Holiday accrual

[fb28]

Hello, I have been searching for information regarding holiday accrual. I have searched the forums and found one reference to this situation but I think the info given is now out of date.

 

My employer has decided that we are not allowed to take annual leave unless we have built up sufficient holiday entitlement. I understand this is usually the case in the first 12 months of employment but I have been with the company 8 years now. It meant that 2 members of staff were not paid for any holidays over Christmas, due to not having sufficient holidays from an enforced holiday earlier in the year.

 

I have looked at the working time regulations - regulation 13 but there is no longer a section that covers it. If he isn't supposed to be doing this then ideally i need some official document that states this so i can show him. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

[Lilythepink]

There was a European Ruling that you can build up your leave. I in fact have nearly 40 days to take, as I was off ill. They have to let it accrue while you are off. Look up the ACAS website, as I don't think that is right, as you are entitled to your statutory leave.

[Sidewinder]

You are entitled to statutory leave during the holiday year, however the employer also has the absolute right to dictate when holiday is taken, providing that any refusal of holiday does not deprive the employee of their entitlement overall.

 

Under this authority, the employer had the right to 'enforce' holiday earlier in the year, however your colleagues should have been aware of this and should have had the opportunity to cancel the holiday over Christmas. If the Christmas holiday was also 'enforced', for example during a Christmas closedown, then this complicates matters, and one would think that the colleagues should raise a grievance that they have been denied pay through no fault of their own, however we could probably also do with knowing why they were forced to take holiday earlier in the year which had not been booked.

 

There is nothing to stop the employer refusing holiday where sufficient entitlement has not been accrued, providing that any refusal is communicated with adequate notice after the employee books it. The company should have a comprehensive holiday policy which covers this.

[fb28]

Hi, thank you for you're reply. He has only just started doing this, to be honest this is just one of the issues we are currently having. The enforced holiday was a short notice shut down due both partners going on holiday, although this was at the start of our holiday year he still paid even though we had not accumulated enough days. He only informed us the week before Christmas that he would not be paying for holidays in this period if we hadn't accumulated them. This was a Christmas shut down so we had no choice, he also stated that we would shut for 2 weeks, using 7 holidays even though our contract states 5 maximum over Christmas, using the excuse that it was industry standard to shut for this period of time? Our contract is basically a letter with the only statement on holidays that we have 20 plus bank holidays, 3 weeks notice and they reserve the right to refuse if 2 or more members want the same time off.