Can they take my holiday without my permission?

[chicaguapa]

My work has been clamping down on punctuality in the last 12 months and keeps changing between various punative actions to get people to work on time. If you are 1 minute late for work you are classed as late. I'm very bad for this as I take the DC to school in the morning and have a lot of behavioural problems with DD who is mild ASD. They know this and tell me that everyone has to be treated the same across the company. So far I have lost 50% of my bonus due to a poor punctuality record - even though I have only been 1 or 2 minutes late on each occasion.

The latest policy to be brought in it is that when you have reached 12 lates, subsequent lates are fined with deduction of annual leave. If you arrive between 1-15 minutes late you lose 15 minutes annual leave and still have to make the time up. This hasn't been communicated to the employees and you only find this out when you reach the 12 lates trigger.

This is arbitary anyway as I've handed in my notice and told them I won't consent to them taking my annual leave. But speaking to people since there seems to be an opinion that the company can't actually do this. I wondered if anyone 'in the know' knows if this is true.

Thanks.

no advice but didn't want you to go unanswered. it sounds very much like bullying and no way to treat employees. i can't imagine many people are happy to be working for this company in those circumstances so presumably productivity may suffer...

you need flowerybeanbag for the employment law side of things....

It seems ridiculous for them to do this if you are (mainly) only 1 or 2 minutes late. But perhaps they fear that 1 or 2 minutes (if tolerated) will gradually slide into 5 and 10 minutes?

I appreciate that difficulties with an ASD child can make your schedule a bit unpredictable.

However, if you are mostly able to be only 1 or 2 minutes late it sounds as if leaving home slightly earlier for the school run would solve the problem. Maybe just allow yourself a bit more time to deal with the dc?

If they know your son has ASD and that this is the reason for your being late, and they don't take this into account, then you could potentially try to claim that the company were unfairly discriminating against you by not taking into account your obligations as a primary carer for a child with disabilities.

However, your chances of success on a legal route are, IMO, probably not that great. Currently even though everyone talks about diversity and flexibility, UK employment law tends to defend only 'equality' not 'diversity', and the company can argue that it is NOT discriminating because it is even-handed in the treatment of everyone, regardless of reason. This would also be a defence against bullying allegations.

Should underline that this is only my opinion, and employment specialist in a good legal firm might take a different view

Morally, I think it really sucks and I personally would make lots of noise about it if it were me - why not complain to Chairman and HR Director, and see if local newspaper wants to cover it?

Thanks. We get to school on time but DD insists that I wait until she goes in and some days she has a 'do' and won't go in which means I am late leaving the school.

I don't think I'll have any legal leg to stand on as I can't imagine they'd be so stupid as to actually break the law. I have written something for HR about how unfair it is etc but they won't care. At least I'll have left my twopenneth-worth though.

What does your contract or handbook or other policy say about annual leave? Does it say your employer can do this?

No it doesn't. I've checked. And not many people know about it either.

Well if the annual leave policy doesn't say anything about your employer being able to dictate holiday with no notice it sounds as though it may be a change to your terms and conditions, and they need your consent to implement it.

See here and here.

Thanks. I'll mention it to them. :-)