Redundancy and paying back holiday?

joeyboy

Thought I'd see if I can get some clarification on this issue...


So an employer makes a whole department redundant, lets say everyone was made redundant today (months notice, so final day is September 30th for sake of argument).



The holiday period runs Jan-Jan. Everyone gets 25 days (excluding bank holidays which you get off anyway).


Is it correct that for those who have used their 25 days already, they would then owe the company roughly 6 days holiday back, as it works out at roughly 2 days a month holiday?


It seems rather unfair, as those who are owed untaken holiday are paid it, and obviously people weren't to know they were losing their jobs when they booked time off in spring/summer. Seems like a bit of a kick in the teeth to me, especially as redundancy payments being offered are the legal minimum nothing more generous, so for some young workers this can actually eat up the majority of any redundancy pay.


I assume though it is legally correct?



cheers.

marliepanda

Yes it is legal,as otherwise it would be unfair to Mr Jones, who had all his holiday saved up for November and December, vs Mr Smith who took all his in January/February.

Undervalued

joeyboy wrote: »

Thought I'd see if I can get some clarification on this issue...


So an employer makes a whole department redundant, lets say everyone was made redundant today (months notice, so final day is September 30th for sake of argument).



The holiday period runs Jan-Jan. Everyone gets 25 days (excluding bank holidays which you get off anyway).


Is it correct that for those who have used their 25 days already, they would then owe the company roughly 6 days holiday back, as it works out at roughly 2 days a month holiday?


It seems rather unfair, as those who are owed untaken holiday are paid it, and obviously people weren't to know they were losing their jobs when they booked time off in spring/summer. Seems like a bit of a kick in the teeth to me, especially as redundancy payments being offered are the legal minimum nothing more generous, so for some young workers this can actually eat up the majority of any redundancy pay.


I assume though it is legally correct?



cheers.

Yes it is legally correct.

I am not sure why you think it is unfair? Obviously it is not nice to be made redundant but those who have taken holiday over and above what they had accrued have, in effect, received XX days pay for no work. Those who have not taken any holiday are entitled to be paid for what they accrued.

If they are working their month's notice the firm could insist they use up any untaken holiday during the notice period.

General_Grant

And because only two bank holidays of the eight occur in the final quarter, people will have taken more than their allowance of those. However all the holidays should be added together and not separated according to whether they were "ordinary" or "bank" holidays.

joeyboy

marliepanda wrote: »

Yes it is legal,as otherwise it would be unfair to Mr Jones, who had all his holiday saved up for November and December, vs Mr Smith who took all his in January/February.

As I understand it Mr Jones would be paid all his untaken holiday, I guess minus 6 days for Oct/Nov/Dec, that's what I gathered.


Yeah I suppose it is how it is, I suppose its because I'm not used to thinking about it as you being given 2 days per month in a way. With a previous employer your holiday amount was a variable creating by how many years you'd been there and how many days/hours you'd worked for the year before, which I guess is an unusual way of doing it, and it was implied you'd "earnt" those days from that work the year before. (it meant when I left near the start of the year I was paid all my holiday allowance despite that new load of days only being given the month before, I was told that's how they do things).

TELLIT01

It's not unfair as they are clawing back holiday taken but not actually accrued. Your old employer was unusually generous in the way they worked.

pinkshoes

joeyboy wrote: »

Thought I'd see if I can get some clarification on this issue...


So an employer makes a whole department redundant, lets say everyone was made redundant today (months notice, so final day is September 30th for sake of argument).



The holiday period runs Jan-Jan. Everyone gets 25 days (excluding bank holidays which you get off anyway).


Is it correct that for those who have used their 25 days already, they would then owe the company roughly 6 days holiday back, as it works out at roughly 2 days a month holiday?


It seems rather unfair, as those who are owed untaken holiday are paid it, and obviously people weren't to know they were losing their jobs when they booked time off in spring/summer. Seems like a bit of a kick in the teeth to me, especially as redundancy payments being offered are the legal minimum nothing more generous, so for some young workers this can actually eat up the majority of any redundancy pay.


I assume though it is legally correct?



cheers.

It is legal and perfectly fair.

How would you feel if it was only 2 months into the holiday period, someone had taken 5 weeks off to go traveling, but didn't have to pay any back?

TELLIT01

pinkshoes wrote: »

How would you feel if it was only 2 months into the holiday period, someone had taken 5 weeks off to go traveling, but didn't have to pay any back?

If I was another employee also being made redundant I really wouldn't care what had happened.

mariefab

As long as there's a clause in the contract of employment or another written agreement stating that the employer can recover payment for unaccrued holiday taken; the employer can recoup the payment.

If there is no such clause/agreement the employer cannot recoup the payment.

getmore4less

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/1833/regulation/14/made

(4) A relevant agreement may provide that, where the proportion of leave taken by the worker exceeds the proportion of the leave year which has expired, he shall compensate his employer, whether by a payment, by undertaking additional work or otherwise.

mariefab

https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2002/1250_01_2003.html