Change in Holiday Entitlement

flea72

when i started working for my current employer, my contract stated i got 20 days holiday plus b/h

however over the years, the stat holiday entitlement has increased, but my employer has just kept at the 20 days plus b/h. When i question them on this, they just say b/hs can be included within the stat holiday entitlement. well i know this, but when i started working for them, i got the stat min, plus b/hs, whereas now, any increases are just used to decrease b/h entitlement

they also wont accept the fact, that as a p/t employee i should get a pro-rata rate for b/hs that fall on a day i dont work. again they just argue that b/hs can be included in your holiday entitlement. However, f/t staff get paid to stay at home for 8 b/hs a year, so why shouldnt i, as a p/t employee? Even when ive shown them a print off of employment law, about p/t staff getting a b/h allowance, their answer is, well if we have to treat f/t and p/t staff equally, we will just stop giving the f/t staff paid b/hs too. you can guess how well that would go down with the other members of staff!

can they do this?

Flea

arealhighlander

Im afraid you will find that as long as they give you at least the legal minimum they they can.

I work on a dayrate contract and got paid 20 days holiday a year. I queried when the number of entitled holidays went up.

They looked into it and said as I was dayrate and only worked 6 months a year they said technically I was only entitled to 50% pro rata of the entitlement anyway.

So in theory they only had to pay me 10 days a year. So as long as they are paying me more than they need to, they will not change it.

Just be thankful you get full holiday entitlement when being part time - many others don't.

flea72

sorry, no i dont still get 20 days now im p/t, they pro rata that, which they reckon is 8 days, however im sure thats wrong too.

i suppose my main problem is, i work a different amount of hours on each day i work, so saying i have 8 days holiday, could work in my favour if i used the 'days' as my longest day, but they wont let me take this day off on holiday as its the day they are short staffed. so i only get to take off 'days' that are 4hrs long, rather than the 8hrs which is my longest working day - so to me that means, i get half of my entitlement anyway

oh its all so confusing.

why cant the government change the legistation so holiday entitlement is worked out in hours rather than days. at least then, you could easily pro-rata holiday for p/t staf, and it would all be clear cut

Flea

pinkshoes

Perhaps it would help if you told us how many hours a week you work, then someone can work out what the minimum is you're entitled to?

I think the national minimum is 24 days (8 of which are bank holidays). This will rise to 28 days next year.

A typical working week is 37.5 hours, so if you work half of this (18.75 hours), then I'm thinking you'd be entitled to 12 days of holiday (90 hours) along with 4 days (30 hours) of bank holiday.

flea72

i work 16.5 hrs over 3 days - i have one 8hr shift, a 4.5hr shift and finally a 4hr shift

so as my employer works holiday on days, rather than hours, and i can only take holiday on the 4.5hr or 4hr days, i really think im losing out on every front

Flea

dharm999

What is your holiday year? THe holiday entitlement goes up to 5.6 weeks from 1/4/09, so assuming you're holiday year was April to March, then your annual holiday entitlement would be 5.6 weeks times 16.5 hours a week = 92.4 hours. So if they are only paying you for 4 hours when you are on holiday then you should get 23.1 days holiday, each 4 hours in length. Hope this makes sense!

Savvy_Sue

If you worked out your entitlement in hours and put it to them that way, maybe they'd let you book it and take it in hours? But they might not think to put the work in themselves.

It might be worth talking to ACAS.

pinkshoes

flea72 wrote: »

i work 16.5 hrs over 3 days - i have one 8hr shift, a 4.5hr shift and finally a 4hr shift

so as my employer works holiday on days, rather than hours, and i can only take holiday on the 4.5hr or 4hr days, i really think im losing out on every front

Flea

Because you don't work full days, they should work your holiday entitlement out in hours.

If you do 16.5 hours, that's 44% of a full working week (37.5 hours), so you should be getting 44% of the holiday entitlement. On the current 24 days holiday entitlement (so 24 x 7.5 hours = 180 hours), you'd be entitled to 44% of that, so 79 hours per year. (10.5 full 7.5 hour days)

This changes next year from 1st April 2009, where you'd then get pro rata of 28 days (including bank holidays), so in your case:

28 days x 7.5 hours * 44% = 92.4 hours (so just over 12 full days).