Change to bank holiday working

jm2926

Currently myself and some colleagues receive an enhanced rate for working bank holidays because we TUPE'd into the company and this was part of our T&C's. The company we currently work for does not officially "recognise" bank holidays, and adds them to general holiday entitlement as "floating days", so they are just normal working days from a company perspective.

So for the last 2 years, we are paid extra for working them, or use a day from our holiday entitlement to book one off as annual leave.

Now the company would like us to not work any of these days to avoid the payment, and use annual leave to take them all off. All other departments of the company would continue to work them as normal. A few people would cover these days as "on-call" for emergencies (which is the normal evening/weekend situation), while for the others, their workload would have to wait for their return.

Can they do this and is there anything we can do to stop them? Also they have not started any consultation etc for this, they seem to think once HR have decided the plan of action they can just tell our managers to enforce the new rules.

Jarndyce

They are not changing your contracts - ie if you did work BHs you'd still get paid for them, but they are changing their practice and not asking you to work them any more. So yes they can do it, no there is nothing you can do to stop them, and they do not have to consult you in advance.

jm2926

Jarndyce wrote: »

They are not changing your contracts - ie if you did work BHs you'd still get paid for them, but they are changing their practice and not asking you to work them any more.

But this is a change to the employment terms & conditions as at the moment we are free to take holidays anytime (with approval), and this restricts several days as mandatory, despite the fact the rest of the company will be working.

Notmyrealname

A company is allowed to say when employees can take their holidays and they can change holiday terms with sufficient notice.

You can still take the bank holiday off and still have all your annual leave as floating - just tell them you don't want paying for the BH.

KiKi

jm2926 wrote: »

But this is a change to the employment terms & conditions as at the moment we are free to take holidays anytime (with approval), and this restricts several days as mandatory, despite the fact the rest of the company will be working.

It's not a change to your T&Cs. At the moment you have to submit holiday requests and get them approved. In future you will have to submit holiday requests and get them approved. In all cases they can be turned down. The fact that your old organisation was unlikely to turn them down but your new organisation is more picky is neither here nor there.

It is a common misconception that changes can't be made if you're TUPE'd, but unfortunately that's not the case. TUPE protects you at the point of transfer, but if the new organisation has a good ETO reason to change the way things are done - or even your contract - they can (with appropriate notice and process, of course).

You have no legal redress that I can see, I'm afraid, sorry.

KiKi