UK Working Weeks

Mountain365 · 2 October 2019 at 10:14AM

My wife is going through some contractual issues at her current workplace.

Whilst looking through her current contract I see two things which are causing me some confusion and I just wonder if anyone could possibly shed some light on why the contract may be written this way:

1. She gets paid for 50.6 weeks in the year. This seems to be a very strange number to me. My wife has asked the HR dept at her work why this is the case, but no-one claims to know (no notes or explanation are written down).

2. In a clause about holidays, it says that 'The remaining 1.6 weeks of holiday are unpaid'. Again that seems to be a strange number to me.

Has anyone come across anything similar or feels they can shed light on this?

General_Grant · 2 October 2019 at 10:38AM

Mountain365 wrote: »

My wife is going through some contractual issues at her current workplace.

Whilst looking through her current contract I see two things which are causing me some confusion and I just wonder if anyone could possibly shed some light on why the contract may be written this way:

1. She gets paid for 50.6 weeks in the year. This seems to be a very strange number to me. My wife has asked the HR dept at her work why this is the case, but no-one claims to know (no notes or explanation are written down).

2. In a clause about holidays, it says that 'The remaining 1.6 weeks of holiday are unpaid'. Again that seems to be a strange number to me.

Has anyone come across anything similar or feels they can shed light on this?

The only light I can offer is that the 1.6 weeks represents the 8 customary bank holidays which are not part of the European Directive on Working Time but were added by the UK government when it was realised that employers had been counting those days in the annual entitlement.

Is the company one which has its HQs abroad?

Without the exact wording of the written contractual documents, there is probably little we can add by way of explanation.

Neil_Jones · 2 October 2019 at 10:40AM

50.6wks suggests a mandatory closedown period possibly over Christmas and into the new year? She may be having to take it as unpaid leave.

Mountain365 · 2 October 2019 at 11:32AM

Thank you for your prompt replies.

It had crossed my mind that 1.6 weeks is the same as the number of Bank Holiday days. In answer to your question General Grant, no the company does not have an overseas HQ.

The full clause for the holiday states:

The Employee is entitled to 7.2 weeks annual leave, including bank and public holidays in England and Wales. The Employee's salary includes payment for 5.6 weeks of statutory annual leave, including bank and public holidays. The remaining 1.6 weeks of holiday are unpaid.

I forgot to say that she works as part of the support team for a private school. I don't know if that makes any difference or not to the discussion.

General_Grant · 2 October 2019 at 12:05PM

So your wife is paid for 50.4 weeks (52 minus the 1.6 unpaid leave).

As it is a support team role rather than teaching, I guess that explains the less than 52 weeks: it still allows for slightly longer than average holiday entitlement. It seems to be the type of employer which is affecting the wording.

Mountain365 · 2 October 2019 at 12:10PM

So, this is one of the reasons I am confused, because the contract states that she is paid for 50.6 weeks.

Does that mean someone made a mistake in one of the calculations?

Blatchford · 2 October 2019 at 1:01PM

Mountain365 wrote: »

So, this is one of the reasons I am confused, because the contract states that she is paid for 50.6 weeks.

Does that mean someone made a mistake in one of the calculations?

I would lay bets that this isn't a mistake, but it probably is a (very) old contract that hasn't been updated. Especially since nobody can actually explain it. I can.

Once upon a time, in the days of yore, in a galaxy far far away, employers used to be able to break continuous employment by having a gap of just over a week in the "contract". In essence it was a continuing casual contract, if that makes sense. But that laid off week+ broke entitlement to all sorts of employee benefits. It used to be a common ruse, and one that was immensely popular with bad employers (which almost all private schools are!) including a very famous maker of chocolate confectionary. Said confectioner used to lay off all their staff unpaid for a couple of weeks every summer (when chocolate sales went down) to break their continuous employment. Then, sometime in the late 90's I believe (my memory not being what used to be without looking it up), a union took on the case and it was ruled unlawful to use such a mechanism to break continuity of employment. The practice still exists in a form - but now an employer must terminate the contract and offer another one, and that enables the employee to access (assuming they qualify) unfair dismissal routes. The key difference was that in the past the employer didn't have to terminate the contract.

It technically isn't unlawful as long as the contractual term is clear and both parties agree that there is a period of unpaid leave.

Mountain365 · 2 October 2019 at 1:34PM

That's very interesting info Blatchford.

So, what has prompted me to look into all of this for my wife, is that she has recently been told that other support staff, who have not worked at the school for anywhere near the same amount of time that she has, have had their contracts changed so that they will now be paid for 52 weeks.

When my wife asked if they were going to do the same for her, the HR dept said no, with no explanation. Obviously, this has been quite upsetting for her, especially as she has given the school the best part of 13 years of her life, with an unblemished work record.

Do you feel there is any reasonable action we can take?

getmore4less · 2 October 2019 at 1:40PM

Once paid for 52 weeks what holiday will they be getting.

Blatchford · 2 October 2019 at 1:41PM

Mountain365 wrote: »

That's very interesting info Blatchford.

So, what has prompted me to look into all of this for my wife, is that she has recently been told that other support staff, who have not worked at the school for anywhere near the same amount of time that she has, have had their contracts changed so that they will now be paid for 52 weeks.

When my wife asked if they were going to do the same for her, the HR dept said no, with no explanation. Obviously, this has been quite upsetting for her, especially as she has given the school the best part of 13 years of her life, with an unblemished work record.

Do you feel there is any reasonable action we can take?

Well I would always urge caution when comparing complaints with others - they might have things in their contracts that she definitely doesn't want. Like lower pay?

But no, technically it is legal, and she has agreed to it, so she can't force them to change it. Has she asked why they said no?

zagfles · 2 October 2019 at 1:44PM

Thsi is bog standard practice, it's the same for TAs in local authority state schools who work term time only. They get school holidays off, but they only get about 6 weeks paid, the rest is unpaid. Don't believe the conspiracy theories! Local authorities are reputable employers (usually!)

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