Holiday pay (GRR)

[sezamcgregor]

A have a friend, let's call her Katie.

Katie works in catering on a zero hours contract. Katie went on holiday, taking 2 days holiday from work.

When she got paid, they had not paid her the full 2 days saying that policy is that if you want to have 2 days holiday you can only have worked 24 hours in the week and you can only take one day holiday if you work less than 35 hours.

Surely to fuck they cannot say that "based on the number of hours that we made you work prior to your holiday you cannot get paid via annual leave entitlement??!!

Katie has spoken to her friend who is manager at a national retail store and he has confirmed that this is their policy as well.

WTF??!!!

To clarify, the GRR is because I hate being wrong and I utterly hate that this can be a LEGAL way to operate a business.

Presumably though she has then only taken 1 days holiday and has an extra day to take a other time?

Yes, but was expecting the pay for the 35 hours that she'd had to work in the 3 days prior to her holiday plus 2 days holiday pay ie if she had not been on holiday, she would have worked 60 hours that week.

It's because they have a 'working week'.

Say there working week is 40 hours - fairly normal.

Each 'day' is eight hours.

She takes a 'day's' holiday and they pay her for that, the remaining week can only be 32 hours. She can't be in work and on holiday, and they can't be seen to be paying her when she's actually been in work.

But how does that work on a zero hours contract?

Also, when they're making her stay at work and do 60 hours in a week - they pay her for that??

I just think it's really unjust.

The staff I employee on zero contracts get paid their holiday in pay, so if they do no hours for a week they get no pay, but they earn 12.1% pay back in lieu of paid time off, so they get paid a lump sum and usually save it up til Xmas and 'cash it' all in

I know everyone has this idea of zero contracts being a pee take but these aren't, they are used as an addition to the work force we don't employ everyone on them, say someone applied when we have no vacancies or is at uni/has a child and wants the flexibility then they go on the casual contract and it works for everyone, people who work 2 jobs often go on it too and just pick up shifts when they are skint/free

Also with my contracted staff they can only use paid holiday if they don't do overtime as the total hours worked + holiday pay for that week can't exceed their contract, so if they want to use a days holiday one week they have to drop the overtime or it isn't holiday isn't it

When I had a zero hours contract I got paid about a pound more per hour than everyone else there and this was because holiday pay was included in my hourly rate.

I get it, and I also understand that if she worked in a normal job with 9-5 M-F 40 hours a week every week, this holiday thing would be far more straight forward.

It's the fact that in summer, she works 60 hours a week and gets an OK wage - but then in Winter 30 hours some weeks which hardly pays the bills.

Then she goes on holiday and when she gets paid, even though her manager knows the Rules and does the rotas - she does not inform her about the holiday Rule and makes her work 12 hour shifts the 3 days before her holiday and then she doesn't even get paid for taking the holiday days.

I think its very very bad practice.

I can understand its frustrating, the way my guys see it is they save holidays, so if I put them in for 32 hours and they have an 8 hour hol day they meet their 40 hour contract, but if I put their requested hol day as a day off they get it off and get 40 hours pay still and save the hol day, sometimes I give them the choice of using hols or days off depending if they want to benefit from a shorter week

For the part timers like I said if they want to use a actual hol day they can't do overtime that week so the overtime cancels out the need to use a hol day

They are often gutted the zero hour staff get paid £1 an hour more like the pp said

Yes, it doesn't help that Katie's "Manager" is an utter twunt.

Has your friend read her contract and handbook? It should all be spelled out in there.

It's not 'bad practice' - it's necessary. There has to be a defined term for working 'week', 'day' etc, otherwise no-one would ever know where they stand.

What's actually happening is that she has a working week of 40 hours (as a figure, I don't know if that's the case!) She will never be allowed to ordinarily 'work' more than this.

So her 'ordinary week' will never be more than 40 paid hours.

Now, there may be some weeks where she does some overtime - her 60 hour weeks in some months, for example, but she shouldn't be counting on this, as that's not her working week. If she can't live off that, it may be time to look for a new job.

Annual Leave can only be taken on 'working days', and it's very dubious, now, to pay someone in lieu of them actually taking time off. In fact, employers must ensure employees actually take 4 weeks of their 5.6 now, end of.

To let her take two days 'leave' in a week where she's worked 'full time' could be seen as paying holiday in lieu of her taking it - i.e. holiday as overtime. That could get her company in a lot of trouble now.

She should be free to use her leave in weeks where she works less than the 40, to make it up, if she wanted to, because this is the reverse of the scenario above.

She could also, if this is happening a lot and her ordinary working week is regularly more than 40 hours, lodge a request for the 'working week and day' to be amended in their contracts and handbooks as these should reflect accuracy. And eight-hour day that only applies for holidays is iffy if everyone actually always works 12 hours shifts.

As for her manager not 'telling her' - see comment about handbook and contract. Your friend should be aware of this because it's in there, and she should be familiar with it. If it's not, that's a different ball game!

She will, however, still have those holiday hours owing to her to take at another time. Try seeing this as she did a full time week in three days! That's a win!

Thanks for that ginnybag.

My agency accrue hols per full working month and pay 8 hours per day at the average hourly rate accrued since Week 1. I'm zero days, but in my game that just means I can have a duvet day at a week's notice.

However, they don't pay more than two weeks per 26 weeks, so I wind up with 10 days in summer, 5 at Xmas and the rest is paid in lieu during March.

Odd.

Im on a zero hours contract and earn just over fifty pounds for an eight hour shift. If I take a days paid holiday I usually get about twenty eight pounds as they work out how many hours I've worked over the month and then somehow take off what they don't think I would have worked. Not in my interest to take as days holiday!

Ginnybag

If she had a handbook or contract, then your post would be spot on.

There is no handbook. There is no contract. There is no "working week" - she is put on the rota, she works the shifts she is given.

If they are shortstaffed, she has to work as many hours as is needed. This is not "over time" - there is no additional pay or days in lieu, it is just work.

If they are quiet, she has to work less hours. When she asks her "manager" to have a day's holiday during this quiet period to make up for her few hours, she works perhaps 1 hour "too many" and does not receive the holiday pay.

I think it is appalling.

It is illegal for them not to give her a contract. Why does she not have one?

I,m a staff nurse in the NHS we have bank staff which are basically zero hour contact staff they have to accrue their holidays and I think they have to work thirteen weeks before. they five days annual leave .