We had an event coming up for work. Every store in our region was going to meet up for a mandatory “learning” event, for which we would be paid for four hours. The catch? It would take up the majority of our weekend to be there.
Getting to the event would be a two hour ferry ride, plus at least an hour by bus, each way. So that would be six hours of travel time. This would mean that we'd have to stay in hotels for the night, get up early, and attend the event, after which we would head home, though the travel, accommodations, and food would be covered. Factoring in wait times at the ferry, this would add up to over 24 hours that I could be using to see my family, for which I would be paid for four hours. Oh, and they wanted us to reduce a shift on Friday so as not to accumulate overtime.
It turns out, though, that travel to a remote work site is supposed to be considered as paid time under provincial law. This would mean that everyone who would have to attend would need to be paid out for six hours just to get there. There are at least seven offices that would have to have all of their employees, sans managers, paid just to be driven to the event.
I brought this to my managers attention and just wanted to confirm that this event was considered mandatory. She sent it to our regional manager to be looked over.
Today comes, and the event is no longer considered “mandatory.” I'm happy to have a full weekend back.
TL;DR I pointed out to my manager that the law required us to be paid for travel and got an event that was flagged as “mandatory” changed to “optional” and re-gained my weekend. I feel good.