8% holiday pay

pharmacist

I am a pharmacist and I aggreed an hourly rate with the locum agency I work for. They pay me through their payroll and put me through the PAYE system. When I tried to get the 8% holiday pay that I am entitled to they said that the 8% is included in the aggred hourly rate.
Is this legal?

seco

you need to check your contract

tenchi-fan

seco wrote: »

you need to check your contract

This is an employment issue, not an accounting issue.

A contract will give no advice to the legality of the arrangement, seco. That's why the op is asking the question.

Anyway, to the best of my knowledge employers may not pay you in lieu of annual leave. There may be separate rules for locum workers which I'm not aware of. For a definite answer contact NERA.

If you're not working fulltime hours, it's a technicality because on your first day without work they could pay you 8% of your hours work and call it holiday pay.
However, your holiday pay cannot be netted in with your hourly rate. At the very least it should be a separate line on your payslip.

smcgiff

Where I am we calculated net holiday pay for casuals every quarter and then paid them.

We changed to inclusive of holiday pay rates to smooth it out and create less hassle each quarter. Their contracts were updated to reflect this.

pharmacist

so it seems that they are allowed to do this?

I was outraged, its like they had no intention of paying holiday pay and when questioned decided to say it was part of the agreed hourly rate.

Surely it would have to be a payment made seperate to the hourly rate or any employer could say thats its included in that rate?

I guess it is the difference between locum/contract work and salaried work.

Contract rates always seem high because they have to compensate for the benefits that are included in a salary (holidays, sick pay, health insurance etc)

ScouseMouse

I own a shop and trying to "smooth out" my wage bill, I increased everyones wages by 8%. All staff were made aware they were getting their holiday money incuded in their increased rate, rather than in one lump.

The labour inspectors from NERA rejected this as illegal. So it is not legal to do this.

Check it out with them. Employers are not permitted to do this (with full and part time staff at least)

smcgiff

superscouse wrote: »

I own a shop and trying to "smooth out" my wage bill, I increased everyones wages by 8%.

Think this is where you fell foul. If you did this for full time employees then it would have not been allowed. It would mean your employees would not get any holidays! :eek:

But, as it makes no sense for certain casual workers to take holidays - I imagine it is workable to increase their rates by 8%. But it would be interesting to see what NERA said re the OPs case. S/he'd have a case as there was never any mention of the 8%.

However, whether they'd be re contracted as a future locum should be taken into account.

ScouseMouse

smcgiff wrote: »

Think this is where you fell foul. If you did this for full time employees then it would have not been allowed. It would mean your employees would not get any holidays! :eek:

But, as it makes no sense for certain casual workers to take holidays - I imagine it is workable to increase their rates by 8%. But it would be interesting to see what NERA said re the OPs case. S/he'd have a case as there was never any mention of the 8%.

However, whether they'd be re contracted as a future locum should be taken into account.

Some very good points there.

Thanks