Forced Holidays - Contractor

Noxin

Hi,

Anyone know if it is legal to force a contractor to take a weeks holidays as a cost cutting measure?

Thanks,

Nox

kayos

Are you day rate or fixed term? If they signed a day rate contract for you to provide services for a given number of days or between certain dates then I dont think they could tbh but read your contract.

Be interesting to find out actually never came across it myself.

arctictree

Noxin wrote: »

Hi,

Anyone know if it is legal to force a contractor to take a weeks holidays as a cost cutting measure?

Thanks,

Nox

TBH, whether it is legal or not, you can be sure that if you object on legal grounds, your contract would probably not be renewed.

Noxin

I'm on a daily rate but contracted to work for 1 year.

@arctictree: I'm not considering it just yet but just keeping all my options open.

kayos

Noxin wrote: »

I'm on a daily rate but contracted to work for 1 year.

Well depending on your contract this is most likely not covered as a possible.

So your contract would read something like you are contracted to work from date A to date B working X hours a day Y days a week.

In such a contract it is assumed that normal public holidays will not be worked but after that there would most likely be no clause that would cover this situation (well I’ve never seen anything that would cover this in any contract either one I have received or issued).

If they are going to try and force you to do 5 days less than they signed you up for and you refuse they will most likely terminate your contract by either stating your work is not up to scratch and give you no notice period. Or they will give you the notice period agreed in your contract. Once your going they will find another contractor at a lower rate (some places are pulling the piss on rates at this stage) to complete the rest of the work. This will save them even more than not paying you for 5 days most likely.

Now the tricky part is while I don’t think this forced holiday would be the most legal of things they have other options available to them that would leave you worse off than one week off. I don’t know what sector you are in but contracts are thin on the ground these days in IT with a lot of employers going for fixed term contracts or full time staff to fill their needs.

You could suggest the following. In order to allow them improve their cash flow right now you will take the break but the contract is to be extended by the number of days they are forcing you out. This way they make the saving they want right now and you will not lose out on the cash in the long run. Depending on the contract end date they wont have to worry about the budget for this year.

I’ve had contracts that have been fixed number of days and to be honest they are miles better than the start and end date ones. Simple reason if I do go out ill or need to take a day off they were just tacked to the end of the expected end date on contract. Net result is the client still gets the number of man days they need and if the contractor does take time off they are not losing money just delaying its receipt.

BTW I'm no legal eagle so they may well be within their rights to do this. At the end of the day you have a year long daily rate contract thats good for these days. Do you really want to be let go and be looking for a job right now?

Kinetic^

Take the holidays and retain the contract.

Mrs OBumble

Contractors don't get holidays. They simply get told that there is no chargeable work available for them to do over a certain period. It just happens that their permie colleagues are on something called "holidays" during this period.

For management/morale reasons, your permanent/fixed-term colleagues may be told that you are on "holidays". But really you just aren't wanted at that time.

As others have said, you need to consider the wider consequences for your contracting future. If it was me, it'd take the time, and perhaps used it to do some training or suchlike.