Employer Forcing Holidays

[Lkb2020]

Does anyone have any knowledge of HR policies regarding employers forcing holidays?
I am 28 weeks next week and been told by my midwife that I need to move away from a customer facing role or work from home.
I have told my employer and they have said that they can put me in an office role for 3-4 days a week and then force me to take holidays to make up my remaining hours. If I was still working my current role customer facing then they can keep my 5 days a week as normal.
I am taking holidays prior to maternity leave and then have 10 days remaining which our HR manager initially told me who be paid out to me in my March pay.
Anyone know if they are allowed to do this? If so, do I have the option to decline this and use my holidays to bring my maternity forward even more?

I think an employer can request you take your holiday leave at a certain time but only up to a week. It's usually so that employers can space holidays our during quiet periods. I wonder if this would constitute discrimination though and may be worth speaking to ACAS, or better still maternity action.

I was stitched up by this in a slightly different situation but after some research and speaking to ACAS basically yes businesses are allowed to tell you when you can/have to take holiday to suit the business needs and theres really nothing as an employee you can do about it unless your contract says anything otherwise or the business has a different company policy.
It's really crap I was forced to take 3 of my 4 weeks of holiday in August due to corona (they didnt want anyone coming back to work after furlough and having much holiday left basically) and I just had to lump it.
Sorry OP, what a shitty situation

Worth mentioning my situation wasnt during a pregnancy so you may have grounds for unfair treatment

Thank you for the advice! I do understand they can force holidays on employees as they did this to us during furlough, however I didn’t know if they could do this specifically because I was pregnant!

They can't do it because you're pregnant, they can do it for the needs of the business. They're happy to move you to a more appropriate role, but that role currently only has sufficient work for four days. Therefore business needs dictate that you take annual leave now.

It's a convaluted argument, but basically the reason they are telling you to take AL relates to the role, not you.

Whilst it’s correct an employer can ‘force’ you to take holidays (giving the correct notice of at least double the length of the holiday they require you to take), they can’t do this to remove a health and safety risk (coronavirus).

If the workplace isn’t safe they have three steps to follow:

1. Change your conditions to make the environment safe. If can’t do this then:
2. Give you different work ( which must be of same remuneration and benefits as your existing role). If can’t do this then:
3. Suspend you on full paid leave

They categorically can’t ask you to use your holiday if your workplace isn’t safe. This would be pregnancy and maternity discrimination.

I don’t rate ACAS for advice (although you’d need to speak to them to start early conciliation if you wanted to make a discrimination claim against your employer). I‘d recommend you speak to Maternity Action, or Pregnant then Screwed for more detailed advice on how to approach this with your employer so you get the rights you’re entitled to.

As an aside, they also can’t pay you your untaken holiday in March, your accrued but untaken entitlement would roll over to the next holiday year. The only time you can receive pay in lieu of holiday entitlement is when you employment ends, otherwise they’re depriving you of a statutory right.

Thank you for all your advice! They have decided that they cannot force my holidays unless they are doing this to other staff members too but we have come to a mutual agreement that I will add them on to my current leave to bring my finish date forward by a couple of weeks rather than carrying them over to next year due to the current situation & wage cost.