Part-Time Job - Holiday

pinkteapot

I work in an office job and have been with the company since 2006. It's a standard Mon-Fri 9-5 job.

Last year I went part-time, three days a week. My salary and holiday allowance dropped by 40%, pro-rata. I used to get 25 days holiday and now get 15, which was obviously fine.

I am on holiday today and just had an email from the company owner, who is foreign and based overseas and so doesn't always do things properly considering that my contract is with the UK-registered company in the group saying that she did not expect me to have days off now that I am part-time, apart from Easter, Christmas and special occasions such as funerals. :eek:

Having a panic as I have two separate week-long holidays booked (agreed by my line manager) this year. I've also taken a couple of half days so far this year (again agreed) but the owner-manager wasn't aware of those.

I know that there is a legal minimum holiday entitlement in the UK but does it also apply to part-time jobs (on a pro-rata basis)?

Googlewhacker

In short yes.

Also they cannot discriminate against you because you are part time so this means if the full timers get 25 days plus BH then you should get 3/5ths of that.

If they only give 25 days total for a full timer then this is illegal as well as the stat is 28 days!

pinkteapot

FT is 25 days plus Bank Holidays (so more in total).

I can now book 15 days off per year, plus I get BH's off. Although my working days are Wed-Fri so I miss out on most BH's as so many are Mondays. I didn't mind that though as I'm in an industry where PT jobs are very rare, so I was just grateful that they let me go down to PT; I didn't object to the particular days they wanted me to work. At that point, there was one other person in the office doing three days a week and she also got 15 days plus BH's. She's since gone back to FT.

Well, anyway, it was agreed at the time that my holiday allowance would go down from 25 to 15 days. Now I'm worried they're going to try and stop me having any holiday. :eek:

I reminded the boss that the allowance of 15 days was agreed when I went PT and that today's holiday was approved by my manager. I'll see if they come back and say anything and go from there.

Googlewhacker

Depending on which days you work you could actually have the figures in your favour

This is why calculating holiday + BH's is silly and employers should use total days.

EDIT: Just seen it was a Monday so how many days you looking at 2 bank holidays (Boxing day and Good Friday) this year so a total of 17 days.

This means you will get 17 days this year which means you are currently 2.8 under what you should be getting from my calculations.

pinkteapot

Yes, I do see what you mean. I work Wed-Fri so I miss out on any BH Mondays as I'm off anyway. I get Easter Friday plus Christmas/Boxing Day/New Year's Day in some years.

I've always had office jobs and the quoted holiday allowance has always been excluding bank holidays and either 20 or 25 days. Don't know why they do it that way.

Googlewhacker

If you got your full maximum bank holiday allowance (ie christmas, boxing day and NYD, Easter Friday) you'd still be 0.8 days short

pinkteapot

Thanks - as I said, I'm in an industry where PT jobs are exceptionally rare. It's a good job and so I wasn't going to quibble the details too much when they agreed to me going PT.

Heard back from the boss - she didn't realise about the FT/PT arrangements for holiday in London and is going to "look into it". I have a nasty feeling that everyone in London will find their holiday reduced to the legal minimum and it'll be my fault.

Or, she'll change our contracts to be with the parent company (non-UK) and give us zero holiday. And then we'll all leave. :rotfl:

Evilm

Your boss is talking nonsense. "She didn't realise about the FT/PT arrangements for holiday in London"?

If she really thought that part time employees don't get holiday then she shouldn't be in business!

Keep that email and if they try anything take it to a employment lawyer (you can usually get a free short session with at least one in any area).

I also don't think they are allowed to port employees to a foreign entity to avoid legal rights btw!

Do you have a local HR contact or supervisor or do you directly report to her? I'd consider having a chat with the local person if there is anyone. (It does depend on how well you get on with them though and whether you think the conversation will cause problems).

pinkteapot

Small company - no HR staff. I report to a person based overseas (who also knows nothing about UK employment law or standard practices), who reports to the boss. My manager signed off on my day's holiday today (and other holiday I have booked this year).

I will be keeping the email. I've said in response that the 15 day allowance was agreed when I went PT and that my holiday is always signed off by my manager and I take it during quieter periods of the month to cause the least possible disruption. Since last year, we're not allowed to take more than one week in consecutive holiday days (I went on a two week holiday last summer before they decided this and got in trouble and told to split it into separate weeks in future). So I also said how this year I am taking two separate one week holidays over the summer as requested.

They do come out with some gems; I've got some good emails saved from over the years in case it ever all goes wrong. If they ever did bring in a UK HR person then they would have a fit at what goes on.

kingfisherblue

can I suggest that the emails are saved somewhere other than the works email system? If you ever leave, you will no longer have access to them.