[Closed] Bike Locks Removed By My Employer.

Faciities and Security are the most obstinate, unhelpful bunch of people you could ever wish not to have to deal with.

Sorry I can't help but er, do we work at the same place?

It would be reasonable to expect notices at bike park and given Covid furloughing scheme, emails or phonecalls.

They owe you a lock or money to buy a replacement of equivalent security level.

Interesting. You can't remove the instructing fence because that would be criminal damage, but facilities can cut your lock off?

Surely it's one or the other, not both.
Email to facilities, copy in someone higher up depending on structure (MD, union, legal) with a copy of the receipt for the lock asking for a refund and pointing out, that atno point did the give fair warning this was going to happen, or invite people to remove their locks.

Some days your the statue, others you're the pigeon.

IANAL but sounds like criminal damage!

Monksie, this time next week...

Faciities and Security are the most obstinate, unhelpful bunch of people you could ever wish not to have to deal with.

Sorry I can’t help but er, do we work at the same place?

I think it's just something they all aspire too.

Thank you. They wouldn’t have been able to know (or even care) who the locks belonged to and up until 4 weeks ago. Only my manager would have been able to contact me by text or phone. I have a company laptop now so I work from home. It’s a huge organisation. 800 people in our building alone.

It must be a prerequisite Sharkattack. You have to be a complete arse to get the job.

Whenever someone in our building wants to communicate something to everyone who works there they just get in touch with the office managers who then distribute the message however they see fit.

Honestly, it's not impossible for the building management to get a message to everyone who works there if they really wanted to.

When I used to work at a big firm, there were loads of accumulated bike locks (and a couple of abandoned bikes) in the shared bike racks that the building management wanted to clear out. They gave notice by email to all occupiers, posted signs etc at least three months or so beforehand, tagged the locks and bikes, gave an email address for contacts etc.

I think even at the best of times, no notice beforehand is poor, but when communications are possibly delayed, not *at the least* giving a site-wide (i.e. your office) email advising of their intentions in pretty good time before removal is bad.

Unless you had to sign some kind of waiver or licence allowing you to use the bike racks which stipulated they could remove your lock, then I think you have a pretty good shout for, at the least, an explanation as to where your lock has ended up, and if it's been cut/binned, a claim for the replacement cost.

Hmmmmmmmmm - I see no case for the lock being replaced or paid for. Yes notice would have been nice but at the end of the day you abandoned a lock on their property

jagain
Subscriber
Hmmmmmmmmm – I see no case for the lock being replaced or paid for. Yes notice would have been nice but at the end of the day you abandoned a lock on their property

Sorry TJ, but unless clearly abandoned the landowner can't just do what they like. It would be plain from use (i.e. left when not in use) that the users were temporarily storing them and therefore at the least before disposal the owners should have been given the opportunity to collect.

It's different to someone dumping rubbish on a third party's land - this is property the OP is allowed to occupy by virtue of his employment, which includes the right to use the bike rack as appropriate.

but at the end of the day you abandoned a lock on their property

Um, maybe something has prevented him going to get the lock. Like, I dunno, a major worldwide pandemic?

As a counter point, is a lock left on a bike rack on private property not left "at the owners risk"?

I've done it myself and it's not unreasonable to expect your lock to be there the following week/month IMO. But aren't they technically within their rights to remove "discarded property" if it has been there for some time?

I'm not defending them, it's pretty shabby behavior especially given the last few months, just postulating the logic/arguments you'll doubtless get back...

TJ does have a bit of a point. A culture of leaving locks 'abandoned' on public and private property has come about over the last 20 years. Totally see why it's done but personally I'd think of it as at my own risk if I do it. Do any bike sheds have a single 'stash' rail where frequent flyers can lock their unused lock to to keep the shed/shelter neat and tidy? If designed well it could have a method for the site manager to have a clear out of abandoned locks by unlocking one end and sliding them off rather than having to cut them off. Bike sheds with years worth of abandoned and currently not in use locks can start to look pretty shabby. There can also be a bit of german beach towel about it - got in a bit of an argument with an old biddy who turned up just after me enraged I'd used a slot in a town centre bike rack as it was clearly her slot as that was where she kept her lock.

Thinking about it perhaps a suggestion for future company policy would be to tag any locks left on the site with the owners company phone extension?

Only using an on site extension should help avoid most potential GDPR issues and allows someone to contact you during business hours, or speak to the office manager if you are away to ID a lock owner. Importantly it removes any excuses for not getting in contact before breaking out the grinder...

