Holiday issue, this can't be right surely?

[OneofPansPeople]

Work for a charity, there are 4 of us in this branch who all do part time, none of us have worked there long but I am the newest.
We have been told that going forward that no holiday requests will be sanctioned until cover is in place, however no over time will be paid to the person covering, we will have to shift swap to fill gaps thus working extra in order to get a holiday. (Hope I've explained that properly)
I appear to be the only person who has raised an eyebrow in a wtf type of fashion.

This thread made me realise what I mug I was as a junior doctor- we all had to swap and cover on calls in order to be able to take the leave

If I want Friday and Saturday off, I can only do that if 'Beryl' covers my shifts, but as 'Beryl' won't get paid I would have to do her Monday and Tuesday shifts for example
So that's a shift swap, not a holiday then. Is he saying no one entitled to take any holiday for a certain time, people just need to swap shifts if they want to be off on certain days?

She is saying no holiday will be approved until the shifts are covered by someone else, however she will not pay someone else, so if I want two days off I have to work my normal 3 days plus the two days of the person(s) covering me, at some point during the working month.

I'd email for clarification, including real life examples. It's possible they've not thought this through properly, or not explained it correctly.

Jane works 5 hrs a day, mon,tues,weds
Claire works 5 hours a day weds, thurs,fri.

Jane wants to take mon 1 aug and tues 2 aug off (10 hrs).
So Claire has agreed to work these shifts, ie an extra 10 hours.
To recompense Claire for these 10 hours, Jane agreed to work thurs 4 and fri 5 Aug instead of Claire.
The timesheets for that week will show that both Jane and Claire will have worked 15hrs that week. Ie their full contracted hours.
No annual leave will have been taken by either Jane or Claire.

That's it.

Are they saying because you have been on furlough you haven't accrued any paid holidays.

Check the askamanager blog for how to speak up as a group and to point out something is likely illegal - US based but excellent advice. I can't imagine the other employees being happy about this either...

you are entitled to holidays, its the employers responsibility to find cover. call ACAS as they will help

I think you need to clarify with them whether they're saying that no holidays can be taken for a particular period of time (and when that will end) and if people want days off they'll need to swap shifts instead, or if they're saying that no holidays can be taken.

They may just be clueless and haven't thought it through.

Respond giving the example of what happens in practice and say you feel you must have misunderstood as that would be unlawful. That will force them to either confirm and address the unlawfulness point, or they will say no that’s not what we meant at all (twinkly laugh, of course you get holiday!

It’s not militant to join a union ffs. Many charities think that they are above employment law, and will only get away with what they are allowed to get away with by their staff.

Many charities feel you should be grateful to work for such a worthy cause. This doesn’t mean they do not have to be fair and follow the law on employment matters.

A union help you to protect your legal position.
But if you don’t want to, then challenge them about it yourself.

A friend of mine had a similar scenario several years ago. In order to take holiday someone had to cover the shift but it was stated in their contract that the first 200 hours of overtime per year was unpaid as included in salary. 5 weeks annual leave, 40 hour week. So annual leave covered with no extra cost to company

I think I'll follow the advice and call ACAS , I thought it was the responsibility if the employer to find cover, but the boss has apparently told my 'team leader' that "she will not approve a holiday request until team leader has cover in place. No overtime will be paid so it's up to us to sort things out."
Between the boss being a bit scary and it being a 'charidee' I think people are just going to go with it.
I'm obviously not as nice, I'm not putting up with it.
Thanks for the advice everyone.

My ds has worked for charities (unpaid) for years. They are just as likely to be shit employers as any other business. Added to that people won’t rock the boat because it’s a charity. The stories my dsis told me made me determined not to do charity work on retirement.

What your employer is doing is illegal and immoral.

Why are you being so dismissive about joining a union? It will only cost you a few quid a month and they will be able to help you with issues like these.

@ChipotleBlessing

"I'm likely to lose my job if I challenge it, I've not even been there a year"

If they were to sack you [on those grounds] you would have recourse. This would be "wrongful dismissal" which has no statutory time limit.

If as you say this is a wonderful charity [and from its attitude it does not seem like it] in the short term you have the option to accept the situation [which may just be Covid-related in some way]. It almost certainly has an HR department and I would suggest contacting them in a positive manner or getting in touch with ACAS.

I am uncertain why you do not think joining a union is a good idea. They deal with this sort of thing all the time. I work [very] sporadically at a school as an invigilator and am a member of Unison which costs me £1.38 per month.

But if for example there's four of you part time if you wanted to take a 2 week holiday off you would probably have to get all 3 other members of staff to work with you which if they have commitments outside of work it would be nearly impossible

This is unlawful. A hospital trust I once worked for tried to do this with the receptionists and got into serious doo-doos.

Acas will say the same, they're not going to say anything different. If you are required to work 16 extra days unpaid in order to take 16 days paid holiday you are getting no holiday at all.

I would do as someone else suggested and point out that surely that's not what they mean, as the effect would be no one gets any holiday at all, which is unlawful.

If they sack you for trying to exercise a statutory right to annual leave it wouldn't be wrongful dismissal as someone said, it would be automatically unfair dismissal, and you would not need any length of service to claim it.

The likelihood is that she would refuse holiday leave, therefore prompting resignation so that she is in the clear.

Nope - if you are forced to resign because of an attempt to enforce your statutory right to paid leave then that would be constructive unfair dismissal and because it is for an automatically unfair reason, would still be something you could claim.

Between the boss being a bit scary and it being a 'charidee' I think people are just going to go with it.
I'm obviously not as nice, I'm not putting up with it.
It’s not about being nice, you have a legal right to paid annual leave - charities can be notoriously bad employers and often bank on people not challenging them because of whatever “cause” the charity serves. I’d challenge it and have no guilt whatsoever about doing so.

@chopc

This thread made me realise what I mug I was as a junior doctor- we all had to swap and cover on calls in order to be able to take the leave

That’s different chopc as it’s just the on calls that are swapped and it will have been reflected in your banding.

It still happens now - as a senior doctor, I still have aspects of my job plan which are prospective cover, so I get paid extra for that compared to the bits that are just cancelled when I am on leave.

Have you had any luck sorting it out @OP?

Worth putting it email and keeping copies of reply 's in case they try to force resignation. I work for a charity and it's no excuse to break employment law. it just leads to a poor team.