Paid Holidays Again

[Deleted User]

OK, my OH started with a new employer in the beginning of October 2011. His previous employer was rather dodgy and Julian lost all his unclaimed holiday for that year.

Now his new employer is saying he will have to take 3 days unpaid holiday because the garage will not be opening in the period from Christmas eve (half day) to 3rd January and he only has built up holiday to cover part of the period the garage will be closed.

Its going to leave him very short.., obviously rent still has to be paid, bills paid regardless of whether his place of employment is closed or not. My OH gets paid weekly so its quite a chunk of money to 'lose'.

I know it seems mad but is the employer allowed to close down his place of employment so he has no opportunity to work and then dock his pay because he can't work? Its taken some negotiation just to get his employer to say he will pay out the accrued holiday Julian's got.., at first he was saying he didn't pay any holiday the first year (having learned from the other employer's dodgy ways, we knew enough to politely challenge that).

When I was in a similiar situation I was allowed to take the whole period paid, the money was taken from the following year's holiday accrual. I assume if I'd have left before the holiday accrual was in the positive, I would have then lost wages to 'pay it back'. That seemed a fair arrangement to me.

paddedjohn

Assuming he started work on the first week of october and works full time, he will have accrued a minimum of 7 days leave by end of the year. How many days has he taken so far?

LittleVoice

Did he start on 3 October? Does he work 6 days a week? If "yes" to both of those questions (or if he works 5 days a week), he would have "earned" a quarter of a year's worth of statutory paid leave by the end of the year - 7 days.

It would appear that, as long as he hasn't taken any other holiday since joining, he would have enough holiday to cover the whole period - if Saturday 31 December would otherwise be a working day.

If he has taken 4 days leave since he started then those days should be deducted from the total "earned" by the end of the Christmas/New Year holiday and thus the employer would be able to say the 4 days should be unpaid. Was the employer also deducting half a day for Christmas Eve?

Yes, the employer can close his business for a holiday period and say he has to take it as unpaid leave if he has not accrued sufficient holiday to cover it.

[Deleted User]

Thank you for your replies. Yes he did start 3rd October.., does work Saturdays til 1 oclock (so almost a six day of week). His employer is saying that for the holiday period Christmas Eve (which supposedly will be a half day) to 3rd January., he has only accumulated enough holidays for part of it.., so he will lose 3 days pay.

I am confused by the '6' day week. Know he's supposed to get 2.3 holidays accumulated per calendar month.., but not quite sure how to calculate how many days in total he will have accumulated from 3rd October. He has not taken any holiday at all so far. He has had money deducted for the odd day taken while I was in hospital (2 Saturdays).

paddedjohn

As i said in my earlier post he will have accumulated 7 days from his start date untill the end of December, if he finishes on Xmas Eve and goes back on Jan 3rd then he will need 6 1/2 days leave, Mon 26th, Tues 27th, Wed 28th, Thurs 29th, Fri 30th, Sat 31st half day and Mon 2nd jan.
When does the leave year run from-to?

planning303

deannatrois wrote: »

I am confused by the '6' day week.QUOTE]

right, you need to check his contract for his weekly contracted hours.

say for example he's contracted to 45 hours and he does them over 6 days at various shift lengths then it makes no difference to his holiday entitlement but i would recommend you work out his annual holiday in hours rather than days.

If however he's contacted to say 37.5 split over the first 5 days of the week and the 6 day is counted as overtime then you would need to pro-rata this against his contracted week and his holiday allowance and add the increase in.

for example

I work 45 hours a week and i work them over 4 days rather than the standard 5 days, i also am only contract to 37.5. Thus i add 20% to 1/12 of my holiday allowance for every month that i work the extended hours and work out my holiday entitlement in horus rather than days

LittleVoice

paddedjohn wrote: »

As i said in my earlier post he will have accumulated 7 days from his start date untill the end of December, if he finishes on Xmas Eve and goes back on Jan 3rd then he will need 6 1/2 days leave, Mon 26th, Tues 27th, Wed 28th, Thurs 29th, Fri 30th, Sat 31st half day and Mon 2nd jan.
When does the leave year run from-to?