My bet - is that they posted a physical notice saying if they weren't moved in a week/month/whatever then they'd be removed

Basically, you're ****ed

My experience was i used a bike shed at work where I had a key and they had my contact details. I had a heavy duty lock which I kept locked up in the shed as it was too heavy to keep transporting to and from work. One day I rode in and found that my lock wasn't there. On contacting facilities they told me that they removed the locks. However they didn't contact me to let me know thry were going to remove them and if I had received communication I would have removed the lock myself. In the end I pressed them for a new lock to the value of the lock that was taken.

They'll want to charge you for storing your lock.

Abandoned? Hahaha! As if! We were told, in no uncertain terms by our respective managers that *nobody* was allowed on site at the beginning of April. The very large automatic gates were locked and only 2 security staff were on site between 7am and 7pm.
There has been a gradual return to work with very strict conditions for around 50 people. This company is so risk adverse that you get hauled in by your manager if you’re spotted not using the handle rail on the very shallow, not many stairs on to the mezzanine.
Apart from clearly being in very good condition and used almost 5 days of every week, why on earth would they assume they’ve been abandoned?
“Left at my own risk” surely doesn’t absolve them of helping themselves, in one way or another, to my locks? If that’s the case, they could also help themselves to my bike!
Thanks for the sanity check.
I’ve had a reply from somebody in facilities. “Don’t know” was the gist of it. As expected. I’ll keep at it.

Retrogirl! Did they pay up?

I think I'd also want to know *how* they removed the lock.

Strange post there TJ. How were the locks abandoned? They were left locked to a bike rack, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. The OP hasn't been cycling to work because the company has told him to stay at home. They can't they be surprised if the bike locks aren't used for a little while!

It's reasonable to expect a fair notice period for removal and/or to keep the locks somewhere to allow people to claim them. At least a month* would be fair given some people might only cycle in infrequently and they could be on holiday for two weeks. Hopefully they've been removed by dismantling the rack rather than "dismantling" the locks and are now sat in a store cupboard somewhere.

* In normal circumstances. Given the company have banned you from the site for the past 3 months then I'd say at least 4 months notice is reasonable. How else could you have seen any notice?
Also, you don't work a stone's throw from the M6 by any chance? The stair rail holding thing sounds familiar.

Be realistic.
Your lock is gone.
You're not getting it back.
They aren't going to pay for it.
The only thing you can do is swear for a bit, then move on with your life.

As a counter point, is a lock left on a bike rack on private property not left “at the owners risk”?

That means that the employer can't be held responsible if someone else breaks in and steals the employees property (assuming the weren't negligent). Every supermarket car park has a sign like that, it doesn't mean the manager can just steal your car!

Abandoned? Hahaha! As if! We were told, in no uncertain terms by our respective managers that *nobody* was allowed on site at the beginning of April.

Yoi got the wrong end of the stick - I'm not talking about just in lockdown, I'm talking about every day when you wheel your bike out and leave the lock behind. It's a bike shed, not a bike lock shed. Again, I know why it's done and see the logic and also don't think they handled the clearing very well in your case. But in a broader context a bike shed with lots of folk who do this can look dreadful and get hard to use. The one at the train station where I used to live started to look like one of those bridges with all the 'love' padlocks.

This company is so risk adverse that you get hauled in by your manager if you’re spotted not using the handle rail on the very shallow, not many stairs on to the mezzanine.

SSE?

I start at a new organisation in August that does this and the you must reverse into car parking spots malarkey. Not sure if that or wearing a tie for the first time in 15 years is going to get me into trouble first.

Bails - abandoned by being left on the bike rack with no bike. I find this a strange practice anyway and while I think the employer could have been more polite in giving notice I simply cannot see what legal recourse the OP can have.
FWIW I never leave a lock. I carry my 2.5 kilo lock everywhere

I find this a strange practice anyway

I carry my 2.5 kilo lock everywhere

If you only ever use the lock in one place ie work, why would you carry the lock around with you? It's just an awkward dead weight.

TJ: I've got my own mug, coffee, pens, snacks and shoes (for when I cycle in) in my desk drawers at work. Can my employer just throw those away with no warning?

Working on the Estates and Faciltities side of things; left locks are a problem on bike stands. We have signage up saying 'left at own risk' and that they may be removed. Even before lockdown we have tagged up, waited over a month and then removed locks and abandoned bikes, even then we got complaints. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't.
It's crap that they didn't give notice, but i'd also be unsurprised to hear that the notification was in someones email inbox(s) to distribute wider and wasn't done so.

I’m pretty convinced, backed up by the sane, or at least the voices I agree with that I have been wronged and I’m pretty determined to get either my locks back or the cost of replacement.
I hate injustice.

