Heard down the grapevine that my ex-boss is going to refuse my holiday pay on absolut

patman99

If you do not get payment and go down the route of an SCC claim, make sure to use the full names of people when submitting your details of claim.

For instance, simply putting 'Chris' or 'Ryan' doesn't make it clear which person of that name you are referring to.
You need to stick to the facts. Your claim needs to be clear and to the point.

Something like this -

Between xxx and xxx dates I was employed by xxx company at the Queens Head public house located in xxxx Town.
During this period, I worked a total of xxx hours before my contract was ended with 1 weeks notice.
During this period, I accrued xxx hours of holiday pay.
Despite sending a leter before action, the company has refused to honour this and has not paid me what I am owed. I therefore seek a claim of £xxx in respect of the outstanding holiday pay.

RockandGrohl

Just had a call today from Ryan.

He said he has spoken to the accountant and they will be "sorting something out" and that I will be getting something through the post on Tuesday. He then changed his mind and asked if he could email it to me just so it's faster (haven't had this email yet)

The general tone was that he didn't want me to send off a SCC because whatever he is sorting out will be done after the cut-off date I gave him (May 4th)

I'm not holding my breath, but it sounds like I might be getting payment. My housemate Rob is getting his in installments every week. I don't mind if they do the same but I would rather have a lump sum.

Also need to remind myself to make sure I see a calculation of what's owed.

Can't believe it's taken a phone call and two threatening letters to finally get a payout. Jesus.

Takeaway_Addict

RockandGrohl wrote: »

Just had a call today from Ryan.

He said he has spoken to the accountant and they will be "sorting something out" and that I will be getting something through the post on Tuesday. He then changed his mind and asked if he could email it to me just so it's faster (haven't had this email yet)

The general tone was that he didn't want me to send off a SCC because whatever he is sorting out will be done after the cut-off date I gave him (May 4th)

I'm not holding my breath, but it sounds like I might be getting payment. My housemate Rob is getting his in installments every week. I don't mind if they do the same but I would rather have a lump sum.

Also need to remind myself to make sure I see a calculation of what's owed.

Can't believe it's taken a phone call and two threatening letters to finally get a payout. Jesus.

Quite cheap all in all.

RockandGrohl

​​Hi Chris


I passed on your letters to The Directors and our accounts and they have come back with the below.



Chris commenced employment on 2 July 2013, any unused/unpaid holiday entitlement up the end of the holiday year 31 December 2013 would have been forfeited at the end of the holiday year as stated in section 8 of your Employee Handbook.

Chris was last paid in PAYE week 22 of tax year 2014/15 when he left on 5 September 2014. On this basis a a total of 36 weeks were worked during the holiday year ending on 31 December 2014. Chris therefore accrued holiday from 1 January 2014 to his date of leaving on 5 September 2014. Based on the statutory holiday entitlement of 5.6 weeks for a full calendar year, this is pro-rated to 3.87 weeks to Chris’ date of leaving.

Irregular hours were worked by Chris each week and in such circumstances, weekly pay for the purposes of calculating holiday pay is based on an average of the last 12 weeks worked prior to leaving. In this case this gives us a figure of £245.67 average earnings per week.

According to the information you have supplied to us, Chris was not paid any holiday pay during 2014 and therefore his entitlement when he left was £245.67 x 3.87 wks = £950.74

Holiday pay is subject to PAYE and NI. If you would like me to arrange payment of the above amount, I will have to include Chris on the payroll. In the absence of any information regarding his current employment status, I suggest that tax is deducted at basic rate.


If you would like to discuss this further then please do hesitate to contact me or if you are ok with the above then I will organise this to be paid from next week.

Regards
Ryan




So that means that apparently, my accrued Holiday Pay from 2nd July 2013 up to 31st December 2013 has been forfeit Any way I can get that back?


Ryan forwarded over the Employee Handbook (which I have never seen in my life and is different to the contract we signed which made no mention of Holiday Entitlement

This is what it says in the section about Holiday Pay

8. Annual, Bank and Public Holidays

Annual Holiday Entitlement Your principal statement of terms and conditions of service specifies your annual holiday entitlement. We base your holiday entitlement around your “working week.” A "working week" may vary from employee to employee. We describe your “working week” in your principal statement of terms and conditions of service. Part-time staff receive an entitlement which is strictly pro-rata to full-time staff.

Calculation of Entitlement We normally calculate your holiday entitlement as a set number of working days or hours. We set this figure out in your principal statement. Special arrangements may apply if you work for us irregularly. Where you start or leave our employment during the leave year, we calculate your holidays on a pro rata basis.

Carrying Forward Annual Leave We believe that it is mutually beneficial and leads to a better work-life balance for you to take all your annual holiday entitlement in the current leave year. You must normally use all your holiday entitlement during the current holiday year. If you don’t, you forfeit what is left.

Holiday Pay We calculate holiday pay using normal contractual hours at your basic rate of pay. Please see your principal statement of terms and conditions of service for further detail. If you do not work fixed or regular hours/days of work, we base holiday pay on an average. We calculate this by reference to basic pay during the last twelve weeks you worked before your holiday.

