Can an agency "legally" withold holiday pay?

sujman

Mudd14 wrote: »

Whilst I can see your point, and it is a good one, it is your choice to use an agency and pay the amount they are asking. If you dont wish to pay a price that includes the markup on holiday dont use them, but you will find it hard to find an agency that doesnt include holiday in their price.

I fully expect any charges to include holiday pay as the workers are legally entitled to it - I am only talking about instances where holiday is not taken and money forfeited.

I just find in interesting that if I, as a salaried worker, forfeit holiday, I only lose time. But an agency worker would lose hard cash.

liney

The agency have no obligation to remind their workers that their holiday year is comming to an end as it will state the dates in their contract, so they could have kept quiet and just zero'd the balance. Instead they have done the decent thing and reminded the workers and now the client is trying to give them grief over it. Nice.

LittleVoice

sujman wrote: »

I fully expect any charges to include holiday pay as the workers are legally entitled to it - I am only talking about instances where holiday is not taken and money forfeited.

I just find in interesting that if I, as a salaried worker, forfeit holiday, I only lose time. But an agency worker would lose hard cash.

Depends - if they actually took holiday which wasn't paid, then, yes, they would lose the money. If, however, they worked instead of taking holiday then, like you, they lose the time not cash.

Victoriajayne

LittleVoice wrote: »

Depends - if they actually took holiday which wasn't paid, then, yes, they would lose the money. If, however, they worked instead of taking holiday then, like you, they lose the time not cash.

Actually, they would lose the cash.
Most agencies quote their PAYE employees an hourly rate inclusive of holiday pay, then in every payslip, for every hour worked they make a deduction for 'holiday premium', which gets converted to accrued holiday hours.

So the more hours an agency employee works, the more holiday hours they accrue.

If they don't take those accrued hours before the end of the holiday year, they lose the cash which they've already earned.

In a previous contract job, I had accrued enough hours to take ten days off over Christmas/New Year. The agency holiday year ran January to December.
Then the employer asked me to go in for some of the days because some work had to be prepared for the New Year.
I ended up ringing the agency and telling them I wanted to book my holiday at 12 hrs/day rather than 8 hrs/day as I knew I'd lose the money that had already been put aside from my wages otherwise.

LittleVoice

Victoriajayne wrote: »

Actually, they would lose the cash.
Most agencies quote their PAYE employees an hourly rate inclusive of holiday pay, then in every payslip, for every hour worked they make a deduction for 'holiday premium', which gets converted to accrued holiday hours.

So the more hours an agency employee works, the more holiday hours they accrue.
.

Most agencies do not quote an inclusive hourly rate to their workers - they quote the inclusive rate to their clients.

If they then pay the worker at the proper rate (without the rolled-up holiday element), then you get the true rate of pay.

If you are allowed to work 37 hours a week and the client will not pay for more hours and you can't take the holiday, then you have the same pay as if you hadn't worked but taken holiday for the same amount of time. Thus you lose the time.

Victoriajayne

LittleVoice wrote: »

Most agencies do not quote an inclusive hourly rate to their workers - they quote the inclusive rate to their clients.

If they then pay the worker at the proper rate (without the rolled-up holiday element), then you get the true rate of pay.

If you are allowed to work 37 hours a week and the client will not pay for more hours and you can't take the holiday, then you have the same pay as if you hadn't worked but taken holiday for the same amount of time. Thus you lose the time.

I can show you several examples from legitimate employment agencies.
Would you still say I was wrong ?

LittleVoice

Victoriajayne wrote: »

I can show you several examples from legitimate employment agencies.
Would you still say I was wrong ?

Examples of what?

Victoriajayne

Examples of how employment agencies quote an overall hourly rate inclusive of holiday pay to their PAYE employees, then make a deduction each week which is converted to holiday hours.

Maybe you work for an agency that doesn't deal with it that way. But a lot of agencies do !!!!

LittleVoice

Victoriajayne wrote: »

Examples of how employment agencies quote an overall hourly rate inclusive of holiday pay to their PAYE employees, then make a deduction each week which is converted to holiday hours.

Maybe you work for an agency that doesn't deal with it that way. But a lot of agencies do !!!!

Rather than "a lot" of agencies operating in the way you suggest, you originally said "most" did. None of the agencies I have worked through have done so.

However, it makes no difference to the fact that if you work 7 hours and are paid £15/hour and don't take leave or take leave and are paid £105 you receive the same amount of cash. You don't lose cash, you lose the holiday time.

This went back to another poster saying that a permanent employee not taking holiday, lost the time but not the money but that an agency worker would lose cash.

Are you also differentiating between an agency's workers who are on a contract of service or contract for services basis? Both are paid under PAYE and neither should be misled by quoting a rate which is not actually paid.

sujman

liney wrote: »

The agency have no obligation to remind their workers that their holiday year is comming to an end as it will state the dates in their contract, so they could have kept quiet and just zero'd the balance. Instead they have done the decent thing and reminded the workers and now the client is trying to give them grief over it. Nice.

I totally agree, very decent of the agency to remind their staff to take holiday or lose it but I have (personnally - not my company view) 2 issues with it:

1. I actually feel that an agency worker should never lose the cash that has been accrued against their name for holiday.

2. The agency shouldn't profit in instances when holiday is not paid over - as it provides an be incentive and a way for agencies to boost their profits.

Having actually been involved in negotiating agency contracts, the first principle is the the profit the agency makes is from the margin per hour they charge, nothing more, nothing less.

Its a bit like say, Camelot taking the money into their profits for any unclaimed lottery winnings.

As for "...client is trying to give them grief over it. Nice.." - the nature of the business we're in would actually suit the fact that agency holiday could be carried over into the following year so that during the "troughs" of the business cycle, the agency worker can use their holiday entitlement as opposed to being "laid off" without the certainty of being called back.