Holidays Being Cut in work.

[kopite]

Hey All,

I`ve just come in to work after a few days off to be told that from next year our holiday entitlement is being cut by 2-4 days depending how long you`ve been here for.

Can they do this?

[kalniel]

Hey All,

I`ve just come in to work after a few days off to be told that from next year our holiday entitlement is being cut by 2-4 days depending how long you`ve been here for.

Can they do this?

What does your contract say?

[kopite]

My contract has the previous holiday Entitlement on it.
Would they not need us to sign a new contract to make changes like that?

[Pilgrim_uk]

They cannot do that if its in your contract and have to go into a consultation period with you. What they can do is rehire you and basically force you to get a new contract. Employers are in a position of power at the moment due to the economic climate. (People are fearful of losing there jobs)

[Moby-Dick]

As long as it doesn't go below the legal minimum , I don't think there is much you can do about it. That said I always seem to end up not taking my full allowance , so I can't see that kind of thing would affect me much personally.

[Biscuit]

Surely the national minimum is irrelevant if you have a contract?
Might be worth double checking your contract doesn't have any caveats relating to changing holiday. If it IS in your contract then you have weigh up the value of the battling out the ~3 days and the impression that will leave with the execs over risking being let go (and probably recieving a severence package).
Then again if everyone feels the same way and everyone contends the change, perhaps you will have a bit more luck.

[kopite]

I`m gonna dig my contract out when I get home tonight and see what it says.

We are a monitoring team of 12 people and it seems some other ppl in the company where pissed off that we got extra holidays(this was done because we work bank holidays)

Thanks for the advice people

[badass]

They cannot do that if its in your contract and have to go into a consultation period with you. What they can do is rehire you and basically force you to get a new contract. Employers are in a position of power at the moment due to the economic climate. (People are fearful of losing there jobs)

^^This.
They can force it on you. You have a choice, block the change in which case they will have to make you redundant (and go through due process) or do not block and keep your job.
Of course, they may not be willing to make you redundant or get rid of you in which case they cannot force this upon you.

[Yosh]

Hey All,

I`ve just come in to work after a few days off to be told that from next year our holiday entitlement is being cut by 2-4 days depending how long you`ve been here for.

Can they do this?

The company i work for have changed several things recently including my shift pattern and i have decided to find another job as from past experience they will just keep pushing the boundaries to see what else they can get away with, i'm not saying you should leave but you should consider it an option.

[kopite]

I`ve been applying for jobs elsewhere the past couple of days

[Unique]

aside from the other ways mentioned of changing holidays, if you have a collective bargaining agreement, such as recognised union, these can make changes to the terms and conditions of your employment legally on your behalf

it all depends on what your contract says, but you can't get less than 5.6 weeks pro rata

you may have the argument of set precedence that you have historically got those holidays so can argue to remove the is a material breach in contract. usually employers would increase everyones entitlement to match the higher amount though, but if it's much higher and the cost of the impact would be a large amount it can be cheaper to use alternate methods

[kopite]

The problem is we work shifts and Dont get bank holidays.

Our holidays are in line with the rest of the company in that respect but because of the shifts it makes it look like we get over 6 weeks even though we work a few hundred hours more a year(we spent yesterday working out how much more we worked)

We dont have union representation in the company. I`ve looked at joining but the team is only 12 people and most unions wouldnt even bother giving us help at that size.

[Rave]

You can organise your own union branch- contact a union that represents people in your line of work and they'll give you advice.

As for working bank holidays- I have to work them if I'm rota'd to work that day, but I can then take a day in lieu some other time. As I understand it that's a legal requirement- a public holiday means a day off for every employee, if you don't take it on the bank holiday you are entitled to take it some other time.

If your employer is trying to make you work (effectively) more days than all the rest of the employees in the company by taking away your bank holiday lieu day entitlement, then I would say that legally they're on very dodgy ground there. I would seek some professional advice and then seek a meeting with management to discuss it TBH.

Edit to say that: if you end up working 'hundreds' of hours a year more than everyone else, how does that fit in with the European Working Time Directive? Have you signed a form to exempt yourself from it? Remember that, if so, you are entitled to withdraw your consent to working long hours at any time. Another bargaining chip to bring to the table if needs be.

[Unique]

You can organise your own union branch- contact a union that represents people in your line of work and they'll give you advice.

