Something which my managers are calling "business critical" has come up in my business area which the senior managers are pressing me to do. It is to take up a role in a team I used to work in some 18 months ago, and this role is a period of time between 3 months to 2 years. I didn’t have a very good experience working in my old team – I had no job satisfaction and the work was causing me to not want to come to work each day.

Luckily another role came up within my work and I am now happy doing this and have been happy for the last 18 months or so.

However I was approached about going back to my previous role some 2 weeks ago and I have expressed constantly that I don’t want to go and work back their as it causes me un-due stress.

This seemed to fall on deaf ears of the management and it got to a point where yesterday I ended up crying in the office of the senior manager of my department yesterday along with my line manager. This is causing me undue stress just thinking about going and working there. But yet the management are alluding to the fact that I have no choice in the matter and I have to go.

I was wondering whether you can advise me of what rights I have in regard to this matter? As I really do not want to do this assignment especially when somebody else in the business can easily take on the role.

If you want to continue working for them they can. If you refuse they can fire you for insubordinatioon. You are always free to seek employment elsewhere.

You have the right to quit and find another job. You can refuse, but they can merely fire you.

They may assign you any detail they wish,unless you have a written contract not to do those duties

Crying in front of management over a work issue is very unprofessional and probably put you in a bad light. If you don't like it, work elsewhere. Doesn't sound like they will budge. Now you have to mend fences if you want to stay. You brought a personal issue into a business atmosphere, not good.

Be big about it, swallow your dislike and go, is all I can say

What planet do you work on where you have no choice? Of course you have choices. One is to demand more money and see what happens. The other is to refuse and then when they say you are fired, you say no, I just quit first. Have your desk all packed and ready to leave on a minute's notice.
Now what happens after that is not clear yet. If this is the US, you can go apply for unemployment, but in order to get it without being laid off, the employer has to be contacted to see if they protest. If you were hired for specific tasks and they asked you to do something different that you aren't equipped to do, then they can determine if you qualify or not. But since you did that team job before, chances are you have a job description that is pretty flexible, and you won't get UI.