Missing Holiday Pay

fairydiamond

Hope someone can give me some advice.

I started working for an agency in March 2012. I worked right up until March 2013 and I was told the work would be ending. I asked how many holidays I had left and I was told 11 days.

I asked for these holidays to be paid and I got 5 days, then 1 day a week later. I am still missing 5 days and when my friend and I enquired about the missing holidays, we were told they expired at the end of march and they will not be paying us. Can they actually do this? Just take 5 days of my holiday that I worked really hard to get? Its worth about £200 to me.

We were never told about holidays and how they worked/accumulated/expired.

What can I do?

paddedjohn

What date did you finish in march? When did you start last march?

fairydiamond

I've not actually finished... I keep getting work, maybe 1 day a week or so. They told us the holidays expired 1 year after we signed up and the year started again.

anamenottaken

fairydiamond wrote: »

I've not actually finished... I keep getting work, maybe 1 day a week or so. They told us the holidays expired 1 year after we signed up and the year started again.

Check the written documents you were given when you registered with the agency.

It is common (possibly universal) for agencies to operate individual holiday years running from the date of the first assignment. This should be mentioned in the documents you were given.

Good agencies will tell you how much you are accumulating as your progress through the year and will even remind you to take them before they expire.

It is legal that if they are not taken within the year they are lost.

If you had actually left within the year, you should have been paid for the holidays earned but not taken. As you are still on their books (ie may still have assignments through them and have not received a P45), you are in a new holiday year which started on the anniversary of your first assignment. (In fact this anniversary period may be adjusted to finish on a Friday rather than be the actually anniversary day.)

fairydiamond

anamenottaken wrote: »

Check the written documents you were given when you registered with the agency.

It is common (possibly universal) for agencies to operate individual holiday years running from the date of the first assignment. This should be mentioned in the documents you were given.

Good agencies will tell you how much you are accumulating as your progress through the year and will even remind you to take them before they expire.

It is legal that if they are not taken within the year they are lost.

If you had actually left within the year, you should have been paid for the holidays earned but not taken. As you are still on their books (ie may still have assignments through them and have not received a P45), you are in a new holiday year which started on the anniversary of your first assignment. (In fact this anniversary period may be adjusted to finish on a Friday rather than be the actually anniversary day.)

Thank you, I am really angry about it but I suppose I should just take this and learn from it.