Adding hols on to end of mat leave :advice please

[beetlemum]

I'm due back to work 1st September but have 25 days hols this year and would like to add them on the end. Work are a bit awkward, have asked my manager via email last week and waiting for her response. Any tips to get them to agree to this. I had previously suggested I have one day off a week, i.e the friday or monday but another colleague has just gone on mat leave and she is looking to take a day off in the week, so have been told it depend s what days she wants etc. (we don't do the same job: so I don't see how this matters). Have also suggested they just pay me my hols at the end of August but they have said this will be difficult/ impossible as my Mat cover is working until the end of August and they do not have the funding to pay two people for the same job at the same time (work for a charity).So if i took most of september off this would be good for me as it would be one less month of childcare to pay. Feel I can't enjoy the rest of my leave until I know when I am going back as also have to put deposit down for nursery. Argh!

YOu most definitely do accrue bank holiday leave while on maternity leave, (Be it ordinary or additional) these should be added on to your accrued holiday leave. My companies policy is to make you take all of your accrued holidays before returning but i did a deal to use them up to return part-time (taking holiday for the remainder of the week) over 6 wks after i returned and i put into a flexible working application to switch to part time after I ran out of holiday.

Hi can anyone point me in the direction of the regulation that says you accrue bank holiday leave whilst on mat leave as I will need to show my line manager, she is obviously not aware of it. She was due to get back to me on thurs regarding when I am taking my leave, but I haven't heard anything yet, will keep you posted.
Lola: I have presented work with a few alternative soultions as to how I can take the leave, they just sort of scratch their heads and make me feel like I'm being a pest! its as if they expect me not to take the leave or something...just cos its inconvenient! as if I go to work for a laugh not the money (fuming!!!)

Just to add this is doing my head in
starting to think work are doing this on purpose! looks like I shuld accrue my contractual hols then as baby was due on 26 oct 2008.
alos is it right you can add on 4 weeks parental leave onto the end of mat leave, if I were to do this how would I go about informing work.

Here you go beetlemum. There is one section clearly saying that you get all your contractual benefits except remuneration, and a separate holiday section saying you get all your normal paid holiday.

You can take parental leave as well but your employer can postpone that for up to 6 months if it's not convenient for them for you to take it then. You'd need to write and tell them that you want to take parental leave from x date and they should write and confirm or postpone it.

Beetlemum - they may doing it on purpose, hoping you'll just give up on the idea or - like a lot of organisations and line managers - they may just be pretty ignorant when it comes to the rules and regulations and people issues just come way down the list of priorities in the day-to-day of things. It's not the right attitude but v common ....

If you still don't have a response on Monday, you could maybe consider writing to them - stating the problem, the legal position and listing the options and what you consider to be a favourable outcome. Never does any harm to document these things and may suddenly focus your employer's mind ...

update on OP: work have sorted out my hols and I return september 1st on reduced hours (school hours) to use up my holidays. they are still insistent that i do not get my bank hols paid as there is a clause in my contract that says I cannot have them on my mat leave (is this right?)
Also I used to have childcare vouchers but finished them in August 2008, if I had not finished them would I have got them paid throughout my mat leave, i was not advised of this, just told to stop them . i'm confused!

Putting a clause in your contract removing some of your benefits during maternity leave doesn't make it legal. If you are entitled to paid bank holidays then you are entitled to them during maternity leave, just as you are all your other benefits.

Why were you told to stop your childcare vouchers?

Hi again beanbag, thanks for your help before.

That's what I thought about the contract too. I have asked work to provide a copy which they have not done as yet.

In an email from my line manager she says:

There is no statutory right to public holidays it is a contractual right and in our contracts in Appendix 6 on Maternity Leave and Pay it states

?There is no entitlement to days off in lieu or payment for Public holidays which fall during maternity leave.?

I stopped my childcare vouchers in June 2008 actually, as I only had august childcare to pay for as DS1 went to state school nursery in Sept 08 when I was on maternity. I was not aware at that point that my contractual benefits would carry on and nor did my manager advise me this was the case. I just agreed with my employer I would stop the vouchers as I did not need them from that point onwards so feel I have shot myself in the foot there. Ho hum!

She's right there is no statutory entitlement to bank holidays, but it is discrimination if the contract tries to rescind your benefits during maternity leave. Just because something is in the contract doesn't make it legal.

This changed relatively recently, so I imagine they haven't updated their contracts and policies to reflect the law as it stands. That doesn't mean the contract is legal.

I have emailed her again for a copy of the contract. I think that as I cancelled my childcare vouchers of my own volition there is nothing I can do with regard to this. I am so mad with myself but I didn't know, I suppose I cant expect that my employer would have known either.

Yes you can't do anything about the childcare vouchers, and yes it's extremely unlikely your employer would have realised you would have been entitled to them during your mat leave, it's a bit obscure!

oh well. will have to remember it i I get pg again whilst under their employment .