To add to this question - if there is nothing in writing to say otherwise (or at all), then his holiday year will be the personal holiday year of 3 October to 2 October. That is in the WTRs.

LittleVoice

liggins wrote: »

deannatrois wrote: »

I am confused by the '6' day week.QUOTE]

If however he's contacted to say 37.5 split over the first 5 days of the week and the 6 day is counted as overtime then you would need to pro-rata this against his contracted week and his holiday allowance and add the increase in.

I believe you will find that if the Saturday is counted as over-time then no holiday allowance accrues in relation to those hours.

But also that would mean that no holiday needs to be taken off if they are not worked.

Statutory holiday entitlement is actual a matter of weeks - 5.6 weeks for everyone. It is how you calculate the individual person's week that can use hours. Someone contracted to work 5 days or 5.5 days a week would get the same number of days holiday. There is no additional entitlement for working more than 5 days a week.

[Deleted User]

Saturdays are a standard part of his working week.., so not counted as overtime. He has not been given a contract of employment yet.., supposedly this will happen after Christmas when he has finished his trial period. Salary will be renegotiated then too so we do have to tread carefully.

5 day week Office jobs are far less confusing lolol.

Really do appreciate all your input.., with him losing all his allocated holiday in his last job on leaving (due to our ignorance and the rather 'If I can take something off him I will' attitude of his previous employer) we are trying to tread a narrow road.., making sure my OH isn't shafted again.., but without antagonising the new employer too much because it is a lot better than the previous job. No more ignorance on our part lol.

If there is a way to avoid it, I'd like us to not be losing half a week's pay over Xmas. Because I had this dratted heart attack and was in hospital (extra expenses for childcare, travel, food etc) we are on an even tighter budget than I thought we'd be. Suddenly finding out about the three days shortfall was NOT good news. I know it probably seems like nothing in a way.., but its at least £100, we can't afford to be down that much. He is a really good mechanic (the sort that fixes cars others have given up on) so I'd like to see him not taken advantage of again.

anamenottaken

deannatrois wrote: »

Saturdays are a standard part of his working week.., so not counted as overtime. He has not been given a contract of employment yet.., supposedly this will happen after Christmas when he has finished his trial period. Salary will be renegotiated then too so we do have to tread carefully.

5 day week Office jobs are far less confusing lolol.

Really do appreciate all your input.., with him losing all his allocated holiday in his last job on leaving (due to our ignorance and the rather 'If I can take something off him I will' attitude of his previous employer) we are trying to tread a narrow road.., making sure my OH isn't shafted again.., but without antagonising the new employer too much because it is a lot better than the previous job. No more ignorance on our part lol.

If there is a way to avoid it, I'd like us to not be losing half a week's pay over Xmas. Because I had this dratted heart attack and was in hospital (extra expenses for childcare, travel, food etc) we are on an even tighter budget than I thought we'd be. Suddenly finding out about the three days shortfall was NOT good news. I know it probably seems like nothing in a way.., but its at least £100, we can't afford to be down that much. He is a really good mechanic (the sort that fixes cars others have given up on) so I'd like to see him not taken advantage of again.

As we know, this employer doesn't follow the rules - he should have provided written particulars (not a contract in the form of a paper document which both parties sign) before now. In the absence of this now, the statutory provision for the holiday year starting on the first day of employment applies - he cannot start to say that the holiday year runs from January to December.

[Deleted User]

Hope I've worked this out right but looking at what has come out of this thread.., 5.6 weeks statutory entitlement, 3 months worked = 25% of statuory entitlement = 1.4 weeks.., 1.4 x 6 (6 day week) = 8.4 days.

7 days required for the holiday from 24th December to 2nd January (start back 3rd). So as you've been saying, he shouldn't be losing three days pay at all. Saturday 24th is a half day anyway, so he shouldn't be counting that.., but maybe his employer has worked a way around that.., we'll see.

I'm going to be watching this employer very carefully.., he doesn't seem much different to the first now lol!