Bereavement/ Pay

Eddybez

I was off work all last week as my brother was taken into hospital, critically ill. I was with him all the time but also keeping in touch with work. On Wed 17/5/17 my brother passed away.So I told work I would be back in on Monday the 22nd..I went into work and was told that I will be called into the office at some point to see if I wanted the week off as holiday leave or unpaid leave., which was fine. I have not been in the office this week yet but when I checked my bank this morning they have taken the weeks wage off me without anybody telling me... I can't afford to have this much taken from me.. I get paid monthly...My brother hasn't even been buried yet,his funeral is on 2/6/17...and this is just another thing to worry about.....I honestly thought they would take so much off me a month or just take it as leave....

comeandgo

My condolences on the passing of your brother. As you are going to be short of money will your employer give you some money up front as your next wage will be for five weeks pay if you get the week of leave added back on.

Eddybez

I don't think so. I walked out saying I was ill..He then threatened me saying that if I go I wouldn't have a job in the morning.. I then said for being ill...he backtracked coz another employee was listening but he basically said he would not forget...

Malthusian

How long have you been working there?

In retrospect you should have asked your employer to treat the time off as holiday leave, then you would have been paid for it. There is no statutory right to paid leave for bereavement.

By walking out you have probably made things more complicated than they need to be. If you need the money that badly, then your best option is to swallow your pride, tell your employer that your head wasn't in the right place due to the death of your brother, ask them if they are still willing to treat your absence as holiday leave, and carry on working.

TBagpuss

I'm sorry for your loss.
As Malthusian says , there is no statutory right to leave for a bereavement.

It sounds as though what your employer has done is to treat it is unpaid, perhaps because you had not requested that it be treated as holiday.
(I suspect that it maybe much harder, from a payroll perspective, to pay you and then deduct afterwards)

I think that best thing you can do is to request that the time is treated as holiday and that you are paid for the time you were off. Unfortunately, I think that it is likely to be down to the employers discretion as to whether he is willing to do this or whether he treats it as unpaid leave (or even, in a worst case scenario, unauthorised absence)

Sadly I think this is a situation where a good employer would work with you to try to sort this out, and to make some allowances for the situation and the fact that you didn't follow correct procedures, and where a bad employer can chose to stick rigidly to the rules and say that as you were n't there, and didn't request it as holiday that it's unpaid leave and that's that.

It might be sensible for you to talk to your bank to see whether you can arrange a short term, authorised overdraft to avoid going into unauthorised overdrawings or having important payments bounce.