Annual Leave not granted for ANY weekend in the year

[sneezecakesmum]

I am absolutely livid. We have started a new rota system at work which means I work every weekend plus 1 weekday. I am quite OK with this as it suits family.

We have an automated system for requests which grant or reject requests.

I have been told I must request according to my 'work pattern' When I do this weekends are auto rejected! as oversubscribed. I now have to ask nicely (and could be refused) for a weekend off or I am faced with never having more than 5 days off in a row and effectively never having a summer holiday.!!!

Can my employer effectively prevent me from taking a meaningful holiday break. I spoke to another employee yesterday and she hasnt got more than 5 days off consecutively all year!

I will contact my union tomorrow and have written to my team manager. Surely it is against my Human Rights as I am entitled to enjoy a 'family life'??

Why would I begrudge anyone giving an answer?!

Sorry I misunderstood your post Ivy. I do realise you didn't directly mention bringing a claim, however if someone says they think something 'could be unfair dismissal' I assume they also therefore think that bringing a claim for unfair dismissal might be a reasonable response. My mistake.

I can't see any dismissal at all anyway, let alone an unfair one.

Sorry I get 7 x 22.5 hour weeks annual leave a year. I work 3 days a week 7.5 hours per day. Did the 49 by multiplying a week by 7 days!! Can't think straight at mo!

Tired Thanks and I do work for the NHS - did the lumbering beaurocracy jibe give it away!

Have got an appointment week after next to talk about annual leave with manager. Talking did me no good tho when i had to work all xmas and new year so I hope they are more reasonable.

And cant change working days, they dont want people when its quiet, only out of hours.

I am very jealous of 7 weeks holiday (sorry off the point I know)

Had to work in NHS for 10 years though, but yes it is good - makes up for all the christmases I've worked, bank holidays, no time off in school holidays, worked late with no extra pay etc so have earned it, and up til this year have never complained, gone off sick and so on. Getting stroppy in old age!

Have you had that meeting yet? And if so what happened?

My sister, who knows a bit about employment law, said that if you work in a system where you can never take annual leave at the times you work - and in your case if all weekends are automatically blocked and that is when you work - then it is constructive dismissal.

I had this problem in private healthcare where there was no one who could cover my job and so I was often denied leave beause the work would not get done (and the work was a rolling programme so it always had to get done).

I don't see your own situation as that different - you can only take short blocks of days and no weekends at all - which would surely be discriminatory against part time workers who specifically work weekends?

Hope you manage to have a productive meeting about it :)