Fast_Blue_Scooby

A few of my friends who happen to work at the same place as me decided to club together and invest some money in a wide range of investments.

These investments ranged from share dealing, spread betting etc. Because of my knowledge of the above subjects, I was the one who took major control of the finance side of things. This has been going on for almost 2 years and we have had a lot of success.

All buying and selling was done on my home pc, everyone at work was kept in touch via email and since work got stroppy with non related emails, by word of mouth. I was also held privy to everyone's financial details as I controlled their investment accounts. All the profits we made was equally shared out amongst the people at work, some people might end up with more cash in their accounts, some less. So the people who ended up with the profits in their account, would obviously bring the money in at work and share the cash out. We all trust each other 100% and nothing has gone wrong at all with our set up. We have everything in writing and I know there are loads of groups of friends/neighbours around the UK that have a similar set up.

However for some unknown reason, someone at work, not in the syndicate got word back to the managers and they became worried about the legal implications of things. They didn't want the good name of the company dragged through any mud if what we were doing was illegal. Which of course it isn't. I was then called in to explain things and prove to them that everything was legal. This seemed fine to begin with BUT I have since found out that work had been checking the members of the syndicate, ie what they had been doing at work, emails, internet usage, whether our work was up to scratch. Yet again fully understandable as they don't want anyone wasting time at work doing non work related things. However the thing that has angered me is that I have been told that we are not allowed to:

(a) talk about our syndicate at work, even during our lunch hours. If we do, we get reported back to the managers. However other people in the office talk about all sorts of rubbish day in/day out.
(b) not allowed to pass money over to each other for investments or for profit sharing out. However other people buy concert tickets/sporting tickets and a whole range of things etc in the office.
(c) not allowed to recruit new members even though some people are very interested in joining. Even in lunch time.

I think all the above 3 are against my human rights and I think I have a strong case not to follow them. What does everyone think?
My opinion is apart from the fact that we are work colleagues, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WORK WHATSOEVER!!! We are more or less being told not to talk about our hobby at work!!

Can I just add that the company I work for has been trying to look for excuses to sack/suspend people from work for the silliest of things, ie looking at news pages on the internet during work's time, having slighly longer lunch breaks by a couple of minutes etc. Put it this way, one or two of the managers were going to suspend me as soon as they heard about the syndicate, even though it does not impact on my work at all or have everything to do with work at all!!

Can anyone offer any help on the above as I am not the happiest of people at the moment?

LG John

I find it very unlikely they can control what you discuss or do in your lunchtime. Obvously they have control over what equipment, phones, pc's etc you use but you stated you don't make use of these. I'd say the safest bet is to leave the premises for you lunch and you can do whatever you want as its 'your time' As long as you're all back to work on time with nothing but your job and the football last night to talk about I don't think they have a leg to stand on.

I don't know the Human Rights Legislation but I do know that it is quite favourable to 'joe public' and employees so I'm confident you've got the strongest stand point on this one. Good luck.

carl

Are you paid for your lunch hours?

For example, does it specify in your contract 42.5 hours a week including one hour paid lunch per day? Or 37.5 hours per week (i.e. not including lunchtime).

If you're not being paid for your lunch hour, then it's up to you what you do with it. Of course there may be the issue of the fact that you are using their premises, but there would be nothing to stop you all going outside/to the pub/whatever.

rr_ww

Im with Carl. Go off site and discuss it. Having said that though I would be inclined to leave if they treat you like they own you. (Unless your in the Armed forces in which case they do) If you work for a financial place does this constitute insider dealing?

Richard

camk

someone is obviously pissed at the success of the club so has put the boot in. I'd just go offsite couple of days per week and discuss it there. Your probably OK to discuss it in work during your luch but why take the hassle, it'll **** them offmore if you organise a bi weekly meeting down the local...

