Carrying Over Holiday Days

henrygregory

Hi,
Unfortunately, I have been very unwell since being made redundant, and the way my company is dealing with it's staff, is in my opinion, very un-fair. Having been a very solid worker for them, I am deeply upset at my treatment. I have taken 1 day of ill in the nearly 5 years I have worked for them. I have been a model employee and they know it.

The reason the dates in question were originally in my OP, last years holiday dates were because these were the ones they were saying I had taken too many off. They made me jump through hoops to prove this such as getting copies of client's signing in books for visits just under a year ago. I did all of this at my expense and time and to the further detriment of my health, as I should have been recovering. They have now accepted they were in the wrong and that I do not owe them holiday days for this period.

So now, they have gone three years into the past to see if they can dig anything else out to throw in my way. I state again, this is a solvent liquidation, the company has done very well and there is no need for this sort of attitude. I have been incredibly honest with them and I feel like I am just being palmed off. As mentioned, my health has deteriorated considerably since the redundancy, first with kidney stones and now with a very nasty infection of cellulitus in my eye which is not improving and will require me to go into hospital for an iv this afternoon. The company are well aware of my health issues and are still expecting me to get back to them in un-realistic time frames (1 day), which is impossible. All other employees are getting the same treatment, and ill or not, I will not stand for this. The reasons my dates may sound confused is that I am in no fit state to be dealing with this at the present time, being sent an email with countless dates they claim I have taken off is not something I can just browse through. I need to revisit my own records and find out if I did indeed take the days off. This will involve plowing through emails, calenders etc - something I require two healthy eyes for and no kidney stones of which I have two more to come.
The two directors are attempting to get away with paying the absolute minimum they can to staff which is business - I can understand that, but if they had issues with my holiday from last year, or even 3 years ago, they should have addressed it at the time. As far as I was aware, all of my holiday was in check, now they are saying it is not. My contract does not mention when holiday runs from, but it seems the company change it to suit them, so at the moment, they are saying that it runs from January new year .

henrygregory

So I think, in essence based on my above post, I just want to establish, can an employer bring over minus holiday entitlement from 1-3 years ago with no prior notification?
They emailed me the other day with things such as the following:

[FONT=&quot]Total leave taken = 14 Days Actual Entitlement = 9.5 Days. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Carried forward to 2012/13 = -4.5[/FONT]

Is this allowed regardless of if I have taken the dates (I am not in a position to check at the moment).

henrygregory

Bump...........

[Deleted User]

Your employer has no statutory right to deduct the value of the overtaken holiday. Therefore, this is an unlawful deduction from wages unless there is a specific provision in your terms and conditions of employment for the deduction to be made in these circumstances.
Source: http://www.payroll-help.com/faq/deduct-holiday-pay-from-wages/

brewerdave

When did you start to work 2 days a week?? Was it before this holiday year in which they claim that you have taken too many days off??
The statutory minimum holiday entitlement for someone working 14 hours a week is just over78 hours -but that can include Bank Holidays if you would normally work that day of the week. , so not sure where they got 9.5 days from??

zzzLazyDaisy

Deleted_User wrote: »

Your employer has no statutory right to deduct the value of the overtaken holiday. Therefore, this is an unlawful deduction from wages unless there is a specific provision in your terms and conditions of employment for the deduction to be made in these circumstances.
Source: http://www.payroll-help.com/faq/deduct-holiday-pay-from-wages/

Just to clarify, 'over payment of wages' is an exception to the above rule. If an employee has been allowed in error to take more paid holidays than he is entitled to, this would amount to an over payment of wages, and the issue of unlawful deductions does not come into it.

To OP - if the employer has inadvertently overpaid holidays, then provided they have the evidence to show this, they are entitled to claim it back. They have 6 years in which to do so (it is technically a breach of contract on your part in taking paid holidays that you were not entitled to under your contract, hence the 6 yr rule).

Whatever, it may be a moot point as the cost of making a claim to a tribunal for those days' pay is likely to be a significant deterrent (tribunal claims have fallen by about 70% since the introduction of fees).

However, you may be able to take advantage of ACAS early concilliation which comes in on a voluntary basis from 6 April, and becomes mandatory on 5th May (see extract below)

Mandatory Acas conciliation

Early conciliation will be available to prospective claimants from 6 April 2014 and mandatory
from 6 May 2014. Under the new rules, claimants will have to contact Acas prior to issuing a
claim, and parties will be afforded one month in which to see whether the dispute can be
settled with the support of an Acas conciliator. If the parties enter into conciliation it will “stop
the clock” on the limitation period to present the claim to the tribunal. There will be no
obligation to engage in early conciliation and if it is refused by either party or is unsuccessful
the claimant will be free to present the claim.

(Of course recourse to ACAS early concilliation does depend on you still being within the three month time period for starting a claim)