What will I be paid???

Fresh252

Hi there everyone, I just found a temp job with an agency. It's for 3 months. I had a call saying it would be £8.25 per hour. I've been working there since Monday.

Today I received the breakdown.
"
HOURLY RATE £8.25 37.5

The total pay quoted above is composed of 12/13 normal pay and 1/13 holiday pay.
"
What does this mean. Does it mean that I get get paid £7.61 hourly or can I not take the holiday and get £8.25 per hour.

Should I complain if I get the £7.61 as they sneakily put the holidays in?

Please advise. Thank you.

LittleVoice

Are you working in England or Wales? (Things may possibly be different for Scotland, I'm not sure.)

You should be paid the hourly rate they quoted of £8.25 for any hours you work. It would be very sneaky to try now to reduce your pay by indicating it includes holiday entitlement.

The holiday pay should be paid separately either when you claim it or at the end of the contract. The timing of holiday pay can be applied differently by different agencies. For example I have worked as a teacher and now holiday is paid at the end of the term/contract whereas previously it was paid on a monthly basis but as a designated amount. Some agencies just ask you to put in a claim for paid holiday when you want to take the holiday (as long as you have accrued sufficient in your holiday "pot").

Some agencies used to roll up the holiday pay in the hourly rate (as your agency seem to be trying to do now) but that is not supposed to be permitted.

Jarvisma

Don't worry, you will strill be paid £8.25 per hour.

What they are saying is that 12/13's of it will be in respect of the work you have performed and 1/13 will be in repect of holiday pay due on those hours. You will still be paid the full £8.25.

This is very similar to 'rolled up' holiday pay which is quoted earlier, which has now been deemed illegal. However that has only been very recently and it is still very much a grey area so as long as it is made clear to you that an element of your hourly rate is made up of holiday pay due to you it is still ok to do.

The assumption is that you are basically in a job where it would be difficult or not as feasible for you to take annual holiday as a regular full time employee, so they pay you for the holiday you have accrued based on the hours you have worked that or the previous month. It is very common for casual workers or workers who do not have set contracted hours.

You need to remember though that if you stay in this job and a few months down the line want to take 2 weeks holiday you won't be paid for them, as in essense, you have already been paid for them over the course of the year so far.

BrunoM

I think it's more underhanded than Jarvisma does! By "including holiday pay" they effectively take away your 20 days annual holiday without spelling that out as clearly as they might, and probably, should do.
Did the topic of your statutory holiday allowance come up at all, or is this breakdown the first you've heard? If I started a temp job then a few days in was told "by the way you have no paid holiday" I'd be upset.

LittleVoice

Some agencies pay weekly, others on a monthly basis.

I think I would investigate the legality of the rolled-up holiday pay issue. (Sorry, I don't have the precise places to refer to at the moment and don't have the time to investigate it right now.)

Armed with the facts, I would then challenge the pay (and this would be after they had made the first pay simply showing the £8.25/hour rate and say I expected to receive 5 days holiday pay at the end of the 3-month contract.

liney

Holiday pay is not longer allowed to be rolled up. It is indeed illegal.

If you work for an agency then your holiday entitlement will be based on the average basic week worked, so if you work for 12 weeks and take no time off you will be entitled to a full week at normal pay. If you take time off therefore leaving some week incomplete, you will not be entitled to a full week at normal pay since the absence will bring the average down.

20 days annual holiday is actually 4 weeks paid leave, so it is possible to accrue less then 20 days per year if you work alot of incomplete weeks. Ie, you may not be entitled to 5 days at the end of the 12 week, but an average weeks pay taking into account any absence.

Remember you are not automatically entitled to be paid for bank holidays either, so will need to book them from your 4 week entitlement unless your contract says otherwise.

Make sense?

LittleVoice

You agree with me about the illegality of rolled up holiday pay. But do you know where we can point to to confirm this? As I wrote above, I don't have time right now to seek it out but if you have "chapter and verse" that would be helpful.

Jarvisma

This is not underhanded, as they are telling the OP that an element of the pay is holiday pay. I do agree that the agency should perhaps have pointed this out when they originally stated the hourly rate as being £8.25.

The following is an extract from the DTI website of which some parts are particularly relevant:

English case law on the matter (rolled up holiday pay)had provisionally established that paying RHP was legal, provided that:

* The parties' agreement to RHP was reflected in the employment contract.
* The RHP was a genuine payment for holiday entitlement to compensate the worker for when holiday was actually taken.
* The additional element for holiday pay was included separately to the basic rate of pay on the payslip and was, therefore, transparent. (It has been the OP was told it would be 12/13 pay and 1/13 hol pay)
* Holiday records were kept and steps were taken by employers to encourage workers to take their holidays.

Expert advice
From now on, the practice should be phased out, as the ECJ decision makes rolling up holiday pay unlawful.

Businesses can still continue to pay RHP, provided their present arrangements comply with the conditions set out above, because the ECJ did not go as far as to make its ruling retrospective. This means that employers will not face claims for backdated holiday pay from workers.

However, it seems that the Government will make the practice unlawful by amending its working time regulations in line with the ECJ decision in due course. Businesses should not wait until this happens; the Department of Trade and Industry has already advised employers to discontinue the practice.


In short, yes what they are doing is rolled up hioliday pay which has been ruled unlawful by the Eurpean Court of Justice (ECJ) but employers have been given time to phase the practise out which means at present it is not illegal.

BrunoM

Jarvisma wrote: »

This is not underhanded, as they are telling the OP that an element of the pay is holiday pay. I do agree that the agency should perhaps have pointed this out when they originally stated the hourly rate as being £8.25.

I call it underhanded because the OP presumably took the job on the basis of the pay offer, and no-one told him that the pay included holiday until AFTER he'd already worked a couple of days.

zzzLazyDaisy

http://www.dti.gov.uk/employment/employment-legislation/working-time-regs/rolled-up/page29030.html

The above is a link to the DTI website. It confirms that rolled-up holiday pay is unlawful. Companies that are in the process of converting from rolled-up holiday pay to paid holidays (in accordance with the Working Time Directive, which has been law for some years in the UK) may continue to take account of the previously rolled up pay when calculating holidays, provided the rolled-up holiday pay was transparant at the time it was paid.

Companies have had plenty of time to come into line with the law, and all should at least be in the process of changing their systems. In my view if they are still paying rolled up holiday pay, the advertised hourly rate should clearly state '£8.25 per hour including holiday pay'.

Please note, although I am an employment lawyer, the above comments are my personal views only, and do not constitute legal advice.

Daisy

Jarvisma

BrunoM wrote: »

I call it underhanded because the OP presumably took the job on the basis of the pay offer, and no-one told him that the pay included holiday until AFTER he'd already worked a couple of days.

Yes I do agree with you but as I understood it, it was the agency that gave the initial hourly rate so as I pointed out they should have made it clear, the direct employers may not be aware that the agency are not making it clear to people that an element of Hol pay in involved.