Redundancy AND COVID-19 - please help

[wishywashyfriend]

Don't really know where to start. Everything is so hard right now.

I'm in my early 20s, and unexpectedly got notice of redundancy last month (me and all people in my department, around 10 of us). We were all encouraged to apply for jobs in the new (reduced) structure. Half of the team chose voluntary redundancy, and 4 of us were left applying for the equivalent of the job we were losing (myself included).
It so happened that there were 3 jobs, and 4 applicants. They interviewed all of us. I wasn't too worried -- OK, I was the youngest team member, and had been working at the organisation the shortest period of time, but I was in 4 days a week, while the others were in only 2 days a week maximum. While everyone was busy sucking up to the person who would be our new manager, I saw no point in doing the same, and instead worked as hard as I could. I had been told before that I was doing well. I had proved myself capable and hard working. Or so I thought.

You can predict what happened next. I went in for interview, quite confident I'd be successful. I received the email within a couple of days... My employment ends this month.

Right now, there is no work for my dept because of the Coronavirus threat. We were all asked yesterday to take our remaining holiday allowance in these weeks during the closure, as we aren't allowed to carry it over anyway, and the rest (days not covered by our holiday allowance) would be paid at the usual rate. But unlike my coworkers, I am leaving at the end of the month, and am supposed to receive my holiday as pay when I leave.

My main question -- can I ask my employer to reconsider this and demand that they pay me both my wages during the layoff period and my accrued holiday pay? Can't stand the thought of being unemployed AND losing out on around £400 in holiday which i thought was owed me.

[ChessieFL]

You can ask. They may or may not agree.

[AntMansVan]

What does your contract say? Anything about holiday accrued when leaving/redundancy?

[wishywashyfriend]

It says in the contract all untaken accrued holiday will be paid when I leave. But nothing in the contract stopping them from forcing me to take holiday during this period!

[ChessieFL]

There may not be much you can do - employers can dictate when holidays are taken and with everything that’s going on at the moment they may not be able to afford to do anything else. You can ask though, you never know!

[WeAllHaveWings]

I don't know if you have any legal recourse, but I wouldn't demand. I would ask civilly, appealing to their better nature. Layout the impact it will have on you personally, not in £££s (something like I will not be able to pay my rent this month and scared you will get evicted) and try to guilt trip them into it.

[CloudsCanLookLikeSheep]

They can ask you to take part of your notice as holiday, I'm not sure what else you can do.