Is my daughter entitled to any holiday from her Saturday job?

[Cakes4Teatime]

Can anyone confirm whether a 17 year old (still at school) is entitled to holiday from a Saturday job please? As in is it a legal right? She doesn’t have a written contract but works every Saturday in a cafe in town.

She earns £4.50 per hour and works 6.25 hours each Saturday plus extra shifts in school holidays.

Yes, same as anyone else

If she doesn’t have a contract then I doubt she would be tbh.

Yes, she is.

My kids have part-time jobs and are entitled to take holidays (but they have contracts)

Everyone is entitled to statutory holiday www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights

No contact doesn’t exempt you from employment law, otherwise nobody would ever give their employees a contract and would just do what they wanted...

If it is zero hours she may get paid an allowance instead. Sounds like nmw though.

Yes, but lots of employers take the piss and it can be intimidating. DD has limited but some power in the labour market, eg in the short term it’s easier/cheaper for them to keep her than recruit someone new.

If she's a casual worker check if she's being paid holiday pay as part of her hourly rate.

I wouldn’t have thought so without a contract. Does that mean she is zero hours?

My DS always got paid holiday, it was a seasonal job and paid him a bit through the winter months

Contracts don’t have to be in writing and it’s probable she’s a “worker” in employment law. Try ACAS or minimum wage line.

Have a look at the SaveTheStudent site, also make sure she gets the right breaks for under 18s.

Yes she is entitled to paid holiday. Statutory minimum is 5.6 days a year for someone working 1 day a week. Shes also entitled to a contract, and she should ask for one sooner rather than later.

Her hourly rate could include holiday pay, in which case no she isn't entitled to it.

The employer hasn’t set that out though, so they can’t pull that one.

And there are legal cases against employers seeking to do that.

She's an employee not a 'worker' and is entitled to holidays and a contract.

Whether or not they're entitled to roll her holiday pay up into her hourly rate I don't know. Do any of the other employees have a contract? Unfortunately if it's a small independent cafe, they're probably either naive about the law or do know and just don't want to bother about it. There's plenty of information available on the HMRC website about the legalities of employing people so there's no excuse really.

She's also entitled to a 20 minute break within that 6.25 hours but I think it can be unpaid, does she get that?

It is a smallish independent cafe. She gets a 30 unpaid lunch break on top of her 6.25 paid hours.

30 minutes

Yes, and she will also accrue more holiday for any extra shifts she works.

Acas say
"If you regularly get paid overtime, commission or bonuses, your employer must include these payments in at least 4 weeks of your paid holiday. Some employers might include overtime, commission and bonus payments in your full 5.6 weeks' paid holiday (statutory annual leave), but they do not have to."

How long has she been working there for? I'm guessing less than 2 years?
Could she cope if they sacked her if they didn't like her asking for any holiday she's entitled to?

She’s been there since last May. She’s a hardworking conscientious 17 year old. Obviously she wouldn’t want to be sacked

We need to work out the best way to ask about it. She won’t feel able to just go up to them and ask but she could message them if I helped her word it...

Any suggestions welcome. Staying on good terms with them (she likes them and they like her) will be really important and she won’t want to jeopardise that but equally she should have what she’s due.

The national minimum wage for her age bracket goes up to £4.55 in April. I get the feeling she might have to remind them of that when the time comes. Maybe she could bring up holiday entitlement then?