Part-time work, holiday pay and equal wages question.

SparkySpitfire

Let me begin by saying that I am 20 years old in a part time job. I work around 11 hours a week and I am paid €7.50 per hour. I know this is legal as I am in my first year of employment and it is more than I am entitled to.

However, here are my questions...

1. I work in a small shop. The manager works Mon-Fri and myself and another part time employee work Fri-Sat shared. This employee is 19 and is has just reached her 1 year mark of employment. However, for the amount of time we have been working together before this (4 months) she has been receiving a higher hourly rate than me (€8.35). Is this legal?
Just to clarify, up until a month ago, we were both in our first year of work, both part time employees. The only difference was, she was taken on a few months before me.

2. As I am in my first year of work, am I entitled to holiday pay for annual leave which I did not take? I know part time workers are entitled to holiday leave but since I am in my first year of employment, does this make a difference? (I started on 1st July 2012 if that makes a difference)

Thank you for reading this!

Esoteric_

SparkySpitfire wrote: »

Let me begin by saying that I am 20 years old in a part time job. I work around 11 hours a week and I am paid €7.50 per hour. I know this is legal as I am in my first year of employment and it is more than I am entitled to.

However, here are my questions...

1. I work in a small shop. The manager works Mon-Fri and myself and another part time employee work Fri-Sat shared. This employee is 19 and is has just reached her 1 year mark of employment. However, for the amount of time we have been working together before this (4 months) she has been receiving a higher hourly rate than me (€8.35). Is this legal?
Just to clarify, up until a month ago, we were both in our first year of work, both part time employees. The only difference was, she was taken on a few months before me.

2. As I am in my first year of work, am I entitled to holiday pay for annual leave which I did not take? I know part time workers are entitled to holiday leave but since I am in my first year of employment, does this make a difference? (I started on 1st July 2012 if that makes a difference)

Thank you for reading this!

Your colleague was probably offered a higher starting wage than you, it happens. In my last job, I was on about 2 euro an hour more than all the other, newer employees, because when I was hired, all staff were offered X amount (it was a decent bit more than minimum wage), but then the company made cutbacks and all new staff hired after that only got minimum wage. Perfectly legal.

You'd should be (correct me if I'm wrong, anyone, I'm no expert!) entitled to 8% of your hours worked as holiday pay. Talk to your employer about taking the holiday time before the end of the year maybe, or make sure you are allowed to carry it over.

tatli_lokma

LyndaMcL is correct - you would be due 8% of the hours you have worked as annual leave. But you would not be due payment for untaken holidays - this is illegal unless you are leaving employment. Your employer must give you your statutory entitlement in the year it is earned, or else agree to allow you to carry it over into the next year.

so for you, who has worked 11 hrs per week since the 1st July you would be due 22.88 hours paid leave
(26 weeks (1st Jul - 31st Dec) x 11 hrs x 8%)
So essentially, for you this equates to two weeks off work, paid.

As for paying others more than you - yes this is completely legal. Your employer can pay you whatever they wish provided it is not less than the legal minimum wage.

SparkySpitfire

Little Ted wrote: »

LyndaMcL is correct - you would be due 8% of the hours you have worked as annual leave. But you would not be due payment for untaken holidays - this is illegal unless you are leaving employment. Your employer must give you your statutory entitlement in the year it is earned, or else agree to allow you to carry it over into the next year.

so for you, who has worked 11 hrs per week since the 1st July you would be due 22.88 hours paid leave
(26 weeks (1st Jul - 31st Dec) x 11 hrs x 8%)
So essentially, for you this equates to two weeks off work, paid.

As for paying others more than you - yes this is completely legal. Your employer can pay you whatever they wish provided it is not less than the legal minimum wage.

So, essentially, because I didn't take the holiday, I'm not going to get it, or the money now because it's so close to Christmas and I need to give them two weeks notice etc.?
I asked this question on the basis that my friend who works in a pub got holiday pay for untaken holidays during the year.

Also, I asked the second question on the basis of this that extract that I read in the citizen's information guide:

"The right to equal pay for like work
Employees cannot be paid less than an equivalent employee
doing the same job. Like work is defined as work “that is the same,
similar or work of equal value”. Equal pay claims can be taken on
any of the nine discriminatory grounds. See Section 15 for more
on equality at work."

Does this mean that they're wrong?

Esoteric_

SparkySpitfire wrote: »

So, essentially, because I didn't take the holiday, I'm not going to get it, or the money now because it's so close to Christmas and I need to give them two weeks notice etc.?
I asked this question on the basis that my friend who works in a pub got holiday pay for untaken holidays during the year.

Also, I asked the second question on the basis of this that extract that I read in the citizen's information guide:

"The right to equal pay for like work
Employees cannot be paid less than an equivalent employee
doing the same job. Like work is defined as work “that is the same,
similar or work of equal value”. Equal pay claims can be taken on
any of the nine discriminatory grounds. See Section 15 for more
on equality at work."

Does this mean that they're wrong?

It doesn't necessarily mean that you won't get it, it just means that you'll more than likely carry it over to next year and get the 22 hours paid holidays along with any other holiday time you accrue. You could always just ask your employer for holiday time off, though, because you should have been given paid holiday leave by now.

The second part says 'Equal pay claims can be taken on any of the 9 discriminatory grounds.' Have you checked what these discriminatory grounds are? I'd imagine they're things like 'gender, race, religion,' and so on. You'd have to be deliberately discriminated against for one of those 9 specified reasons in order to challenge this. As it is, the company most likely cut costs by dropping wages to a lower (but still legally acceptable) rate before they took you on.

SparkySpitfire

Thanks a lot, this really cleared a lot up for me, I'll inquire about the holidays Thank you!