Reverse parking or you get a very difficult to remove ‘sticker’ on your rear passenger side window, a very public tannoy with your reg. number and a 1 week car park ban.

Not SSE. Another one. Quite near the M60. No ties required. Not even a dress code anymore beyond “no beachwear or similar”

TJ: I’ve got my own mug, coffee, pens, snacks and shoes (for when I cycle in) in my desk drawers at work. Can my employer just throw those away with no warning?

If you drove into work and used an unassigned spot in a communal car park would you feel entitled to leave your spare wheel there to save boot space? And should your employer cough up if they got rid of it?

Monksie - don't waste your energy on a fight you will not win. sure make your point and be hopeful of a resolution you like but without finding something legal to support you I simply seen no avenue other than appealing to good nature

Bails - in my workplace stuff left in a communal area is thrown away all the time.

If you drove into work and used a spot in a communal car park would you feel entitled to leave your spare wheel there to save boot space?

No, because leaving the wheel there blocks the space for someone else.

Me leaving a bike lock on the rafters of the bike shed doesn't stop anyone from using the bike racks.

Add my desk drawer isn't a communal desk (auto correct changed that to 'conjugal', definitely not work appropriate!) so again, it doesn't affect anyone else. Do you really think I should empty all of my stuff out of/off my desk every day and cart it home?

A clear out of old, genuinely abandoned, bikes and locks is fine. They should just be giving a decent notice period and doing it when most of the workforce is banned from the site is a crappy thing to do.

Mrs antigees previous employer had bars on the wall for storing locks seemed to work ok...current employer empties everything out of the bike cage at end of every month including clothes in lockers..real hassle to get back...and a real hassle to avoid it happening if working in a different city or country

Meanwhile has a car space that probably gets used once or twice a month go figure...and I guess everyone knows that bike locks cost next to nothing...Center Parcs has a lot to answer for

No, because leaving the wheel there blocks the space for someone else.

No, I tucked it out of the way in the space.

And I've had plenty of incidences where there have been so many unused locks attached to a rack that it has made using the space unreasonably fiddly.

A clear out of old, genuinely abandoned, bikes and locks is fine.

Why should some facilities dude try to differentiate? Plenty of still in use locks left in the elements 24/7 start to look pretty scanky.

Again - I don't think this case has been handled very well.

Be realistic.
Your lock is gone.
You’re not getting it back.
They aren’t going to pay for it.
The only thing you can do is swear for a bit, then move on with your life

This. It’s crap, but it’s not crap enough to lose sleep about.

I have/use a Kryptonite New York lock. It costs £78 according to Halfords.

That's a substantial chunk of wedge to buy again.

Unclear what OP's lock is but if someone had got rid of mine in similar circumstances, I'd be working pretty hard to recover the cost of a replacement!

Convert: I get it, you can't do nothing and as soon as you do something then someone will moan.

What my workplace did was put stickers on all the lockers saying "email estates if you are using this locker-number X. In one month they will all be opened and cleared out unless you tell us your are using it." 2/3 of them were abandoned so got broken open, cleared out and had new locks fitted. Mine didn't because I replied.

You could do similar with bike locks. Zip tie a tag to each lock that says if this is still attached in X days/weeks then your lock will be treated as abandoned and removed. The time spent doing that will be saved when you only have to chop half of the locks off.

TJ: there's a difference between throwing away some mouldy cakes left in a communal break room and getting the angle grinder out to chop a bike lock off a bike rack without giving the owner a chance to move it. It just seems strange to me that you're so okay with the idea of employers destroying employee property with no warning, given your usual stance on 'industrial relations'. Like I say, I do get it. If there's a policy and it's made clear to everyone that you can't leave locks there any more and there's time for people on leave to come back and remove locks, then fine. But doing it while people are furloughed, with no warning, just feels like it's bordering on spite.

The place I worked at, had a big problem with locks being left and preventing people mounting their bikes in the frame work. They installed 4 6ft posts, with loads of thick steel rings, to hang unused locks on. Worked very well. Prior to that, there were signs put up, saying abandoned locks would be removed. Nothing ever came of it

But doing it while people are furloughed, with no warning, just feels like it’s bordering on spite.

I quite agree. I just cannot see any recourse here.

Edit:
One thing I learned as shop steward was you only make a stand when you are on solid ground

are you sure it hasn't been nicked? Perhaps time to report to your manager as stolen?

Clearly it depends on the circumstances, but there would have to be an awful lot of locks attached to a sheffield stand to make it difficult to use, or am I missing something here?

There comes a time though:

[img] [/img]

left locks are a problem on bike stands

Because ... ??? Of course they could be, in theory, if people left them in their thousands, but in real life ?