Redundancy, Holiday Pay and Garden Leave

winter02

I think I may have been stitched up here but would be good to get some advice.
I'm currently serving notice and on Garden Leave currently. Its a little different to normal GL as I have been told that I cannot be recalled for work and they just have a contact number in case they have any urgent questions.
The period between this all being sorted and me starting the GL was very quick so I didn't have chance to take my remaining holiday. I was told that it was fine and I would be paid them including any holiday I accrue in my notice period. I have now been told that I wont be paid them and need to take this holiday while on GL.
When I received by notice letter it didn't state the number of holiday days I had left or the number I would accrue. 
I am aware that you can be asked to take holiday while serving notice but I've seen from the CAB website it says:

If your employer tells you to use up your holiday

Your employer can tell you to use up any holiday you have left over. They’ll also need to tell you when to take it.

Check your contract to see how far in advance your employer should tell you to take holiday. If there’s nothing in your contract, they need to give you at least 2 days’ notice for each day of holiday. For example, if they want you to take 5 days’ holiday, they have to tell you at least 10 days in advance.

My union has said that they should have detailed the number of days I needed to take in my notice letter but I'm not sure if I've simply been stitched up here as I have nothing in writing?

Any advice would be appreicated.

Thanks

Undervalued

I think you are trying to have the penny and the bun to be honest!

It is just as much your responsibility as theirs to keep track of how much holiday you have owing. Your union's saying they "should have" is fairly meaningless and I am not aware of anything that says "must have"!

Nothing says any of this has to be in writing, so they may well say that they told you that some of the garden leave would be your holiday. It will be difficult to argue against that as it would be a normal expectation. 

As your quote says, technically to make you take holiday they should give you notice of twice the length of the holiday. Was there time in the garden leave for this to have happened? Unless you had lots of holiday owing there probably was. It is also possible that your contract / employee handbook says something about using up holiday during your notice period. If so then you were given notice to take the holiday.

If your union will back you in chasing this and you feel morally comfortable doing so then give it a go if you must!

winter02

Yes, I would agree that I was being greedy apart from the fact that I was told I could have them paid. 

There were 20 working days between me being confirmed as leaving and starting the GL and I had 13 days to take. They wouldn’t let me take it during this time as there wasn’t enough time for handover. 

Its the reason why they told me I could have it paid. 

‘Morally comfortable’ - have you seen what the job market is like at the moment?

Undervalued

If they told you that then I can understand your disappointment.

However, if they wanted to be generous, why didn't they up the redundancy pay by say three quarters of the cost of the holiday pay? It would then have been tax free and cost them less for the same benefit to you!

Is whoever told you that you would be paid the holiday on top of the GL senior enough to have the power to make that decision? Is he now prepared to "put his neck on the block" and confirm that is what you were promised?

Unless both are "yes" they are entitled to correct any mistake just as they could have recovered an accidental over payment when you were still working there.

It is up to you whether you pursue this. You may get the money. Do you need to keep their goodwill for a reference?

winter02

It’s something I’m going to think about once I have my final pay and can just double check that the holidays haven’t been paid. 

It’s the disappointment more than anything. To be told one thing and then being told by that same person that the conversation never happened. 

I’ll live and learn from this.