No leave unless I agree to overtime?

[FrogInAJacuzzi]

I applied for 2 days leave before the bank holiday. At present we are one person down in the department due to someone being off on long-term sick. However there would still be one other colleague in the office on those days in addition to my manager, so 2 in total.

She was very reluctant to approve the leave and eventually said that if I would work overtime on the other days, then she would approve it. I now feel that there is something not right about this. No other manager has ever done this to me, and I feel almost as if I have been coerced into agreeing to do overtime. It is generally agreed in our department that 2 people is sufficient cover, but that normally doesn't include because she doesn't like to get her hands dirty doing the actual work. We have been coping with 2 people doing the work for the past few weeks, and she was able to take a day's leave on Friday, leaving only 2 of us in.
Is this an abuse of authority?

I would say it is an abuse of authority and unfair but I doubt it is illegal.

Can you not go to your manager's boss about this?

I think I'm going to have to but have been reluctant to because of the bad feeling it may cause. My manager has a bullying streak and I don't think I can let this stand.

It probably does fall into one of those grey areas in terms of legality. This was discussed in front of my colleague and he had come to the same understanding as me so I don't think it's a misunderstanding on my part.

So you and your colleague can't have any leave until the third team member is back from long-term sick, but she can have leave whenever she wants because she doesn't "count" from a cover perspective?

Words fail me...they really do. (Well not quite )

Any idea how long your colleague will be off? What if they are not back by Christmas? Does the boss just get 2 weeks off while the rest of you suffer?

Unfortunately I don't know whether it's "legal", I think leave time always has to be agreed and at a convenient time. But if I were you, next time you want leave, if the same thing happens again I would go over the boss's head. She is well out of order to put pressure on you to do overtime in exchange for leave, and this presumably could go on for ages.

Do you have a union rep you could contact? Or even an HR department who could advise you on the policy for staff taking leave while colleagues are on long term sick?

Allarmbells you hit the nail on the head there with your very first sentence. My colleague and I are very ticked off about this situation. He has now declined to work overtime this week, as have I. The unit manager has now been involved. I think this could get quite ugly but I feel that I have to stand up for myself otherwise I'm setting myself up for more of the same down the line.
Our company has a policy that you cannot access the HR department unless you go through your line manager, and there is no union.

The colleague off on long-term sick has a back injury - can't drive, can't sit at a desk for hours etc. She was supposed to be back in this week, but will now only be back in on Wednesday/Thursday. Apparently she needs ongoing treatment so this situation could well persist for several months on and off. She may be in at times, but it sounds like on a limited hours basis. She may even need to have surgery at some point so possibly more months off then.

I wouldn't have asked for leave in the first place if there wasn't going to be anyone else in the office, but there would have been 2 people in on those days. I did think that this was out of line - so thanks for the responses

Any manager who won't put themselves in to the mix when things need to be done, is going to very quickly lose the respect of his/her managees!

She's being mean, but she has got the right to reasonably withold permission for leave if there are circumstances which mean the company would struggle if you were off - although they do have to make sure you get to take all of your annual leave (or offer you carry-over).