Bank holidays and annual leave - AIBU?

[Ambernectarine22]

I work a 4 day week (Tuesday to Friday at my employers' request). There are 7 bank holiday Mondays this year and I don't get any pay or time off in lieu for them. Is this normal? I have to take them off my annual leave allowance. There are also 2 bank holiday Fridays this year and I am told I have to take 3 days of my annual leave at Christmas. This only leaves 10.4 days for me to take whenever I want. Measly? Or reasonable?

I'd be very grateful for your views!

Are they reimbursing you for the bank holidays they illegally deducted from you?

Cool that you worked it out, OP.

You'll still have to take it out of your allowance though.

I have worked 4 days in two companies and both worked it out slightly differently.

Company A added everything in a normal year together then gave me 80% of that to use whenever I liked, but if a BH fell on my working day I had to be off like those full time. It meant that I got to take a bit more holiday when I wanted to as my non working day was a Monday. The calculation was 8 BH + 23 Holidays = 31. 80% of 31 is 24.8 days.

Company B asked me to confirm my non working day at the start of every leave year and then gave me a bespoke annual leave calc. They looked at when my non working days fell then gave me an entitlement. I didn’t really understand it but did work out I was better off working Mondays as that’s when most BH fall (so would be off with everyone else) and had Wednesdays off instead. I didn’t have a BH entitlement as such, but did get paid for having every one of them off if they fell on a working day.

I don’t think your employer can ask you to use holiday for a BH Monday unless they are saying you can take it another time? (Company A in my example).

If not, and they are saying you need to use it the week the BH falls, are they paying you for 5 days that week or giving you the day off? if not then you are being swindled

I’m very confused why you would be taking annual leave on a day you don’t work anyway. In months with bank holidays do you get paid more then? Ie for the Monday you’ve taken annual leave and the 4 days you would normally work also

At least now she won't have to work the Friday in the week the bank holiday falls so will actually get the days she is entitled to rather than losing 7 of them for no reason

This

You can also refuse a change in days work when the sole reason is to avoid giving you bank holiday entitlement in lieu.

They sound really dodgy tbh

Not only is it not normal, this holiday arrangement is illegal! By law you are entitled to a statutory minimum of 28 days annual leave, prorated if you are part time. If bank holidays fall on one of your normal working days you can be required to deduct it from your pro rated allowance but you definitely don't have to deduct your non working days that you don't even get paid for!

Your employers sound awful, a right bunch of chancers. You can be absolutely sure that they know very well what you are entitled to and are just taking advantage of you not knowing your rights. Makes me so angry .

Legally they have been underpaying you all this time and you could make a claim going back several years for all the holiday pay they have robbed you of. If they don't play ball you could take it to a tribunal and you would win. You may not want the hassle of all that I understand, but I would probably be looking for a new job and not work for this bunch of crooks a minute longer than I had to.

@Ambernectarine22 one of the points people miss is the link between pay and leave.

I know this sounds obvious but you are paid £0 on your non-working days. if a BH falls on your non-working day you are paid £0 so if your employer deducts a days leave they need to pay you for that day.

A claim you could make against your employer is unlawful deduction of wages for each BH. Your employer would have to demonstrate they have paid you for the leave falling on a BH.

Check with ACAS, I think you can go back 6 years.

If there are we other part time workers then they are likely getting shortchanged on their holidays too @Ambernectarine22

I work T-F Mondays off I do this for a reason - I get a pro rata of the bank holidays added o to my holiday - have to book off Good Friday and any that fall at Xmas on my working days
They are wrong and you need to challenge it

You would have been better sticking to your original days then you would have more annual leave as you only need to take GF and any over Christmas.
now you need to take every single Monday.

also I’d be looking for it to get backdated for all the ones I’d used previously

This.

I am a part timer (I do work Mondays but not Fridays) and I genuinely don’t understand why you were booking leave for a non working day.

I lose out because of pro-ratad bank holiday allowance- every year I lose a bit of my a/l entitlement..but ho hum. What I have never done is booked Good Friday as annual leave because it’s not a working day for me.

Her employer was deducting the bank holiday Mondays for her when they shouldn't have been so she was losing out. OP wasn't doing it herself

This. You really must go back over previous leave and bank holidays and work out what they owe you, then write to them asking them to pay it.

They do sound dodgy as fuck. What about years when there's an extra bank holiday? Do the full timers get an extra paid day off or are they required to use a day of AL entitlement, too?

Also, think carefully about whether you really want to change your working days.

If you work Tue-Fri, and 5 out of 8 bank holidays fall on a Monday, you would only have to use leave for the other 3 days, which leaves you with 19.4 days to book when you want.

If you work Mon-Thu, and 5 out of 8 bank holidays fall on a Monday, you would have to use 5 days of leave, which would leave you with just 17.4 days to book when you want.

Of course, some years the days work out differently. And in the case of extra bank holidays (ie the coronation this year, and also last year the jubilee and the queen's funeral) you need to be asking whether full time employees get those as paid extras or not, and if they do, you should get the pro rata equivalent added to your allowance.

https://www.acas.org.uk/part-time-workers

So you told them that the way they have handled your annual leave is illegal and the agreed outcome is that you need to change your working pattern?

From what you've said, they owe you a few weeks' worth of annual leave, and not wanting to pay pro rota holiday is not a basis for changing an agreed work pattern.

Just a reminder that you don't get more by not working Mondays, the difference is you can take the BH days when you want. Also my colleague who does 3 days incl Monday ends up owing 2 days usually. Obviously she's getting the same leave just on a Monday as those weeks she'll only work 2 days.
It depends what you prefer!

If I were you, I wouldn't accept that. If you stick to Tuesdays to Thursdays, you will get the same amount of holiday, but you will have more choice over when to take it. You should also insist on compensation for previous years when they have broken the law by giving you insufficient paid holidays.