Aibu to think my Bank Holidays should be accrued through maternity leave?

[Maternityconfusion]

Hi everyone

Posting for traffic as its a bit quiet on the employment board.

I am very confused about what happens with bank Holidays when I am on maternity and I am reading mixed answers whilst doing my research.

My holiday entitlement is 5 weeks plus bank Holidays. My department works the bank Holidays (accept christmas when we close) and we therefore get the time back in leiu.

My employer has told me I don't accrue the bank Holidays whilst I am on maternity leave.

I feel like I'm being treated less favorably because I am on maternity and I thought my contractual benefits had to continue whilst on maternity leave. So if I were to get 5 weeks plus the bank Holidays in leiu whilst I was working, I should get the same whilst on maternity because I should be treated as if I was at work.

The CAB website seems to agree with me. Various other places also seem to agree and say if my contract says my leave entitlement is 25 days PLUS bank Holidays then this is what I should accrue.

However the maternity action website says

"All employees are entitled to 28 days statutory annual leave. If your employer provides 28 days annual leave, including Bank Holidays, your employer should allow you to take paid holiday at another time, as the European Court of Justice case of Gomez said that a woman is entitled to take her statutory annual leave as well as her maternity leave. This may also apply to fixed holidays that are part of your statutory annual leave entitlement but the law is not clear and you may wish to seek further advice.

If you are entitled to 28 days annual leave, plus Bank Holidays, you should check your contract or maternity policy to see if you are allowed to take Bank Holidays or fixed holidays that fall during maternity leave at another time. If your employer allows employees who are sick on a bank holiday to take a day off in lieu, they should also allow women on maternity leave to do the same, as it could be discriminatory not to."

So now I'm confused! I don't understand why I wouldn't accrue this time off. Essentially my colleagues who are not on maternity leave are getting extra days off and I am getting back less days than I would be if I wasn't in maternity yleave.

I've spoken to Acas who although made it clear that I should be getting the 5.6 minimum statutory, kind of avoided the fact that even if my employee allows me the 5.6 this is still less than what my contracts says.

The equality human rights commsion website says a similar thing to maternity action.

Can anyone shed any light? I know I have to just put this into writing to my employer but I was hoping someone might give me some hope!

Thanks for reading this far

YANBU, you're entitled to those bank holidays.

If you look at Gomez employment case law that should provide some clarity. In summary you should not experience any detriment or discrimination while on maternity leave. Look at your contract and maternity leave policies too.

You should definitely be getting bank holidays. I’m on maternity leave at moment and am getting my BH paid although I was given the option to add them to my annual leave.

I'm going to change my answer - yes you should get Bank Holidays accrued during maternity leave. The law has altered since I last did this and Bank Holidays are now part of statutory annual leave - you have to have 28 days holiday, they are usually included in the 28. (I'm not sure anyone would get 28+8 but it's possible so check contract, in that case they would be excluded)

They only have to give you the 28 days statutory. You cant seriously expect to have toil days where you haven't accrued any toil?

I'm an NHS employee and I accrued annual leave in place of bank holidays while I was off.

@thinkerthunkk there's always one isn't there...you grotbag.

Why would I get my annual leave when I haven't been at work to accrue it? and yet I do...

So I don't think it's ridiculous that I would ask this question.

I got my bank holidays when I was on mat leave.

And I got higher than min holidays. I think I went back to 34 days or something to use in three months. I used three a week and had Christmas off.

I did some checking after this post. You accrue annual leave but bank holidays depend on how they are calculated, we get bank holidays off, so my entitlement is 26 days plus bank holidays, whereas h's contract says 36 days including bank holidays which you can choose to work or not (eg if they are not Christian they can work Christmas). If you are on leave you would not accrue bank holidays under my contract but you would on h's basically.