How much annual leave am I entitled to from april 09?

marlonx

I recently received a booklet from ACAS, advising me of new changes to holiday entitlement.
It states that if you work a five day week, you will receive 28 days holiday.

I raised the issue with my employer, the answer i received was..
..

"I have had an answer from HR regarding holiday entitlement

It basically means that a person who works a five day week will be entitled to 20 days paid holiday as a minimum and eight days which are bank and public holiday (in force 01/04/09).

Therefore at the moment we are on 22 days paid holiday and eight days which are bank and public holidays - we are 2 days over the minimum (in force 01/04/09)"

Is this statement correct? Yes i do receive 22 days holiday and all bank holidays are paid leave. BUT. In a bank holiday week, i have to work the following Saturday to make up for the missed bank holiday Monday (5 day week). This is also the case for a christmas holiday, i will find myself making up the days missed in the following weeks. Making them 6 day weeks.

Please help, any advice is good advise and if my employer is incorrect are there any institutions excluding unions that can help.

Valli

Are you paid overtime when you 'make up' a bank holiday.

Assuming you work Mon- Fri in then a BH week you should work Tues - Fri. If you work Tues -Sat then you are not getting your bank holiday. Are you being paid overtime for the Saturday? Do these conditions apply to your colleagues?
This is one of the reasons why there are unions - to stop employers walking all over employees...
Incidentally if you received a booklet from ACAS does that not state what you can do iof you don't get your full holiday entitlement? They are the people to contact.

ACAS say that there is no entitlement to paid bank holidays - they can be part of your annual entitlement - so your company 'says' they give you the bank holiday but they don't...

marlonx

I get paid at overtime rate for the Saturday.

I only really undertood bits of the ACAS booklet and have phoned ACAS, they just confused me.
I'm a bin man and there are loads of us in the same situation. The union has done nothing for us. We got taken over by a private company 16 months ago and since then we have seen nothing of the unions. They are also trying to dispose of our current union rep, who we havnt seen for over 9 months.

Tibbledom

I think it probably depends on whether working the Saturday on bank holiday weekends is optional or not. At the two extremes:

If you are contractually obliged to work the Saturday on bank holiday weekends then effectively you are not getting the bank holiday off and are still working your normal 5 day week then. Therefore you are only getting 22 days paid holiday which is below the legal minimum.

If you have the contractual right to turn down the overtime on the Saturday on bank holiday weeks (i.e. you can say to your employer "sorry gov, I don't want to work the Saturday" and they would be OK with this) then effectively you are getting 30 days holiday (22 +8) which is above the legal minimum. Whether you voluntarily choose to work the Saturday or not is then entirely up to you.

Would be interested in others thoughts though. I am not 100% certain here.

Horace

marlon - if you haven't seen your union rep for 9 months, contact the union's regional office or HQ

Tibbledom

Horace wrote: »

marlon - if you haven't seen your union rep for 9 months, contact the union's regional office or HQ

Agree completely. There seems a strong likelihood that the OP and his colleagues are being pressurised to work the Saturdays against their will (perhaps the OP can tell us if this is the case) and if it is the case then the trade union should be able to help big time.

Kez1983

Im also confused by the holiday situation.

We only have 20 days holiday and have to work bankhols if required. If I work a bank hol I get paid for the time I work and for what i normally would have worked (called a normal working day payment) ie I work 4 hours, on a 20 hour/5 day contract, get paid 4+4 hours. (if i work 6 hours i get 6+4 etc)

Is this correct for the entitlement?

Thanks!

marlonx

We have to work the Saturday, in my contract it is worded "you may be asked to work"
Thanks to all, will call the regional office.

Savvy_Sue

Kez1983 wrote: »

Im also confused by the holiday situation.

We only have 20 days holiday and have to work bankhols if required. If I work a bank hol I get paid for the time I work and for what i normally would have worked (called a normal working day payment) ie I work 4 hours, on a 20 hour/5 day contract, get paid 4+4 hours. (if i work 6 hours i get 6+4 etc)

Is this correct for the entitlement?

I don't think so. It went up to 24 days (which could include the BHs) a couple of years ago, but is going up to 28 days (again including the BHs) from this April.

You could run it past ACAS, but I don't think that giving you the BH with one hand and then requiring you to work the Saturday with the other is what was intended, even if they pay you extra for the Saturday!