Data Protection Rights?

Esoteric_

Hi there, I hope this isn't too legal to be asked.

I left my job nearly two weeks ago, and was expecting my holiday pay to be paid tomorrow, as that is the way things work with all past employees in my company. I am making a complaint to the Labour Court around constructive dismissal and informed the company of this. Since then, they have been trying everything possible to irritate me, such as cancelling a meeting with my HR manager to discuss my complaints.

I called them today to confirm that my holiday pay, p45 and payslip would be ready tomorrow, as is standard in the company. They told me that I'm not entitled to holiday pay and never requested it, my p45 or my payslip. Nobody has ever had to request these after resigning before!

My question is, I know that I am entitled to holiday pay as I only received one week of holiday pay in the first year and 3 months that I was there, as they wouldn't allow me to take the rest of my holidays, and my contract states that holiday pay, while not carried over as extra holidays next year, would be paid upon leaving. Can I request a copy of the total of all my hours worked for the company under the data protection rights? My hours were very erratic, not a set amount of hours, but I should be entitled to around 2 weeks more holiday pay.

Sorry for the long winded question and I hope my specific question isn't too legal in its advice seeking.

tatli_lokma

If you accrued holiday leave and didn't get to take it they are legally obliged to pay you out for it. So yes, I would request a statement of all your hours, but I doubt they will give it to you.
A way around it would be to check your payslips. If you don't have all your payslips you could check with revenue what your earnings were for 2010 / 2011/ 2012 or whatever. Then divide this by your hourly rate - this would give you a good indication of the hours you worked.

LyndaMcL wrote:

I only received one week of holiday pay in the first year and 3 months that I was there, as they wouldn't allow me to take the rest of my holidays, and my contract states that holiday pay, while not carried over as extra holidays next year, would be paid upon leaving

this is a common misperception and one encouraged by employers - regarding the not allowing you to take hols and then not allowing them to carry over - this is illegal

Your employer is responsible for ensuring you take your full annual leave statutory entitlement. So if you work a normal 5 day week, the standard minimum is 20 days, and after 8 mths working you are entitled to take 2 weeks continuous hols. If you work part time, you are entitled to 8% of the hours you have worked or 20 days - whichever is the greater.

They should have allowed you to take leave - that is the main point, if however they did not do this then the very least they should have allowed was for you to carry it over.

You don't say how long you have worked there - if it is for more than a year and you only got 1 week hols I would think you may well be due more than 2 weeks holiday pay.

As for requesting your P45 and payslip??? :eek:
what a load of tosh! there is no obligation on you to 'request' such things. You are entitled to any monies owing to you, your payslip and your P45 when you leave employment. It is not something you should need to request, it should be automatic.

I would contact them ASAP, tell them you are looking for all monies owing to you to be issued, and that if they continue to cause difficulties that you will be reporting them to the Workplace Relations Committee (formally NERA) and putting in a claim under the Organisation of working time act 1997. Tell them you will also be reporting them for not issuing you with a payslip. If they have any sense they will sort out their sh!t sharpish.

Even if they do pay you for 2 weeks, if I were you I would still check if you are due any more leave. If so, you can claim for this under the act mentioned above. More information is here

Best of luck with it and let us know how you get on!

Esoteric_

Little Ted wrote: »

If you accrued holiday leave and didn't get to take it they are legally obliged to pay you out for it. So yes, I would request a statement of all your hours, but I doubt they will give it to you.
A way around it would be to check your payslips. If you don't have all your payslips you could check with revenue what your earnings were for 2010 / 2011/ 2012 or whatever. Then divide this by your hourly rate - this would give you a good indication of the hours you worked.


this is a common misperception and one encouraged by employers - regarding the not allowing you to take hols and then not allowing them to carry over - this is illegal

Your employer is responsible for ensuring you take your full annual leave statutory entitlement. So if you work a normal 5 day week, the standard minimum is 20 days, and after 8 mths working you are entitled to take 2 weeks continuous hols. If you work part time, you are entitled to 8% of the hours you have worked or 20 days - whichever is the greater.

They should have allowed you to take leave - that is the main point, if however they did not do this then the very least they should have allowed was for you to carry it over.

You don't say how long you have worked there - if it is for more than a year and you only got 1 week hols I would think you may well be due more than 2 weeks holiday pay.

As for requesting your P45 and payslip??? :eek:
what a load of tosh! there is no obligation on you to 'request' such things. You are entitled to any monies owing to you, your payslip and your P45 when you leave employment. It is not something you should need to request, it should be automatic.

I would contact them ASAP, tell them you are looking for all monies owing to you to be issued, and that if they continue to cause difficulties that you will be reporting them to the Workplace Relations Committee (formally NERA) and putting in a claim under the Organisation of working time act 1997. Tell them you will also be reporting them for not issuing you with a payslip. If they have any sense they will sort out their sh!t sharpish.