Holiday Requests We are as accommodating as possible when granting time off for holidays. We consider all holiday requests on a "first come, first served" basis. We reserve the right to vary requests to meet the needs of the organisation and maintain adequate staffing levels. You may not normally change your holiday dates once confirmed. You must use our holiday request procedure to make holiday requests. Please make sure you submit requests in good time. You must not book holidays without receiving prior authorisation. If you take holidays without authorisation, you will be subject to disciplinary action. Should you disregard our procedures, we will not be liable for any financial loss you incur. This may include forfeit of your deposit, reservation penalties etc. To plan our holiday rota effectively, we normally expect four weeks notice of holidays of a week or more. We normally expect at least one week’s notice of a single day’s holiday. Normally we do not allow more than two consecutive working weeks of annual holiday. However, we must first consider the needs of the organisation and staffing levels. Our decision in this respect will be final.

Holiday Year Please consult your principal statement of terms and conditions for details of our holiday year.

Leaving During the Holiday Year If your employment ends, we may require you to take any accrued untaken holidays before you leave. We pay any outstanding balance with your final pay if you cannot use up all holidays due. If holidays taken exceed those due when your employment ends, we deduct an equivalent sum from final pay. We will notify you of the detail in writing in advance.

Payment in Lieu By law, we may only consider payment in lieu of untaken holidays when you leave our employment.

Peak Periods We do not normally allow holidays at certain times where we know we will be extremely busy. The period from the last two weeks in December to the 2nd of January is our busiest time and you are not permitted to take any holidays during this period.

Public/Bank Holidays We identify Public/Bank Holidays that are part of annual holidays in your principal statement of terms and conditions.

Surely it says there that I should have been paid when I left?

sheramber

RockandGrohl wrote: »

​​Hi Chris



Surely it says there that I should have been paid when I left?

not for year to Dec 13 which is covered by

Carrying Forward Annual Leave We believe that it is mutually beneficial and leads to a better work-life balance for you to take all your annual holiday entitlement in the current leave year. You must normally use all your holiday entitlement during the current holiday year. If you don’t, you forfeit what is left.


year to Dec 14 they are going to pay for unsused holidays.( which they should have done when you left)

RockandGrohl

Ok, but my issue is now that the handbook clearly states the employee really should take holiday. We were never ever advised to take our holiday as it would expire, so we forfeited our holiday, collectively as Front of House Employee's, as the employer had never made us aware that A) we had Holiday Entitlement and That it would expire.

Thus, they have collected thousands of pounds worth of pure profit because they made bank from our collective ignorance (Like I said earlier, young adults and kids basically, we don't know our rights)

I'm also not saying "I should be paid money even though I made a mistake!" I am well aware that I should know my rights as an Employee, I'm instead asking what can be done in sight of my past mistake.

Otherwise, I won't look a gift horse in the mouth and £950 - tax and NI is a lot better than zilch!

RockandGrohl

Something I'm querying here - In the section of the handbook it says Holiday is forfeit at December 31st of that year. I worked until September 2014 (or that's my last paycheck anyway) so that means my Holiday payment for 2014 should be forfeit on December 31st 2014. I asked for my Holiday Pay in March 2015.

Are they agreeing to pay me because they know they f*cked up by not including Payment in Lieu of Holiday automatically at the end of my last paycheck?

Again, not looking a gift horse in the mouth but if I can still get the July 2013-December 2013 worth of Holiday that is just bonus.

I-W

RockandGrohl wrote: »

I worked in a Pub, so had to work days like Easter etc. Didn't work Christmas or Boxing Day as I worked New Years instead, but didn't get paid for any days I had off.

Bottom line is, if I didn't work, I didn't get the £6.31 per hour.

So you did take days from you 2014 holiday allowance you just weren't paid for them? If would certainly question the idea you forfeited you holiday pay if you took days off when you normally would have worked but weren't paid. Although sure someone with more knowledge then me of HR law can confirm.

RockandGrohl

I-W wrote: »

So you did take days from you 2014 holiday allowance you just weren't paid for them? If would certainly question the idea you forfeited you holiday pay if you took days off when you normally would have worked but weren't paid. Although sure someone with more knowledge then me of HR law can confirm.

It was never like a formal allowance. December is the busiest time of the year for the pub and obviously because so many public holidays go down we had to choose which Holiday we would work and which we would have off. However, we did not receive any pay for the Holidays we had off. It was just as if it was any other ordinary day off.

Takeaway_Addict

RockandGrohl wrote: »

Something I'm querying here - In the section of the handbook it says Holiday is forfeit at December 31st of that year. I worked until September 2014 (or that's my last paycheck anyway) so that means my Holiday payment for 2014 should be forfeit on December 31st 2014. I asked for my Holiday Pay in March 2015.

Are they agreeing to pay me because they know they f*cked up by not including Payment in Lieu of Holiday automatically at the end of my last paycheck?

Again, not looking a gift horse in the mouth but if I can still get the July 2013-December 2013 worth of Holiday that is just bonus.

I think personally I would take it, move on and not expend anymore effort which must be mentally tiring as well.

Good result all in all.