Cheers
Cammy

Fast_Blue_Scooby

Thanks for the replies, no I don't get paid for my lunchbreak so I am fully entitled to talk about what I like to my work colleagues. However I don't want to give them a leg to stand on, so outside the office seems a good option at lunchtime. For info it is an IT department and their policy, at the moment, is that you CAN use the pc and internet during your lunchbreak so long as there are not dodgy sites. However using our brains, we said we would never use the pc's at work for our syndicate, just in case!

Also you may be right about someone sticking the boot in. A lot of people run lottery syndicates, where they collect money in each week from people at work and send emails out, hold lottery spreadsheets/software on the work's lan etc. However they have not been spoken to!!!

Also I know of a couple of 'blue eyed boys', as we call them, WHO have been checking share prices etc during office hours etc. Their punishment, well they didn't get one, unless you call promotion and a bigger salary one?

No I think us lesser mortals in the office just need to watch our backs, as there is definitely a campaign going on to try and fire people who they might want to get rid of. My plans are to leave asap, in fact some of my mates have already left/got new jobs. But surely there is a law against being intimidated at work, ie being accused of things which you are not doing, checking things behind your back etc? If you think about it, these managers are wasting hours of their 'valuable' time, at quite an expense to the company, snooping on individuals.

At the moment I am quite shook up over the whole affair and I am feeling quite stressed about going to work this week. Even though you have done nothing wrong, the worry about having to be called into managers' offices etc and the fact that you know people are purposely watching your every move and conversation, doesn't bode well for a happy working environment!!!

MattN

there is a law about being intimidated at work and making you leave.

It's called constructive dismissal.

In a nutshell, their actions cause you to resign, the things you've been saying sem like they are persicuting you, forcing you to leave a job which they hired you for.

It's sometimes hard to prove and i'm sure it's not easy. Companies today seem to be making life difficult for employees to make them leave as it's cheaper they making them redundant.

I've recently been involved in something similar, my role changed so much overnight I was effectively the odd job person. Now I was getting a good wage for it but lost any prospects of a career and pay rises. I was told this constitues as efforts towards constructive dismissal but I'm not going to run out and get the first job that comes along i'm waiting for a job I want and they're stuck with me until that happens or they make me redunant like they should have 2 months ago!

It's annoying because I spend so much time at work I'd rather enjoy it, no point being bitter life's too short.

ChrisB

I can't see how work can have any control or influence on your personal time as long as it's not illegal.

My suggestion would be to start keeping a log of conversations (dates, times etc), e-mails and any other incidents at work. Do it whilst it's fresh in your mind.

Maybe speak to the local CAB?

Scooby-Doo

What does your company do ?

Working in the city and complying with guidelines I have to declare certain shares I am purchasing and obtain prior approval from the company before the transaction can take place. Your company could be exposed to insider dealing if you struck it rich. They seem to be going way ott on you though.........


Good Luck

carl

That could also apply if you are trading in shares in either your own company or in companies in the same industry. If you are in possession of knowledge that is shareprice-affecting (and it could be stuff as simple as being involved in a big contract, or even knowing that they're bidding for a contract) you could be in trouble. And remember that your shareprice-affecting knowledge could affect the share prices of other companies in the same industry.

Fast_Blue_Scooby

We don't buy any shares to do with the business our company is in. In fact there is even a window every now and that bans anyone in the company buying/selling the company's shares. Therefore to be on the safe side, we didn't bother with our own shares. To be honest most of our money has been made on spread betting including sports bets etc. Still nothing to do with work at all.

It gets to the point where you see other people doing things that you have not been doing but have been accused of! However if you go and complain, it either falls on deaf ears or you get called up in front of the managers as a trouble maker. However if one of those people, who are well thought of, makes an accusation or tries to cause trouble, it is the likes of me and my mates that get into bother, even though we have done nothing at all. The one thing I hate is office politics, true it goes on big style but sometimes at the end of the day, you wonder why people waste their time instead of doing some real work!!