Even if they do pay you for 2 weeks, if I were you I would still check if you are due any more leave. If so, you can claim for this under the act mentioned above. More information is here

Best of luck with it and let us know how you get on!

Thanks so much for all your help! I seriously appreciate it.

I had worked there for a little under two years, but was off sick as a result of a workplace injury for a month. I also had my hours cut to part time at one point. I got one week of holiday pay last year, and requested that I could take one more week of holidays towards the end of the year (asked in October, for absolutely any week, I just needed a break), but was not given it and told that any holidays would be carried over. This year, I accrued a week and a half of holidays in the time I was there, and I took a week earlier in the year. Given that I was off sick for a month last year, took my holidays for this year, etc, I think that I should be owed two weeks, which is a hell of a lot of money to me while I'm unemployed.

I also didn't get paid properly for bank holidays, but I can sort that part out, I know what to do about that.

I didn't realise I could request all of my earnings for last year from the Revenue office, thank you so much for telling me this! That's made my life so much easier, I just want to work out exactly what I'm owed and tell them to get it processed, so I don't get a nasty shock next week and get less than I should.

tatli_lokma

LyndaMcL wrote: »

I had worked there for a little under two years, but was off sick as a result of a workplace injury for a month. I also had my hours cut to part time at one point. I got one week of holiday pay last year, and requested that I could take one more week of holidays towards the end of the year (asked in October, for absolutely any week, I just needed a break), but was not given it and told that any holidays would be carried over. This year, I accrued a week and a half of holidays in the time I was there, and I took a week earlier in the year. Given that I was off sick for a month last year, took my holidays for this year, etc, I think that I should be owed two weeks, which is a hell of a lot of money to me while I'm unemployed.

When you are off sick, you don't accrue holidays, but you cannot be forced to take annual leave whilst on sick leave. So in that year, you worked 11 months. Now given that you have worked there just under 2 years, I still think you may be owed more than two weeks. You have one full year there, which if you were full time would have been 4 weeks. Then add in the year where you had a month sick leave (no AL accrued) and were part-time - you should have gotten at least a week for that. From what you say, in almost 2 years you have taken only 2 weeks leave. So I would think you probably are owed more than 2 weeks.

LyndaMcL wrote: »

I didn't realise I could request all of my earnings for last year from the Revenue office, thank you so much for telling me this! That's made my life so much easier, I just want to work out exactly what I'm owed and tell them to get it processed, so I don't get a nasty shock next week and get less than I should.

Its not exactly that you are requesting a statement of all your earnings, but they will be able to tell you your income for the last 2 years from that employer - Gross and Nett. You can also get this information from your P60's or from a P21. From the Gross amount you can then divide this by your hourly rate and this will give you the number of hours you worked in that year. If you worked at least 1365 hours in a full leave year you are entitled to 4 weeks paid holidays. If you worked less than this you are entitled to 8% of the hours worked.

Best of luck - plese do let us know how you get on!

InReality

On the negative side they are obviously being annoying.
On the positive side they seem incompetent

Esoteric_

Just to update this thread -

They are still witholding my pay. They guaranteed me, both by email and phone call that it would be processed and in my account this week (which should have been today). They don't bank with Ulster Bank and neither do I, so as the money has not appeared in my account, I can only presume they have once again failed to give me the money that they owe me. :mad:

tatli_lokma

LyndaMcL wrote: »

Just to update this thread -

They are still witholding my pay. They guaranteed me, both by email and phone call that it would be processed and in my account this week (which should have been today). They don't bank with Ulster Bank and neither do I, so as the money has not appeared in my account, I can only presume they have once again failed to give me the money that they owe me. :mad:

I think at this stage you need to respond formally, in writing, advising them that if they do not pay you within the next 10 days, you will be making a claim to the Rights Commissioner and exercising your rights under the Payment of Wages Act 1991. Don't email - write the letter formally and send it twice - once by registered post and also by regular post. You need to show them you mean business and that they need to get their act together sharpish.

Esoteric_

Little Ted wrote: »

I think at this stage you need to respond formally, in writing, advising them that if they do not pay you within the next 10 days, you will be making a claim to the Rights Commissioner and exercising your rights under the Payment of Wages Act 1991. Don't email - write the letter formally and send it twice - once by registered post and also by regular post. You need to show them you mean business and that they need to get their act together sharpish.

I decided to email and ask my HR manager to confirm the reason for it not being in my account first, then give her 2 days to respond before going further with it.

Within a few hours of me emailing, it was in my account.

Thanks for all the help, I really appreciate it!