then it might be possible to claim indirect sex discrimination and/or breach of the part time workers regulations.  This would probably not be the most desirable course of action, however, since it would be difficult for you to continue working whilst at the same time bringing an action.

From a practical point of view, I would get together as many arguments as possible as to why you could not work four and a half days - for example, your childcare commitments would not allow it, you already have a season ticket for a shorter period, you want to spend more time with your child etc, and ask for a meeting to discuss your reasoning. You should also have prepared some arguments as to why you consider three and a half days are sufficient to carry out your workload and why the business would benefit from you remaining on your existing hours. You might want to consider offering to work slightly longer hours on the days that you do work in an effort to try to resolve matters. If they agree to the meeting but then do not take your arguments on board, you can indicate to them that you do not think that this is justified and that if they force you to do so you will register your protest and raise a formal grievance.  In that grievance I would make the arguments for justifying remaining on your existing hours, but also indicate how unfairly you consider you are being treated and that you consider it is due to being a working mother.  If that does not work, then you may have to resort to proceedings, but hopefully they will see sense before this.