Losing Statutory Leave when you do not know your rights

General_Grant

Given the number of questions on this board about losing statutory holiday entitlement where an employee seemed not to be aware of company holiday years and so on, I thought people would be interested in a case which went to the CJEU regarding an employee in Germany.

The question was, where a worker doesn't apply for the minimum statutory annual leave during a leave year, does the employee lose that leave at the end of the year.

The CJEU held that the Working Time Directive requires that if a worker does not exercise the right to paid annual leave in any year, leave should not automatically be lost unless the employer has 'diligently' brought it to the worker's attention that leave will be lost. It would be for the employer to prove that they had been diligent. Though employers are not required to enforce leave-taking, they must inform them about it clearly and in good time.


ETA: http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=207328&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=135216

sangie595

This will almost certainly never apply in the UK. The chances of any European Court ruling now overruling national rules for the UK are not very high now. And I think the Government (and employers) have far bigger fish to fry than whether someone didn't take their holiday.

Les79

Seems about right from places I've worked.


They have typically told people in person, "you are going to lose your holidays so get them booked ASAP", but the problem was typically the fact that people sat on them for like 10 months and then tried to book off dates which were already fully booked up.


What is the definition of "good time" in this particular ruling?


It may be my laptop, but I'm unable to read it in any language other than French...

getmore4less

My old boss had the right idea, holiday is a liability the sooner the staff take it the sooner that liability is removed.

Companies that have demand fluctuations that condense the periods when people can take holiday should consider having the holiday year end to consider with the end of any quiet periods or start at the same time as the busiest period.

Les79

getmore4less wrote: »

My old boss had the right idea, holiday is a liability the sooner the staff take it the sooner that liability is removed.

Companies that have demand fluctuations that condense the periods when people can take holiday should consider having the holiday year end to consider with the end of any quiet periods or start at the same time as the busiest period.

Yea, I worked in a call center a year or two ago and the initial holiday allowance meant that only HALF of our frontline staff's holidays could be accommodated in a given year.


It all balanced out in the end, but the master plan was effectively getting the employee's holiday balance down as much as possible with early finishes during quiet times. It was a bit of an art form balancing that with the targets.