Part-time work and paid holiday entitlement

fat-tony

My wife works part-time (25 hours average per week). Her contract of employment states that she is entitled to 25 days paid leave per annum (pro rata). Full-time employees are also entitled to 25 days paid leave. There is an element of weekend working involved for all employees depending which roster they are on. No extra or premium payment for weekend working. I assume the higher than average holiday entitlement is to compensate somewhat for weekend working - but that is not based on anything the company has stated;)
For the past couple of years my wife has been able to take her 25 days pro rata.
This year (under new management) she has been informed that, under employment legislation, part-time employees are entitled to a maximum of 20 days paid leave (based on 8% of hours worked). I've checked this out and this is indeed what is written into Employment Legislation.
However, my view is that, as her new contract still stipulates 25 days pro rata, she is entitled to this (which equates to about 9.5% of hours worked), rather than the legal maximum.
Anyone with practical experience of this?

leeroybrown

The 20 days is the maximum statutory entitlement that an employee has regardless of how it's calculated. A contract of employment can provide for as many additional days of non-statutory leave as the employer wants. They're either clueless or chancing their arm. To get her to revert to the statutory 20 they'd need to have her sign a new contract.

johnciall

Removed Post, Brain melting

leeroybrown

No. Read what I wrote. Its the maximum statutory entitlement. If an employee works enough days/months/hours to qualify for a full entitlement of annual leave then they'll receive this but none of the methods of calculation can entitle them to more than this unless the employer grants more to the employee by contract or at their discretion.

EDIT: Could you please edit your post so I won't get misquoted by people who think I wrote the change you made.

johnciall

*headdesk* not having a good day, sorry,

and FYP is a pretty common Abreviation for Fixed Your Post

leeroybrown

I know what FYP means. It's just that sometimes the minimal/low-bandwidth versions of forums strip out a lot of the formatting and make it look like a modified quote is what the original poster said.

fat-tony

johnciall wrote: »

*headdesk* not having a good day, sorry,

and FYP is a pretty common Abreviation for Fixed Your Post

Thanks johnciall, but I'm aware that 20 days is the statutory maximum.
And you do need to edit your post, because it's wrongly fixing leeroybrown's post;)

wmpdd3

Yes the contract over rides the minimum as per employment law.

Advise you wife to dig out a copy of this contract, make sure it is signed and dated by both her and the manager.

Also any old payslips detailing the 25 days hols would help.

If they want to reduce hols to 20 days they would usually have to enter into consultation with her and possibly initiate a trade off or compensate her for the change.

fat-tony

My wife rang me to let me know that her argument that the contract took precedence over the statutory maximum has been accepted by management:) I suspect that contracts for future part-timers are being amended as I write this:rolleyes:
Thanks for the replies!

mood

leeroybrown wrote: »

The 20 days is the maximum statutory entitlement that an employee has regardless of how it's calculated. A contract of employment can provide for as many additional days of non-statutory leave as the employer wants. They're either clueless or chancing their arm. To get her to revert to the statutory 20 they'd need to have her sign a new contract.

Is it not the minimum entitlement (pro rata)???

fat-tony

mood wrote: »

Is it not the minimum entitlement (pro rata)???

Everyone who works more than 1,365 hours in a year is entitled to a minimum of four working weeks. The maximum of four weeks kicks in when you calculate leave at 8% of of hours worked - which is the calculation the management were using. However, the contract stipulated 25 days leave (ie 5 weeks), so that seems to override the legislation. The matter is now sorted.:)

From the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997:



19.—(1) Subject to the First Schedule (which contains transitional provisions in respect of the leave years 1996 to 1998), an employee shall be entitled to paid annual leave (in this Act referred to as "annual leave") equal to—

( a ) 4 working weeks in a leave year in which he or she works at least 1,365 hours (unless it is a leave year in which he or she changes employment),

( b ) one-third of a working week for each month in the leave year in which he or she works at least 117 hours, or

( c ) 8 per cent. of the hours he or she works in a leave year (but subject to a maximum of 4 working weeks):

wmpdd3

[QUOTE=

( c ) 8 per cent. of the hours he or she works in a leave year (but subject to a maximum of 4 working weeks):[/QUOTE]

We use the 8% rule as staff could have a 20hr contract but work 39 hrs at busier times of the year. The 8% rule means they get the full holiday owed to them reguard less of their contracted hours.

If someones contract is 20 hrs per week you would expect their holiday pay to be 20hrs pay per week taken off, but if they have worked up extra hours they may get 26hrs pay on their next week off but we wouldn't give a week and 6 hrs off. They would still only take a maximum of 4 weeks off as their contract says 4 weeks off per year.

Hope that makes sense.