All holidays lost, please help

[jaabaar]

Hi,

My due date is 21/1/10
Maternity start date 7/1/10
Maternity end date 7/1/11
Annual leave in my company calculated 1/1 to 31/12.

First my employer said I am not entitled to holidays as I got 90% of salary. I disagreed of course and told him to check again. He said I cannot take holidays as company does not carry over to next year the holidays.

So, just because I give birth at the beginning of the year which falls in the same period as the annual period of leave I loose all my holidays ((.

Do I have the following options:
a) shorten the 12 months maternity leave and return after 11 months (which would mean I would be in the annual leave period of that year) and take the 12th month as paid holiday.

or

b) take holiday from the 2/1/10 until my due date (hoping I dont give birth early) and at least take 13 days of my holiday?

or

Are there any other options????

I am so upset... thinking that I have worked 1 hour 30 minutes over time for free for the past 3 years and now they told me , better luck with next baby.....

I would much appreciate any advise. thank you very much.

G

and another one here that may also be useful - www.lge.gov.uk/lge/core/page.do?pageId=126098#contents-4 particularly:

"There are, however, advised exceptions to this principle. The European Court of Justice in the Gomez case (see LGE Advisory Bulletin 483) held that a woman must be able to take the annual leave that she is entitled to at a time outside her maternity leave. Although in most cases this should be possible as set out in the paragraph above, where a woman is unable to take her annual leave before she starts her maternity leave due to the early birth of her child or pregnancy-related sickness absence, or where a woman's maternity leave overlaps with the annual leave year to the extent that she cannot take all of her annual leave, an exception should be made to carry over policies to allow her to take the leave that she would otherwise lose in the next leave year."

Thanks to all who have given their input, which much helped me!

I called ACAS and they indeed said I have the follwoing options:

1. Employer to carry over holdiays to next year which he is not obliged to and refused

2. to take the full 12 months and suppliers pays holidays for the 13th month but I return to work which he is not obliged to do and refused

3. To reduce the leave by 28 days and take paid leave instead which employer cannot refuse....

I have chosen 3) as all others were refused. I will still have 12 months instead of 13 months off but at least I will be paid for the last 28 days.

IMPORTANT to all: You ARE entitled to 8 paid bank holidays on top of your mim holidays. e.g. legal minimum is 28 days paid (includes 8 bank holidays)!!

Good luck to all and thanks!

jaabaar - thanks so much for the update - good to know the ACAS point of view. I am disgusted by your employers attitude though. ALso check you contract for the holiday terms. You may find you have more entitlement than you think

I should add that I would take an earlier Mat leave start date and use my paid holiday at the other end within the holiday year. Even if if just to annoy my tight employers and yes I do work in HR but I believe in helping the employee when possible.