Mrsjammi the new rules apply to those women with babies due on or after 5 October, not to those who happened to be on mat leave at that time unfortunately. Now that would be complicated! Entitlements don't usually change mid-leave, when things change a date is always specified at some point in the future for babies due after the date, so that people go on maternity leave knowing their entitlement and it doesn't change

flowery have you got any references etc that i can use with my employer re the bank hol thing. Thanks again you are a superstar.

I posted a link on 14 march at 13:49:54. It clearly says you get all your contractual benefits (which in your case includes paid bank holidays), and all your entitlement to 'paid holiday' (with nothing saying 'except bank holidays'). Will that do? Bank holidays are no different in law to 'normal' holidays, so there is no separate specific legislation or guidance to cover them. They are part of your contractual benefits and paid holiday entitlement.

Thanks flowery. Was getting a bit confused again, forgotten you had already given me this. Getting a bit flustered as my boss obv thinks I am being difficult with her!

Just to say that not all employers are "being difficult" or discriminatory.

It is terribly hard to keep up with all the legislation if you are a small company without a specialized HR department.

It is also terribly hard to cover all the work and to make enough income to stay in business. In my company staff work very hard to make sure that all holiday periods are covered and they take their holiday throughout the year. I consider myself to be a fair employer and I would be horrified if anyone did not take their full holiday entitlement. But when someone needs to take 5 weeks in one block it is really, really difficult.

But I got caught out when someone returned from maternity leave and then "demanded" their public holidays. We were surprised and questioned this (it was not because we didn't want to give them their entitlement, but last time someone was on mat leave I don't think this was a law, or maybe we just didn't know about it). The lady who "demanded" the time off (and that WAS her approach) assumed that because we raised a question, we were trying to be difficult. We were not, we simply had not known about the laws.

Because we didn't know about this, we had planned workload to be done and it was really difficult for our other staff who had to work extra hours to cover the holiday.

I know there are some terrible employers out there, but we are not all bad. Some of are just struggling to keep our businesses going, to keep people in decent employment and struggling to keep up with the endless legislation.

Hi to defensive.

In reply to your post, I work for a national charity who advise people on their rights and responsibilities. So if i have been a bit about their attitude to me raising queries about my leave entitlement, thats why. I've felt the onus is on me to find out what I am entitled to rather than the other way around, when I have told them what I am entitled to they have been . I go back in september so have raised my queries about my leave etc in what I feel is good time in order to avoid the nightmare scenario which you outline.

I take on board totally your points about small companies and actually am starting to think that the more maternity rights improve then the harder it will be for women of childbearing age to get work. but that's an aside and probably another thread.

Ps you sound like a godd employer BTW, wish I worked for you

defensive yes it certainly is difficult to keep up, especially for smaller employers. Did you raise the question with the employee herself, or did you say 'let me just check that out to make sure that's right as I wasn't aware of that', and then ask someone else? There is a difference.

If you haven't made your employee aware of her rights before she goes on maternity leave, (obviously not intentionally), and she then discovers she has rights that you haven't told her about, it's not completely unnatural for her to be concerned that you might deny them to her. Then if you question her about her right to them to rather than checking the situation out with an adviser or by looking it up yourself, she may have become even more defensive and think you are challenging her rather than just finding out what the situation is.

You may of course not have questioned her entitlement directly to her, in which case that's different.

I totally agree though that where it is clear the employer did not actually know about the rights concerned, the employee should allow for the employer to double check before getting cross or demanding about it. It sounds as if your employee at least initially had no reason to believe you were deliberately withholding her rights, so shouldn't have come in 'demanding' without at least checking whether you were aware 'nicely' iyswim?

It's all give and take really isn't it, and I totally appreciate how difficult it is for small businesses. Most of my clients are like you and it's a complete minefield for people running a business.

Hi, flowery or other knowledgable peeps,just to add to thread, work will not pay me or give me days off in lieu for the bank hols.

Here is the bit of my contract re; hols, the way I read it doesn't actually say we get paid bank hols does it (but we do)

1. Annual Leave and Public Holidays

The annual leave year is from 1 January to 31 December.

In addition to 10 public holidays, you are entitled to 28 days paid annual leave in each annual leave year.

You are not required to work on designated Public Holidays.

Here is the bit in the appendices that says I don't get the bank hols...

1.1 Annual Leave Entitlement and Public Holidays

Annual leave entitlement will continue to accrue during ordinary maternity leave but not during additional maternity leave.

There is no entitlement to days off in lieu or payment for Public holidays which fall during maternity leave.

I'm stuck now! What do you think? TIA

Well that's wrong. It doesn't matter what your contract says, they can't use an out of date contract to get out of your current entitlements, just because that was the situation when the contract was drawn up. The second clause says you don't get any holiday at all during AML, and that isn't the case anymore either.

I would suggest you consider putting in a grievance claiming that you are being denied your contractual benefits and normal holiday entitlement during additional maternity leave which is sex discrimination.

Cheers bean bag
Have sent terse email to manager stating that I believe I am entitled to the bank hols and if that does not have the desired effect I will have to look at putting a grievance in. TBH am reluctant to do so as feel it might make it difficult to go back and I have got to go back there!!