TUPE Question - reducing holidays?

[MollyTheMole]

Can anyone help with a TUPE query?

DPs company was bought out recently and he TUPEd over to them.

His normal hours were 9 - 5.30pm covering a number of days from Mon - Sun and holiday entitlement was 26 days plus stats where he was not working.

This new company has a similar rota system although they cover 9.30 - 6.30pm for two weeks and then 9.30 - 9.30pm for one week (think its three days in this week)

He has tried to book holidays today and has been told that where the hols fall on the 9.30 - 9.30 shift they will take 1 and a half days holiday out of his entitlement. However on a letter he has received it outlines some Ts and Cs and refers to the new company handbook (where they accrue hours holiday rather than days) but in the same sentence it states that where the terms are different then the original companies terms will apply. So in my mind as his original company accrued days rather than hours hol and booked off days hol, then a days hol is exactly that, a day whether he works 9.30am - 6.30pm or until 9.30pm.

Can anyone help me make sense of this?

[MollyTheMole]

please anyone?

[StillSquiffy]

I disagree. If staff are effectively working a 1.67 day shift sometimes then you need to pre-rate the holidays. Otherwise everyone would book their holidays on these shifts and end up getting a week's holiday but only having it 'cost' them 3 days of their annual leave.

TUPE rules wouldn't IMO affect this - he is still getting the same equivalent holiday pa and if you take a week off it costs you the same in terms of losing your annual leave whether it is a 5 day short week or a 3 day long week. Seems perfectly fair to me.

[MollyTheMole]

hmm Squiffy see what you mean about it evening out if he books a week off during the 3 day week. Think it was the statement about existing terms overriding the new companies terms that has thrown us but I guess that could technically mean he wouldnt have to do the 3 day long week aswell which isnt going to happen, we might have taken that bit too literally perhaps.

The other thing is the company just seems very shoddy in how they have done other things (his new boss for eg is querying how long he gets SPP for so DP has had to go back to him with info about the law on SPP , also his old firm paid full pay during pat leave so only getting SPP is a bit of a bummer) so guess it just made us a bit wary of how they approach other things like this holiday query.

[StillSquiffy]

Oh, yes, the TUPE stuff does get thoroughly abused/ignored in practice so I'd definitely recommend keeping them on their toes in other matters. If full pay was received during paternity leave in the old firm then that should have still carried over.

[MollyTheMole]

Thanks Squiffy, will look into that.