As for working bank holidays- I have to work them if I'm rota'd to work that day, but I can then take a day in lieu some other time. As I understand it that's a legal requirement- a public holiday means a day off for every employee, if you don't take it on the bank holiday you are entitled to take it some other time.

If your employer is trying to make you work (effectively) more days than all the rest of the employees in the company by taking away your bank holiday lieu day entitlement, then I would say that legally they're on very dodgy ground there. I would seek some professional advice and then seek a meeting with management to discuss it TBH.

Edit to say that: if you end up working 'hundreds' of hours a year more than everyone else, how does that fit in with the European Working Time Directive? Have you signed a form to exempt yourself from it? Remember that, if so, you are entitled to withdraw your consent to working long hours at any time. Another bargaining chip to bring to the table if needs be.

there is no statutory entitlement to any public or bank holidays or even easter day, christmas day, new years day or anything like that. the only statutory entitlement is to 5.6 weeks a year pro rata

all staff should have the same pro rata holiday entitlement, so staff working 5 days a week would have more days holiday per year than staff working 3 days a week etc

if someone works an 8 hour day and has a 40 hour contract, if they did just one extra day every two weeks, that would be 208 hours so could potentially be the "hundreds of extra hours" and well within the WTD which would allow an extra 416 hours without needing any consent (ie. work a six day week every week). not to mention holidays would reduce the average hours

there's not enough information provided to answer fully. the OP should speak to ACAS

[kopite]

Had a meeting with my team leader about this.

We are losing between 2 and 4 days because we currenly have more weeks off than the rest of the company(except for security who are also getting screwed by this)


Because working 12 hour shifts taking 4 days off gives us technically 12 days holiday whereas someone who works 9-5 mon-fri would only get 9 days off for taking 5 holidays.

THis has Got HR to look at it and find that we are getting an extra week or so off than support. Not taking into account the hours we work etc just looking at it completely abstract.

They reckon they have had legal advise who say they can put us on Industry stndard holidays which cuts a few days off and brings our weeks off more in line with that of support,

I need to look over everything more but atm I have a couple of interviews for other jobs so I`m concentrating on them

[Unique]

Had a meeting with my team leader about this.

We are losing between 2 and 4 days because we currenly have more weeks off than the rest of the company(except for security who are also getting screwed by this)


Because working 12 hour shifts taking 4 days off gives us technically 12 days holiday whereas someone who works 9-5 mon-fri would only get 9 days off for taking 5 holidays.

THis has Got HR to look at it and find that we are getting an extra week or so off than support. Not taking into account the hours we work etc just looking at it completely abstract.

They reckon they have had legal advise who say they can put us on Industry stndard holidays which cuts a few days off and brings our weeks off more in line with that of support,

I need to look over everything more but atm I have a couple of interviews for other jobs so I`m concentrating on them

the bit in bold makes no sense to me. are they including non working days such as weekends? only working days should be included in holidays

thus if someone works mon-fri 5 days a week, they could stop working at 5pm on friday 10th feb and take one week off and return to work at 9am on monday 20th feb. they have been off work for 9 days, but 4 days were non working days at the weekend and only 5 days were taken as holidays

i'm guessing your 12 hour shifts mean you are working a 3 day week, 12 hours a day, thus 36 hours a week? thus if you work mon-wed, and took one week off, you would stop working at say 9pm on wed 8th feb and return to work at 9am on monday 20th feb, so you have been off for 11 days, but 8 of those days are non working days, and only 3 of the days would have been working days, so you've only taken 3 days off, but still you have taken a full weeks holiday

your holiday entitlement should be in weeks for everyone, and then multiplied by the number of days a week you are contracted to work, or multiplied by the number of hours you are contracted to work. if your hours vary regularly then your payment should be paid based on your average earnings over the previous 13 weeks

thus if you had say 6 weeks holiday entitlement and worked a 3 day week, your entitlement in days would be 6 x 3 = 18, whilst someone working a 5 day week would be entitletled to 6 x 5 = 30 days. but then someone working a 3 day week is only working for 3 x 52 = 156 days, and getting 18 days holiday, thus 156-18=138 days times 12 hours = 1656 hours, compared to someone working a 5 day week working 5 x 52 = 260 days and getting 30 days holiday, thus 260-30=230 days times 7.2 hours = 1656 hours. thus the same amount of hours being worked, just split differently

as long as the entitlement is pro rata like that it's fine. what does your contract actually say? it may be the interpretation of the contract that is at dispute, rather than the contract being changed