holiday entitlement at work - please help

magictom123

Hi all,

I have a quick question regarding when holidays can be taken and when an employer can force you to take them. If this is in the wrong place please feel free to move it to the right forum etc.

My partner works 16 hours a week (8hrs fri, 8hrs sat). We have noticed from the recent bank holiday (she's only just gone back to work after maternity leave) that she has been paid for the recent bank holiday monday. Now she never works mondays and rang up her companys head office to see why this has happened.

Apparently, the company issues an allowance (their words) for bank holidays. The reality is she gets paid a few hours pay for that day even though she is not in work. Now this is our problem. This allowance is in fact coming from her annual holiday entitlement. I know that, say if she was a full time worker who normally and usually worked mondays and then her shop where she works closed for a bank holiday monday, she couldnt go to work and the company would use a days holiday and pay her accordingly - all well and good for a normal full time member of staff

What we see as a problem and I would like to see if anyone can clear this up is whether or not an employer can force the employee to use a days holiday to cover a bank holiday when the employee in question never works on the day that the bank holiday falls anyway because she is part time (the majority of BH's are Mondays). My partner would much rather not be paid for a day when she is off work anyway but instead have the choice to use her holidays for time off work when she actually wanted it.

Now I know some people may argue that working 2 days a week should leave enough time for an employee to do what they want on their remaining days off but this is beside the point for us. Since my partner works friday and saturday, if she is wrongly being denied time off through losing/being paid holidays she has no control over, this means that as a family we get to spend a little less time together at a weekend. Her company, which I won't mention here, has a bad reputation with regards to its treatment of its own employees with I believe a history of court cases for maltreatment of employees.

We do plan to go to the citizens advice for a definitive answer but I thought I would ask for opinions here first as surely there is someone here who has come across a similar circumstance.

Regards.

jackieblack

would probably be better in the Employment board.
Hopefully some helpful MSE person will move it for you

escortg3

Hi. You actually acrue Bank Holidays as you work them. Therefore if you never work a bank holiday you are not entitled to any of them. So if you holiday entitlement is 20 days plus 8 Bank Holidays and you will only have two bank holidays fall on your days to work this year, then your entitlement would be 22 this year.



Hope that makes sense.

magictom123

thanks for the reply but are you sure you acrue bank holidays as you work them? I know plenty of people who are issued blocks of holidays and indeed even my own parents have already allocated/booked up all of their annual leave for this year depsite the fact that we havent had all of the bank holidays in the year yet. The basic minimum holiday allowance is 28 days for full time workers as is my understanding of it. This obviously means fewer days off for part timers but still means 5.6 weeks of what they work. Surely it is discrminiatory against part timers who do not necessarily work days that fall as bank holidays and so lose their right to 5.6 weeks of holidays. To be clear, my partner doesn't care about bank holidays at all but resents having to lose a days holiday for a day she doesnt work anyway.

Again, thanks for the reply.

edit: in fact, the more I think about it the more your response doesnt make sense. For people who have to have a bank holiday off because their office/shop etc is closed, they never work bank holidays and so how would they acrue them? My sense is that my partners company are imposing the same criteria to holiday entitlement for both full time and part time workers and I am just seeking clarity as to whether they are doing so legally or not as again if you never work a bank holiday and therefore it is a normal day off, how can it be right to say that your normal day off now has to be used as a days holiday?

tooldle

bank holidays are normally accrued according to the number of hours worked. As your partner works 16 hours out of a full time week, they will be entitled to 8 x 16/35 bank holidays, meaning that they accumulate approx 3.6 bank holidays per year. IF your partners normally working days never fall on a bank holiday, the company are perhaps spreading the payment owed equally over the 8 days.

Edited to add that I am assuming the working week to be 35 hours

magictom123

thanks toodle, some of my partners workdays do fall on holidays such as good friday etc but the shop where she works remains open and she would normally work on this day. What specifically her employer is doing is using 1.6 weeks (25.6 hours) and dividing by the 8 bank holidays we have. This means 3.2 hours pay for each bank holiday. We see this as a loss of 1.6 weeks holiday entitlement as I have outlined above.

june.elizabeth

I only work a few days a month. Never work Mondays or Fridays and therefore do not receive pay for these days. I receive my full annual holiday entitlement to take as an when I want to. Sounds like whoever pays her wages is taking the easy way and dealing with her as if she was a full time worker, rather than treating her as an individual employee. I would check her contract of employment in regard to bank holiday pay and see what that says.

escortg3

magictom123 wrote: »

thanks for the reply but are you sure you acrue bank holidays as you work them? I know plenty of people who are issued blocks of holidays and indeed even my own parents have already allocated/booked up all of their annual leave for this year depsite the fact that we havent had all of the bank holidays in the year yet. The basic minimum holiday allowance is 28 days for full time workers as is my understanding of it. This obviously means fewer days off for part timers but still means 5.6 weeks of what they work. Surely it is discrminiatory against part timers who do not necessarily work days that fall as bank holidays and so lose their right to 5.6 weeks of holidays. To be clear, my partner doesn't care about bank holidays at all but resents having to lose a days holiday for a day she doesnt work anyway.

Again, thanks for the reply.

Yes you can use them before you worked the whole 12 month period, but if you lost or left your job you would owe them money.
Definately you acrue them as you work them. most people dont get 28 days holiday. what they get is 20 days plus 8 days for Bank holidays.

You are only entitled to bank holidays if you are full time or that is your normal working day. You are not entitled to a bank holiday if you dont work them. I think you need to check your partners holiday entitlement on the contract of employment. it probably says example. 20 days holiday plus bank holidays pro-rata

something like that.

magictom123

june.elizabeth wrote: »

I only work a few days a month. Never work Mondays or Fridays and therefore do not receive pay for these days. I receive my full annual holiday entitlement to take as an when I want to. Sounds like whoever pays her wages is taking the easy way and dealing with her as if she was a full time worker, rather than treating her as an individual employee. I would check her contract of employment in regard to bank holiday pay and see what that says.

thank you. This is the kind of thing I expected to hear. It reminded me that I have spoken to my sister on this and she works sat/sun each week and so doesnt work bank holidays. She never gets paid bank holiday pay and can choose to use her full holiday entitlement as she chooses. The last discussion on the phone with my partners employers lead the woman to say that 'by law, we can allocate 1.6 weeks worth of holidays for use on bank holidays.' My partner explained her greivance but it fell on deaf ears and I am convinced that she is indeed being dealt with as if she is a full time member of staff. Given she is not, and the circumstance I have outlined above, I seek to find if the difference between FT and PT means you canhave fully say over where your holidays are used.

tooldle

what does the contract say with regard to holiday, 28days plus bank holiday, or including bank holiday. I also work part time but beacuse of the hours worked am entitled to 7 out of 8 bank holidays. Beacuse of the days I work I cannot take 7 actual bank holidays and therefore have them added to my leave entitlement. Where is the 25.6 hours coming from?

magictom123

25.6 hours is 1.6 working weeks (16hrs a working week). This is correct because as I have said after the last BH she received pay that shows 3.2 hours pay (1.6 week (25.6hrs) / 8 BH's = 3.2hrs hol pay per BH) I dont know the wording of her contract and will have to find out but still, if the contract breaks the law then it is irrelevant and it is the position of the law in this cirumstance that I wish to seek.

Thanks for all the responses.